I have a Lenovo W530 laptop which I just upgraded to Windows 10. I have a home theater system Logitech - Z906, connected to my laptop using an external soundcard Creative SB1095 (X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro). I was using Windows 8.1 Pro earlier and everything was working fine. As soon as I upgraded to WIndows 10, the Dolby Digital Live function doesn't work. When I go into the properties of the soundcard and try to play a test tone for Dolby Digital, I get an error message saying 'Failed to play the test tone'. My speaker system can tell if it is getting dolby encoded signal or not by the light that is glowing on the control panel of the speakers. Earlier when I had Windows 10, the encode light on the control panel would glow and that meant I was getting the encoded signal to my speakers. Now it doesn't glow and the test also fails on the computer. I have tried whatever I could and it still doesn't work. I like my audio to be decoded by my speakers rather than creating a virtual surround sound from the laptop. Dolby encoding also helps when watching a movie with dolby audio tracks through a blu ray or dvd.
Dolby Digital Live works inside your PC or game console while you play, encoding the 5.1-channel audio in the game's audio engine into a Dolby Digital output bitstream. This makes the audio compatible with all Dolby Digital 5.1 playback systems, including A/V receivers, home-theater-in-a-box (HTiB) systems, and integrated 5.1 speaker systems. Dolby Digital Plus is also a core format for Dolby Audio, built into Windows 10 and the new Microsoft Edge browser, available on PCs and the Surface™ tablet. Look for content encoded with Dolby Digital Plus on Blu-ray Disc and on streaming platforms such as Netflix, Vudu, or Amazon Fire TV.
If someone from Microsoft can provide any help in this regard then it would be highly appreciated. I have seen on other forums that people are having similar problems with desktops and different sound cards. Please help.
FAQ & Answers
Realtek Dolby Digital Live
Xonar U7 Dolby Digital Live Windows 10
try to install the windows 7 drivers, right click the setup.exe file and choose properties, click on compatibility tab, tick Run this program on compatibility mode' and choose windows 7.
click on Apply and OK, the try to install it.
0Hi IronFly,
I tried your suggestion but it didn't work - The program was unable to run under Windows 7 compatibility. But it did succeed in uninstalling the driver, restarting the PC and re-installing the latest driver using Windows Update. I am tempted to force the device to use the old drivers using the 'Have Disk' option but the Windows OS states that it does not recommend the driver as it has not been tested compatible with Windows 10 and may cause instability issues. So I will refrain from using the Windows 7 64 bit driver.
- Accepted Answer
I have disabled the optical audio hardware and removed my 15pin vga cable and am now using HDMI.
When I use the HDMI connection, it primarily uses the Intel G43 drivers not the Realtek drivers. It is very confusing because the online manual for the board is not clear whether the board for the m3802 uses G43 or ICH10 hardware/ software.
I can see 7.1 PCM signals to my receiver but the Dolby Home theatre (v3) / Dolby Digital Live does not deliver 7.1 surround sound for my music.
The lack of WIndows 10 support for the windows 7 Acer M3802 is very, very dissapointing.
Solution: Don't hope for the best when buying an Acer product.