Optical Port on Windows The optical out port at the PC is a piece of a thriller to a number of humans.
It sits within the returned of your PC, emitting a permanent crimson laser glow whether or no longer something is plugged into it. It nearly seems like you’re supposed to plug something into it, however what? The answer is, logically, an optical audio cable, and right here we’ll show you how to get it working, with the caveat that it’s end up as a substitute clunky to correctly make use of on Windows 10 in recent years.
Optical Port on Windows How to Enable Optical (S/PDIF) Audio on PC
Optical Port on Windows First of all, there’s the plain remember of making sure that each your audio system and your PC have the optical (S/PDIF) port.
With that off the listing, truely plug your PC into your audio system the use of an optical cable.
As with any cable format, agencies will try and declare that their cable is better than others due to gold plating, “High Quality,” or other marketing jargon, however ignore all that.
Buying a reasonably-priced optical cable need to be certainly first-rate except you plan to tie it up in knots. Optical cables paintings in a similar way to HDMI in that they send digital alerts that aren’t honestly difficulty to degradation. The main distinction is that audio statistics makes use of much less bandwidth than HDMI, so although the fine of a cable isn’t first rate, you’re not probably to be affected.
Once the optical cable is plugged in, click the speaker icon at the bottom-right corner of your Windows taskbar,
then click on the speaker name above the extent slider to peer if an “Optical” or “Digital” sound output has shown up. If it has, simply click to allow it.
If the speaker doesn’t show up there, then right-click the speaker icon inside the taskbar, click on Sounds, after which the Playback tab.
Right-click anywhere inside the Playback tab list, then click “Show Disabled Devices.”
Optical Port on Windows At this factor a device known as some thing like “virtual output” or “optical output” have to show up. Right-click on it and click on “Enable” to replace it on. Once you’ve carried out that, right-click it once more and click on “Set as default tool.” You must now have optical audio enabled.
Optical Port on Windows How to Enable Optical 5.1 Surround Sound on PC
Optical Port on Windows The actual benefits of an optical become obvious when you look to use surround sound, but there are pretty some criteria your PC will need to meet.
Also, as a wellknown rule, in case your receiver/audio system have an HDMI port, you have to use that as an alternative, because it gives a good deal higher 5.1 compatibility with Windows 10 drivers.
First of all, is your motherboard able to outputting five.1 surround sound? Just because there’s an optical out port doesn’t guarantee which you’ll get surround sound throughout all your video games, films and so on. Your optical port to your motherboard must aid five
1 sound, even though this can vary significantly relying on what Windows model you’re on, whether or not it registers as a Dolby-well matched output, and so forth.
You can test to peer if your setup supports one of the Dolby five.1 codecs via going to the Sound window -> Playback. Right-click your device, click on Properties, and then the Advanced tab.
Simply click on the drop-down menu, select “DTS Interactive” or whichever 5.1 surround setup you need to use, then click on OK. (If your PC doesn’t locate Dolby Digital, then you could have some work to do, and we’ve supplied links to a few workarounds within the conclusion.)
You must additionally click on the “Supported Formats” tab to make sure that the formats your receiver is capable of handling are ticked.
Conclusion
That must give you the basics of using an optical cable on Windows 10. The issue is, there may be a whole lot nuance to it and plenty of variables in which things may want to go wrong.
It’s not simply your sound card and speakers that want to support it – it’s also the individual media you’re the use of, in addition to the reality that latest Windows versions have made optical out guide alternatively buggy. (You can not use the ‘Configure’ button in the Sound window, for example, to enable 5.1 audio system.)
If you do run into optical audio issues, you may discover numerous workarounds on net boards, which include this, this and this, although some of those involve driver change, changing DLLs and so forth, so attempt them at your very own risk.