PCFormat Forum Archive

Is it possible to listen to music on my speakers connected to the audio jacks at the rear, and play games with seperate audio on my USB headset at the same time? I would like to have my baby lie next to me listening to soft music while I frag the living daylights out of all my friends on steam and origin with my headset (usb) providing the sound....

What will I need and the process if possible...

Thnx

It's a bit messy and has to be done on the fly - and only by applications that support audio stream routing.

So assuming your headset is your default at start as that is what your games will play thru
You could start up a game and then start playing music in Windows Media Player and then in media player go to Tools > Options > Devices Tab > Speakers and switch the output to your on-board audio.
You SHOULD then have WMP playing through the speakers and the game thru your headset

Thats not 100% guaranteed to work with all games tho.

There are some tools (free and otherwise) that can help with this.
Google "audio stream routing" and you'll find stuff like this which may or may not help...

I looked at doing this a while back and eventually put it in the 'too hard' bin.

Like jamin said certain programs wont allow it. Steam for instance will only use your primary sound output making voice chat broadcast over your nice surround sound speakers while you have a perfectly capable headset on your head.