Digital audio out with Vista?

In the past I had an XP machine, it had an audigy card that I installed the web drivers for, it worked with analog audio, but digital didn't work and I didn't see a way to change it to digital. Found the audigy cd, installed it and was able to select digital out and then digital speakers worked.

I tried installing an audigy se in a windows vista machine I tried the cd but it wouldn't run so I installed the vista drivers from the creative website and the card got recognized and it worked with analog headphones but when I plugged in the digital speakers I got nothing. I've tested the speakers on another computer that had windows 98 and digital out and that worked fine. Is there somewhere in vista that you can go to specify that you want digital out instead of analog? Also is there any way to do this in XP without the creative cd?

I went into sounds and it said digital something or other but when I would test it, it only worked with analog headphones.

The setting you need is in Control Panel | Hardware And Sound | Sound. Select the Speakers icon for your sound card, click Properties, and go to the Custom tab. Check "Enable Digital IO".

The beta drivers for my X-Fi card won't remember that setting after a cold start. So I have to go and uncheck and then re-check that box every time. Just in case you find that your digital output stops working after every reboot. Hopefully it'll be fixed in around 2009 when Creative release some final version drivers :rolleyes:

There is no custom tab. When I go to properties on the speaker icon it has general, levels and advanced. If I go to the built in sound card it has an enhancements tab added to that, no where do I see enable digital IO.

This is on the card that had digital audio in windows 98, I took it out and put it in this new vista machine.

I tried installing a audigy SE card and installed the drivers for that again and there is supported formats tab. When I try that I try DTS audio and Dolby digital, if I test either one of those I get bad sounding static out of the speakers. If I test the speakers after that I still get no sound at all. What gives?