Next time you're playing a game or watching a film, switch off the sound and see how long you last. But without sound Michael Bay films would be an unintelligible kaleidoscope of fire and posing pseudo-teen actors. Hearing's the neglected sense, constantly running second place to vision. So PC Format is here to cut through all the connectors, cables, standards and settings so you can get the best sound – surround or not – from your PC for ear-pleasing games, music and films. The same went for DVD and Blu-ray now brings its own issues of digital audio with DRM.

Someone had the bright idea to use a cable even though it was perfectly possible to redirect the sound digitally, and would lead to people without CD audio. This can be tracked back to when the first CD drive was connected to the PC. The issues that many people face are ensuring they get the best experience from their existing set up, while making the PC or laptop play nice with external entertainment devices. This is backed up with far less complexity within Windows itself. Today hardware in many ways is far better behaved, largely as it's integrated on an industrial scale to the despair of poor Creative.

Dts sound for laptop