If a motherboard supports 7.1 that = 8 channels of audio.
If you end up getting computer speakers.
- All speakers plug into subwoofer, then subwoofer has color ports and comes with wires to plug into the same colored output ports on the back/rear of your computer.
- Green fronts, black rears, grey sides, orange center+subwoofer = 7 speakers and 1 subwoofer (each port contains 2 channels of audio = up to 8 channels of audio).
- Select rear audio output and 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound.ect
If you end up getting real surround sound speakers that plug/wire into a receiver.
- When it comes to any cable, a lower AWG=a thicker cable means you can keep a maximum quality up to a certain length, after it reaches a certain length the quality starts to degrade (optical cables are only good for short lengths btw). This information is useful for speaker cable as well.
- To hook up pc to receiver the best cables are hdmi > s/pdif optical or s/pdif coaxial > rca stereo plugs.
For receiver audio:
- You need a hdmi cable if you have a 8 channels of audio=7.1 surround sound speaker system and you also want to use a hdmi cable if you have a receiver that supports the dolby-true-hd and dts-hd loseless surround sound formats (Supports higher bitrates/sample rates than s/pdif).
- S/pdif coaxial or s/pdif optical cable is only capable of doing up to 6 channels of audio=5.1 surround sound and only capable of doing up to the lossy compression formats such as dts or dolby digital (16, 20, 24 bit depths, 32.0k, 44.1k, 48.0k sample rates).
and
For computer to receiver/tv audio:
- Make sure your outputting rear or hdmi or s/pdif audio. Also make sure your outputting digital audio.
- Download k-lite codec pack for media player classic and use ffdshow video and audio decoders ( = ffdshow audio decoder output settings) or use these media player such as vlc player or KMplayer has it's own built in audio decoders, your sound card may have a built in audio decoder as well.
- Check what the audio is encoded in, stereo can be upmatrixed to a fake surround sound format such as dts neo: 6 or dolby pro logic II. If it's encoded in 5.1 or 7.1=use a real surround sound format.