Using onboard sound and sound card simutaneously

[Ummon]

I looked around here and in general and didn't easily find anything on this. I'm consolidating systems such that my main gaming system will also be my main computer for all else. The issue is I have two monitors, hence both need speakers. I have those. And I have a pci card. Here are the results I've had:

I didn't look in the bios for anything. I just changed the Windows sound options, setting the card as the default (else it outputs nothing). The onboard still outputs, with the caveat that all system sounds and other stuff like Mame and MaLa aren't output. However, those are output via the card.

Of course, I wish for both to output all events. Can this be done?

[PsychoAU]

I doubt it...  I am surprised you got it to do that much.  Windows usually has a fit if there are two sound devices.  Usually, you have to disable your on board in the bios if you plan on using a sound card.  Who knows...  maybe Vista could handle two sound devices...  I doubt that as well, though.

[NickG]

I think this is possible with the right set of audio cards; people do this sometimes for audio mixing projects.  However, if you do not require independent control, and only wish for simultaneous output, you can just use piggyback connectors or min-din splitters - connect them to a single card... 

[fronty]

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[Tafoid]

It was done a couple years ago by some adventurous soul:
http://www.mameworld.info/ubbthreads/showthreaded.php?Cat=&Number=98887

It was for 0.111 era MAME, so likely requires modification to use with a recent MAME version.

[fronty]

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[slsimon]

Please contact a BYOAC member by the name of headkaze.  In the past, he created a mame diff update for me that allowed the -sound switch.  Of course you will have to patch your mame executable with the diff update.  There are utilities that members here have created to make patching mame easy.  Thanks, Shane

[Ummon]

Thanks all for the information. I'm aiming for a situation like NickG refers to, where all sound is sent to both speaker sets, similar to clone video mode, but simply splitting signals results in half the signal strength. I could use an external buffer device, but am trying to get around such a thing. Maybe I can find a card that has dual outputs like video cards do.

[NickG]

I currently use my onboard sound to do this.  I use the headphone output when I need to connect to other speakers.  Most of my recent computers with front panel audio headers allow this in software, and I can disable the speaker side on some of them.  I should hope that the buffers are already present on the board in this scenario; at the least, I do not seem to have to adjust levels when one load is off or disconnected... 

[headkaze]

The guy even used a similar switch name ("-sounddevice"). LOL Couldn't find the patch in his website though.

I updated that same diff to Mame 0121. You can read more about it here

[Ummon]

I currently use my onboard sound to do this.  I use the headphone output when I need to connect to other speakers.  Most of my recent computers with front panel audio headers allow this in software, and I can disable the speaker side on some of them.  I should hope that the buffers are already present on the board in this scenario; at the least, I do not seem to have to adjust levels when one load is off or disconnected... 

j

Oh. Right. I hadn't thought of that. I actually had a front mount headphone port (made for another computer/case so not optimal but functional) before I got new speakers with a remote and jack built into that. I'll check that out.

(Incidentally, an interesting part of that is on this mobo, the port connection is handled separately as headphone out and can be muted independently, whereas on my old main computer it's tied in with the mains. At least, that's how the Windows handles them and as I couldn't find a way to alter this in either case, I assumed it was hard-bios controlled.)