Does anyone know how to enable the Dolby Pro Logic II sound on some 'Cube games (such as Paper Mario and Mario Sunshine?) I have a much older 'Cube (from 2002 I think) and use the Nintendo RGB cable for video, which blows away the crap, fuzzy video displayed those composite leads that come with the console. I'm sure I heard though that if you were using the RGB cable on an older 'Cube you can only have sound through speakers on a TV, so the choice is either great picture/poor sound or rubbish picture/great sound? (Is that right?)

PLII does not need to be enabled nor are any special cables needed nor is any version (there are only 2, by the way.. with and without digital video out) of the Gamecube needed. What IS needed is a audio receiver that can decode PLII (most 5.1 systems should have this.. though how to enable it varies from model to model).

Most receivers in the last three years have DPLII, but ones before that mostly don't. I never understood why they'd use technology that was outdated when it was introduced.

Probably because you need to play for a license to get a specific decoder - hence DD 5.1 or higher would cost more money to include decoder support for in each unit. I agree though - wish it had DD 5.1 support.

PL2 is not outdated by any means.

I'm actually suprised with the quality of the GC's surround. I mean it's no hardware DD5.1 like the xbox, but it gets the job done nicely. I'm sure they went with DPLII due to the fact that it can be done in software, so they didn't add cost to their machines for a feature that didn't matter to their target demographic. As far as the OP's question, yes you can hook up your component to your TV and your L/R audio to your surround sound receiver.

I would have to disagree, as far as DPLII not being outdated and that it does a fairly good job. You only have to play Halo 2 for example and you will beg to hear Metroid Prime 1&2 in DD5.1 or DTS for example. While I feel personally that DPLII gets the job done for Cube, it always leaves me wanting more from my sound system when I play my games. Without a true LFE channel in DPLII to speak of, you miss out on a lot. Imagine if at the same time that you get a rumble in your hand you are feeling it also in your chest for example because some explosion just knocked you on your ass. I would agree it was probably for money reasons knowing Nintendo, and I can only assume that without a doubt Revolution will finally bring us out of the stone age of DPLII.

That is a weak argument. Any receiver that supports DPL II is going to support DD (and most likely DTS) also. If DD isn't for their target audience, DPL II wouldn't be either. DPL II is fairly new and is in far fewer homes than DD. DPL II is not as high of quality as DD, and any receiver that supports DPL II is going to support DD also. The inverse is not true, since DD receivers were on the market for many years before DPL II came out.

By your logic, they shouldn't have wasted development costs and licensing fees by supporting DPL II either. In reality, they could have done the same thing as the other current gen systems, and make the user buy an advanced A/V pack to get DD. There would be no additional hardware costs for the user that doesn't want it.

It's funny, I have a full 6.1 system I designed and buit myself, am a complete hi-fi freak for my movies, yet still find that games like Eternal Darkness and RE4 sound better in PL2 then Halo2 does. In fact those are my top 3 "sounding" games of this generation in that order respectivly.

I agree the Prime doesn't sound as good as Halo 2, the programming on the audio weak and it is heard. To use PL2 to its full potential you really need to know what you are doing on a sound board, programmers that fail to afford the time and effort simply will have a harder time making great sounding games. DD5.1 is nice for this very reason, its much easier to program for, but it too can be victim of bad sampling and utilization.

Case and point, several years ago when Dolby debuted the PL2 standard they had several audio/video journalists attempt to distinguish between their 5.1 algorithm and their PL2 algorithim of common movies that been optimized for both. More picked the PL2 as sounding better. Is PL2 really better? Of course not, but it can come damn near close to discrete audio using some amazing mathmatics. People that simply pass it off as inferior and "outdated" have never given it a chance or sampled bad material. For that matter, it's actually newer then 5.1 and 6.1 audio formats, how can it be outdated?

He was referring to hardware inside the system for doing real-time DD compression, which only the Xbox has.

If Intel came out with a new 500 MHz processor tomorrow, you wouldn't think it was outdated, simply because it is new?

One other possible reason could be disk space perhaps? Does DPLII take up less space than DD? This is something I do not know but I know we always hear on DVD's when they can't add DTS for example when there is no space left. I wonder that if Nintendo went with larger disks that they may have gone with DD then.

Seriously, other than Halo.. I have yet to hear ANY Xbox games that sound like they actually take advantage of whatever extra range that DD can provide. Every other Xbox game I've played sounds no different than what the PS2 and Cube can do in PLII.. hell I've played SNES games using PLI that take more use of surround than your average Xbox title, so it has less to do with hardware (and nothing to do with disc space) and more on the developer's ability to use what's available to them properly.

I believe MVP baseball sounded great in DD. A few SNES games sounding better than XBOX games? God you amaze me sometimes how PRO Nintendo you are. I have no clue how you guys have your sound systems set up but HALO2 sounded great, I would agree that the quality of sound is way pass HALO1....I did twick my audio receiver to get better sound, like I did with MP2.

I guess you're not that great when it comes to designing a sound system....

Try this http://www.dummies.com/WileyCDA/Dumm...764518011.html

I agree. It seems like most developers are lazy with the DD5.1 sound on X-box. A lot of times it sounds little better than pro-logic.

But I'm not audiophile by any means, so maybe I'm just not as sensitive to picking it out as I don't care that much. But still, I could appreciate the difference in Halo which really took advantage of it.

Oh yea throw in RainbowSix: 3:BA....excellent sound, full range!

Actually that is a great real example, thanks for bringing that up. Intel did release "slower" processors with the M series. A typical 1.6Ghz M processor performs on the level of a 2.6Ghz P4. This is a perfect example of newer technologies not being able to be measured by previous standards. I do unterstand your intended point however, and I would say that PL2 is not utdated simply because of its release date, but also because it is a superior method to all previous 2 channel solutions.

Weren't you the one with that Mark Twain quote in your signature? What happened to that? Or am I thinking of someone else?

But what is the market for this superior 2-channel system? People without a decent receiver aren't going to be able to use it. People with a decent receiver either aren't going to be able to use it, or can also use DD/DTS.

"Outdated" might have been a bit too harsh of a word, but there is no value added, only value lost. It doesn't allow any more people to have surround sound because the people that can do DPL II can also do DD. It doesn't sound better than DD. It has no LFE channel.

Comparing one game on one system to a different game on another system is stupid. Would you ever say something like "Ikaruga on Dreamcast looks better than WarioWare on Gamecube, so Dreamcast must be as powerful as Gamecube"? Of course not. You say xxxx game sounds great on DPL II? I say imagine how much better it would be if those same engineers could have used DD or DTS. Would everyone be able to tell the difference? Of course not. Some people can't tell the difference between DD and DTS on your standard movie DVD. That doesn't mean it sounds the same to everyone.

Bottom line is that they went with a system that far fewer people can use and which has a lower potential. You can argue cost savings, but I would argue that it wouldn't have raised the cost to the end user at all. Do you think PS2 or XBox would have been cheaper without DD/DTS support? Hardly. In the end, Gamecube most likely would have kept the same price.

No, I think you're just so ANTI Nintendo that it clouds your thought process into misreading things. I simply stated that some SNES games I've played (Tales of Phantasia and Star Ocean to be exact) make BETTER USE of surround sound (namely appropriate usage of the rear channels) than many of the Xbox games I've played. Most Xbox titles claiming to use Dolby Digital simply sound like they're throwing stereo sound out and hoping your receiver can process whatever it feel appropriate into the rare channels rather than developing a proper aural experience to match the game environment. Unfortunately, since you're one of the MTV-style gamers who automatically files newer and more-powerful as better regardless of content, so I'm not sure you'd fully be able to process that statement.

PS2 does not have DD support. PS2 games use PLII for surround sound.

It supports it for cutscenes. While I hate cutscenes in general, it is better than nothing. (And yes, if I had a PS2, I'd be upset that it didn't do DD in-game other than cutscenes)

If you'd like, remove PS2 from my question, though. Do you think that the XBox would be any cheaper without DD support?

Look, I'm as big a Nintendo fan as anyone. With the exception of GBC, GB Pocket, Virtual Boy, and now the DS, I've owned all the systems. However, I'm a fan of their games, not their hardware. I think they've made some poor hardware choice in the last decade or more.

I am not arguing the merits of Nintendo's hardware, I'm arguing the merits of PL2.

In regards to cost, I can guarantee you 100% it increases the cost to MS to include the DD support, chips and silcon are not free, nor is the licensing. If you want to argue that the "end user" doesn't take these costs in some form I highly recommend taking a general macro-economics course. Costs don't disappear, they are passed on to the consumer is some form.

Finally, the market for something like PL2 is storage limited devices. Gamecube, CD's, MP3 players, VHS, etc etc.

Yes it would increase cost somewhere, mainly due to licensing.

Just like using DVDs does (as they have to pay the DVD consortium for every machine made). Sony pays this for PS2, MS shifted the cost to the remote since it is required for DVD playback.