Two Sound Devices.. So Two Audio Streams?

[taglock]

Two Sound Cards .. So Two Audio Streams?

My default audio device is a Creative X-Fi Titanium card... but this desktop PC came with a built-in Realtek HD audio device too.

Normally all of my sound comes from speakers plugged into the x-fi card and I never use the Realtek device - which I presume is connected to the other (unused) headphone jack on my PC.

But now I'm wondering whether I can plug in headphones/speakers into that unused jack and set e.g. a media player program to instead output to Realtek HD audio device instead of the X-Fi. Couldn't I get two separate audio streams that way?

How would I do that? I can't see options to choose an audio device on many programs, is there another way?

edit: So basically, what I want is to be able to have earphones listening to one program's audio, while my speakers (or another pair of earphones) play audio from a different program.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Taglock I ma not real sure if I have it right - you want to play a sound system from the card and the phones from the front jack using the on board Realtek.

Now if that is so then usually the card will cut out the Realtek to the back board jack and the front jack (I think) still plays through the Realtek.

Unfortunately I am on my laptop away from home or I could test it out on my desktops all of which have Asus Xonar DG cards in. I'm not sure because I very rarely use the front jacks and to test it out I would have to plug some phones in and see if the Xonar GUI mix/effects worked through the phones in the front jack.
So if your card has a similar GUI effects set up then I suggest you plug in the phones to the front jack and see if the effects come through that if not then the Realtek has taken over.

 

[taglock]

Ah yes. It seems I'm learning about how audio jacks and sound cards work, for the first time. When I plug in headphones to the unused headphone jack, it takes over as the default headphone jack... and nothing comes out of the other one. Also, it uses the Creative X-Fi card even though the headphone jack is not directly connected to it.

So I'd need to stop that behaviour in order to get what I wanted. What I want is to be able to have e.g. earphones listening to one program's audio, while my speakers (or another pair of earphones) play audio from a different program. Since I have two audio cards I thought I could do that, but I see they don't work like that.

 

[ICIT2LOL]

Ok got that but I have never tried doing that as I only listen to music and YouTube stuff. Am not sure if two cards would work either I would say that I would have to plug two in and try it. But as the board jack is disconnected (usually) when two sound cards are installed does one also only work on it's own?
Like I said last night I am at a disadvantage as I am away from home and only have the laptop with me. Personally I would not be game to try it in one of my desktops and risk bricking the board.

 

[taglock]

Thanks for your help IC.

See I thought that since it's the sound card that does the audio work, that surely the motherboard shouldn't know/care how many sound cards you have and which output device is playing from which. But the motherboard does a lot more with sound than I thought. I'm seeing 'Direct Sound' for example come up a lot in my research so far... so I guess there is installed sound software that the motherboard handles. That is what will cause difficulty with what I want, it seems.

 

[rvcjew]

Direct sound is when windows mixes it and WASAPI is when it is sent with no compression or addition of say a sound EQ to the output source if that helps. Many people with your set up use realtek (onboard sound) for like say a headset for skype and then have the game use the titanium or some of my friends actually wear ear-buds for skype and over that where a gaming headset for sound in game.

what programs are you trying to use to listen to the different sources? if the source is WASAPI in exclusive mode it will not let you hear other sounds as it takes full control the audio stream so its bit by bit playback.

rvcjew