2 sound cards 2 different uses

[jam_zhou]

Hi All,

I've got an on board sound card and a pci sound card. Anyone know how I can easily switch between the two. Here's why.

Normally I would like my 5.1 system, but at night or when the little one sleeps I like to use stereo headsets. Right now I've got a hack solution where I have to plug in the headphones (with long cords) into my speaker headphone jack and then tell the HTPC to use stereo sound rather than 5.1 sound. This works, but I would like a more elegant solution. Like this:

2 sound cards, one for 5.1 another for stereo speakers (headphones) and both are plugged in
switch between the two depending on the situation - this includes telling windows that it's either a stereo setup or a 5.1 setup. Ideally, this would be a button menu in GBPVR.

Is this possible?

I would then like to have wireless headphones to complete the look

[bogyver]

Most on board sound cards are setup to turn them selfs off when a pci sound card is pluged in, some time its an auto with on or off as the others option or only an auto or off option.
You can have two diffent sound cards in a system and to use them in the manner you have sugested you would just need to change the primary hardware sound play back device in the sound menu in the control panel. If you could find a way to pass a command that would make that change, like changing a registry value then it would be easy to setup.
Are you using a receiver or a 5.1 speaker system hooked up to the computer
if you are using a receiver and it has a headphone jack on the front, that should work as well, the receiver should just remix everything back down to 2 channel

[Ommina]

In config there is the "Audio Renderer" dropdown that you can use the select the audio output device. I presently have three sound devices in the computer (one on board, two PCI, no, you don't want to ask WHY) and can happily switch between the three of them for output from GBPVR.

Is that the kind of thing you're looking for?

[jam_zhou]

My HTPC is a complete computer setup using some cheapo logitech 5.1 x530 speakers. I figured you can switch between audio renderers in GBPVR, but unfortunately, I use VLC for DVD playback and it seems to default to the windows system default. It's not pretty, but my wife can now use the remote wonder to right click on VLC and swicth to stereo. I just would like something more integrated.

The alternative would be to have a command line switch for VLC, but I haven't found one yet.