Discrete Surround Sound 5.1/7.1 ?

[Warmen]

This one may be for audiophiles. I am trying to figure ,if there is something wrong with my setup or audio control settings. I currently have good old Logitech 5.1 Z5500 paired with Sound Blaster Z series audio card. In windows and creative control panel settings I have it set as 5.1 Speakers and DTS connect,interactive, NEO encoding enabled for true surround sound. I play other games and have no problem, for example: BF 2042 , center speaker plays the dialogue/chants etc.. as it should, both front and surround left and right are working as well and I can hear discrete sounds coming from all assigned to those channels. Surround works perfectly. What concerns Icarus, only 2.1, surround is not working. With this being said, my question is, does the game support it at beta stage ? Or is it just stereo mix at this point?

[Warmen]

Anybody? No audio geeks here?

[__MaX__]

Indeed, I'm not exactly sure that the 5.1 is broken, but some aspects of the mix are a bit lower than what you might expect indeed.

I'm SD/Composer in a studio and I monitored the game through Orban. All the channels seems to work (for instance, a test you can do is when another player capsule pops in or gets out of the prospect, you can really feel the spatialization).

That said, I think that's more a question of priorities than a real surround issue. For instance, wolves and bears are almost as loud as any other non-lethal creatures, which from times to times has been an issue to actually hear them before they drop on you.

Nothing alarming tho... I find the overall mix is pretty cool and some of the details are really sweet (like the leaf sounds when you walk through bushes or tall grass).

[MK]

I think its hard to say something what would help you because there are probly not that much people playing the game with the exact stuff you use to play.

I have an Sound BlasterX G6 DAC compared with Beyerdynamic DT 880 PRO Studio headphones & DT 990 Pro Hi-fi headphones. And i can hear a bear exactly where he is before i can see him with both Headphones

[__MaX__]

Originally posted by MK`:

I think its hard to say something what would help you because there are probly not that much people playing the game with the exact stuff you use to play.

I have an Sound BlasterX G6 DAC compared with Beyerdynamic DT 880 PRO Studio headphones & DT 990 Pro Hi-fi headphones. And i can hear a bear exactly where he is before i can see him with both Headphones

The problem is, you can't really compare a Stereo / Binaural experience and a real surround experience through speakers.

For instance, the stereo downmix might be extremely well done and you can (as you say) hear everything pretty nicely. And the same thing on a real 5.1 might a bit too discrete because of the spatialization.

[AstroCat]

I'm not getting 5.1 surround at all from the game. A bug a I hope, otherwise super disappointing. :(

I'm also an audio pro, and I get zero surround content from there Surround/Rear or Center channels with the game. Only FR/FL.

[__MaX__]

Originally posted by EASY AstroCat:

I'm not getting 5.1 surround at all from the game. A bug a I hope, otherwise super disappointing. :(

I'm also an audio pro, and I get zero surround content from there Surround/Rear or Center channels with the game. Only FR/FL.

You're right! I did a monitoring just now, and the release is Stereo. I'm like 90% sure I had 5.1 on the beta, now everything is only sent to FL/R, this is pretty strange.

[Maverick]

Also no 7.1 or 5.1 sound here - just stereo.

For a game where you are constantly threatened by danger, acoustic localization of the danger is essential. I can't understand how the developers don't notice this, or whether they actually did the game without discrete sound in 2021.

[Splutty]

5.1 + DTS is.. Very ♥♥♥♥ in Windows. Sometimes it's supported, most of the times it just fails completely. I have both optical and 3 colour wire connections to my amplifier (incidentally a very similar setup to yours, including the soundcard), and the optical works with at a guess 5% of the games.

[AstroCat]

Optical will not work for 5.1 in games without emulation, wrong tech. You need a soundcard with analog outs to a receiver with EXT analog inputs. It's a huge pain but sounds amazing and is supported in nearly every game made. Icarus is the extreme exception and it's only because it's turned "off"in the engine.

[__MaX__]

Originally posted by EASY AstroCat:

Optical will not work for 5.1 in games without emulation, wrong tech. You need a soundcard with analog outs to a receiver with EXT analog inputs.

No this is because windows is sending the signal uncompressed. If you compress the signal as DTS or Dolby Digital it will work. (some drivers / tools can handle that like DTS Connect or Dolby Digital Live).

That said, I don't know why Icarus is outputting a stereo signal. This is something that is by default in 5.1 in UE4... pretty strange.

[Maverick]

Yes, I can 100% confirm that it is just a stereo signal. It's a bit of a shame.

[ICYQT (ʻʻʻ)(=^･ω･^=)(ʻʻʻ)]

Hey can any of you audio "nerds" help me out? Having a problem only with this game. ALL audio (including windows 10 + discord) drops during gameplay maybe 2-3 times every 60 seconds for about .5 a second. Sometimes it completely cuts out and I have to reinstall drivers to get it working again.

Using a MOTU M4 with DT 770 pro and Shure sm7b. This problem makes the game borderline unplayable

[ICYQT (ʻʻʻ)(=^･ω･^=)(ʻʻʻ)]

I also fixed my issue if this helps anyone else, it was with my gigabyte b450 mobo having a non-updated bios that caused some USB devices to drop randomly. It was a known problem with that specific mobo. Updating to latest bios on my mobo fixed my audio problems.

[Cucu]

Originally posted by Warmen:

It appears the issue has been fixed

Someone asked on their discord lobby about 5.1 audio on July 25th, and we noticed that the game outputs stereo only. By "the issue has been fixed" - do you mean that there is 5.1 sound in the game now?

[Celinna]

i get only stereo too, have a dolby atmos AVR on my pc connected

same for the game Valheim...