Surround Sound Support

[simon]

just putting my vote forward for 5.1 surround support, since Unity supports it out of the box subject to some testing.

edit to clarify some things because it seems some of the more challenged users are a little confused:

windows absolutely does support multiple surround channels out of the box if you're using a dedicated card/ASIO driver, no matter what you're doing. this is because most windows applications treat audio outputs exactly the same way as everything else. there is no reason as to why VLC or Plex, for instance, should be able to output surround, while a Unity or Unreal application cannot. a good recent example of this would be Phasmophobia, in which you can clearly tell the difference between "fake" and "true" surround as the player voices move around you channel to channel.

[MyNegev]

Originally posted by opalmirage (simon):

Originally posted by Aquafawks:

I even acknowledged your comment: Yes it is possible. In movies played in media players, and/or streamed content via a modern web browser. Just not in games. Which I also said but you dismissed. Games do not use it.

there is no reason at all as to why games and only games would completely ignore the default/manual audio output device and its settings. your argument is completely ridiculous and you refuse to provide any sort of documentation to support it. i'm done here.

Stopping in here just to say i am not a crazy person. I completely agree with you that this game is massively let down by lack of proper 5.1/7.1 surround sound, like what can be found in Dead Space Remake, Doom Eternal, Borderlands 3 an 90% of recent games ive bought, especially Unity titles that support 5.1 like The Outer Wilds,

EDIT: Double posted because i couldn't see previous post on steam.

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by MyNegev:

Stopping in here just to say i am not a crazy person. I completely agree with you that this game is massively let down by lack of proper 5.1/7.1 surround sound, like what can be found in Dead Space Remake, Doom Eternal, Borderlands 3 an 90% of recent games ive bought, especially Unity titles that support 5.1 like The Outer Wilds,

EDIT: Double posted because i couldn't see previous post on steam.

I'm sorry but I'm going to have to correct you there. I have played Doom Eternal and Borderlands 3. Neither of those have 5.1 audio. I have a surround sound capable system in the main room (computer connected to a 4K 7.1 surround stereo receiver over HDMI) and I have tried playing both games in there. They both only show 2 channel stereo on the receiver's display. I can't speak for the other games you mentioned as I haven't tried those. I have played quite a lot of recent games and I can not find a single 1 game that would output surround audio when connected to a stereo like that out of any game released in the past 5 years. This is why I wrote my statements earlier: I have tried a lot of games (well over a hundred different games or more) over the past few years and none of them have 5.1 or better audio.

Besides all of that the number of people that actually do have a real 5.1 or 7.1 surround system to connect a computer to is an extreme minority. I would say less than 5% of gamers would have a system like that. It wouldn't make much sense for any developer to waste the time making a game's sound system support that when almost no one uses it.

[MyNegev]

Originally posted by Aquafawks:

Originally posted by MyNegev:

Stopping in here just to say i am not a crazy person. I completely agree with you that this game is massively let down by lack of proper 5.1/7.1 surround sound, like what can be found in Dead Space Remake, Doom Eternal, Borderlands 3 an 90% of recent games ive bought, especially Unity titles that support 5.1 like The Outer Wilds,

EDIT: Double posted because i couldn't see previous post on steam.

I'm sorry but I'm going to have to correct you there. I have played Doom Eternal and Borderlands 3. Neither of those have 5.1 audio. I have a surround sound capable system in the main room (computer connected to a 4K 7.1 surround stereo receiver over HDMI) and I have tried playing both games in there. They both only show 2 channel stereo on the receiver's display. I can't speak for the other games you mentioned as I haven't tried those. I have played quite a lot of recent games and I can not find a single 1 game that would output surround audio when connected to a stereo like that out of any game released in the past 5 years. This is why I wrote my statements earlier: I have tried a lot of games (well over a hundred different games or more) over the past few years and none of them have 5.1 or better audio.

Besides all of that the number of people that actually do have a real 5.1 or 7.1 surround system to connect a computer to is an extreme minority. I would say less than 5% of gamers would have a system like that. It wouldn't make much sense for any developer to waste the time making a game's sound system support that when almost no one uses it.

Hey so there's a ton of configuring that I had to do to get 5.1 Setup. But I assure you, borderlands 3 explicitly codifies 5.1 in its settings menu, so does Dead Space Remake

Your talk of windows and hardware sound is you confusing hardware acceleration, with the ability to produce multi channel audio. It's true that Windows vista deprecated the ways in which Creative and their ilk could provide Hardware Accelerated surround sound, but it's not true that that limits a users ability to enable surround sound, it's just that all sounds processing needs to be done on the cpu "ie software rendering"

I have two different 5.1 surround sound systems hooked up to my pc. A Logitech x-530 5.1 setup at my desk, outputting over 5 3.5mm Jacks from my mobo sound hardware, and a Denon x1700 outputting 5.1 through eARC through the HDMI on my tv.

If you are only seeing Stereo you are not properly configured.

I play all my games in surround sound, with no up mixing.

Your suggestion that a lack of pc players using surround sound would make it ineffective to implement isn't correct.That ignores the standard APIs and plentiful sound engines that are integrated into most game creation tools. On top of that nearly every single game going to console will support a vast surround experience. These things all combine in that it is an absolutely rarity for a game to only support stereo.

Many Nintendo Switch games support 5.1 sound.



Anyways if you can't go to windows sound settings and use the test function to fire all speakers in your setup then you have an issue, if you can do that and you cant get doom eternal or borderlands 3 to output correctly there is something wrong with your system.

EDIT: For the sake of being productive with our time I don't really want to continue this conversation, there's no point in this argument, the vast majority of games support 5.1 and even 7.1, you can look on PCGW to see how individual games handle surround sound with references. I just reinstalled Eternal just to confirm both my setups work in full surround with it

[simon]

Originally posted by MyNegev:

Originally posted by Aquafawks:

I'm sorry but I'm going to have to correct you there. I have played Doom Eternal and Borderlands 3. Neither of those have 5.1 audio. I have a surround sound capable system in the main room (computer connected to a 4K 7.1 surround stereo receiver over HDMI) and I have tried playing both games in there. They both only show 2 channel stereo on the receiver's display. I can't speak for the other games you mentioned as I haven't tried those. I have played quite a lot of recent games and I can not find a single 1 game that would output surround audio when connected to a stereo like that out of any game released in the past 5 years. This is why I wrote my statements earlier: I have tried a lot of games (well over a hundred different games or more) over the past few years and none of them have 5.1 or better audio.

Besides all of that the number of people that actually do have a real 5.1 or 7.1 surround system to connect a computer to is an extreme minority. I would say less than 5% of gamers would have a system like that. It wouldn't make much sense for any developer to waste the time making a game's sound system support that when almost no one uses it.

Hey so there's a ton of configuring that I had to do to get 5.1 Setup. But I assure you, borderlands 3 explicitly codifies 5.1 in its settings menu, so does Dead Space Remake

Your talk of windows and hardware sound is you confusing hardware acceleration, with the ability to produce multi channel audio. It's true that Windows vista deprecated the ways in which Creative and their ilk could provide Hardware Accelerated surround sound, but it's not true that that limits a users ability to enable surround sound, it's just that all sounds processing needs to be done on the cpu "ie software rendering"

I have two different 5.1 surround sound systems hooked up to my pc. A Logitech x-530 5.1 setup at my desk, outputting over 5 3.5mm Jacks from my mobo sound hardware, and a Denon x1700 outputting 5.1 through eARC through the HDMI on my tv.

If you are only seeing Stereo you are not properly configured.

I play all my games in surround sound, with no up mixing.

Your suggestion that a lack of pc players using surround sound would make it ineffective to implement isn't correct.That ignores the standard APIs and plentiful sound engines that are integrated into most game creation tools. On top of that nearly every single game going to console will support a vast surround experience. These things all combine in that it is an absolutely rarity for a game to only support stereo.

Many Nintendo Switch games support 5.1 sound.



Anyways if you can't go to windows sound settings and use the test function to fire all speakers in your setup then you have an issue, if you can do that and you cant get doom eternal or borderlands 3 to output correctly there is something wrong with your system.

EDIT: For the sake of being productive with our time I don't really want to continue this conversation, there's no point in this argument, the vast majority of games support 5.1 and even 7.1, you can look on PCGW to see how individual games handle surround sound with references. I just reinstalled Eternal just to confirm both my setups work in full surround with it

this was put in a much better way than i could have tried, given the time that i care to put into it. the PCGW mention is a great point, that I hadn't earlier considered, despite how often I use that resource. ironically enough my own game's page on PCGW is marked as surround disabled, something i'm trying to rectify in future updates.

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by MyNegev:

Anyways if you can't go to windows sound settings and use the test function to fire all speakers in your setup then you have an issue, if you can do that and you cant get doom eternal or borderlands 3 to output correctly there is something wrong with your system.

My sound system and sound configuration works perfectly fine. I get full 5.1 and 7.1 surround audio from watching blu ray movies on the same computer as well as movies streamed over netflix and paramount+, just not computer games. And I'm not going to go digging through config files or tweaking ini files or any other BS. If I can't open a game -> Go to settings in said game -> Enable a setting -> See it work then it's not going to work.

[MyNegev]

Originally posted by Aquafawks:

Originally posted by MyNegev:

Anyways if you can't go to windows sound settings and use the test function to fire all speakers in your setup then you have an issue, if you can do that and you cant get doom eternal or borderlands 3 to output correctly there is something wrong with your system.

My sound system and sound configuration works perfectly fine. I get full 5.1 and 7.1 surround audio from watching blu ray movies on the same computer as well as movies streamed over netflix and paramount+, just not computer games. And I'm not going to go digging through config files or tweaking ini files or any other BS. If I can't open a game -> Go to settings in said game -> Enable a setting -> See it work then it's not going to work.

This is a waste of mine and others time. We aren't here to tell you what's wrong with your setup, so take your ignorant comments somewhere else. Doom Eternal outputs sound in the default way a pc is setup it doesn't have a setting for 5.1 or stereo. If your system isn't set up correctly don't bother people in the forum for Dredge about it.

Move on, your input isn't useful here. The discussion is just a suggestion that Dredge would be better if it could use Unitys Tools for enabling surround sound like The Outer Wilds has surround sound.

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by MyNegev:

This is a waste of mine and others time. We aren't here to tell you what's wrong with your setup, so take your ignorant comments somewhere else. Doom Eternal outputs sound in the default way a pc is setup it doesn't have a setting for 5.1 or stereo. If your system isn't set up correctly don't bother people in the forum for Dredge about it.

Move on, your input isn't useful here. The discussion is just a suggestion that Dredge would be better if it could use Unitys Tools for enabling surround sound like The Outer Wilds has surround sound.

Your comments you wrote right there are borderline harassment with you openly insulting me. That's really not nice. :( We're just having a normal calm conversation here.
I am allowed to comment anything I like anywhere on any steam forum for any game as long as I follow steam's global forum rules and I have done so. Nothing I have written in this thread has violated any steam forum rule. I do not wish to "move on" as you said so I will not. You actually can't tell people to "move on and stop posting here" as you wrote it because only moderators can do that and you are not one.

And my thoughts and opinions that I want to share are again like I said before: I think that the developers can not fulfill this request because I think it is not possible.

[MyNegev]

Originally posted by Aquafawks:

Originally posted by MyNegev:

This is a waste of mine and others time. We aren't here to tell you what's wrong with your setup, so take your ignorant comments somewhere else. Doom Eternal outputs sound in the default way a pc is setup it doesn't have a setting for 5.1 or stereo. If your system isn't set up correctly don't bother people in the forum for Dredge about it.

Move on, your input isn't useful here. The discussion is just a suggestion that Dredge would be better if it could use Unitys Tools for enabling surround sound like The Outer Wilds has surround sound.

Your comments you wrote right there are borderline harassment with you openly insulting me. That's really not nice. :( We're just having a normal calm conversation here.
I am allowed to comment anything I like anywhere on any steam forum for any game as long as I follow steam's global forum rules and I have done so. Nothing I have written in this thread has violated any steam forum rule. I do not wish to "move on" as you said so I will not. You actually can't tell people to "move on and stop posting here" as you wrote it because only moderators can do that and you are not one.

And my thoughts and opinions that I want to share are again like I said before: I think that the developers can not fulfill this request because I think it is not possible.

Alright, i'll admit I'm frustrated with you previous comments, I suggested you move on not as an insult but just to represent that i think your additional commenting here isn't worth your time. Certainly there is not rule that "Only mods can tell people to move on" My tone was not the most polite but i will be more straightforward

~There is great deal of evidence that Multi channel+LFE audio is possible on OS's released after Windows XP. Vista didn't elimate Multi channel at all. Straight up miles of writing on the subject of surround sound PC gaming on the internet.

~https://satsun.org/audio/ A list of thousands of games and their support for multi channel audio on PC.

~You Speculated that based on the true information that Vista ended support for hardware sound acceleration.

~There were games that utilised hardware acceleration as their only means of producing surround sound output, those games were broken with Vista's release and required software fixes like AL Soft.

~Games released since Vista use software sound tools (Wwise, FMOD, XAudio2) exclusively to produce sound output stereo and multichannel when enabled.

~I have provided a litany of recent and older Windows titles that can confirm surround sound support when properly configured.

~I have mentioned Unity engine titles, similar to Dredge, that feature surround sound

Your input into this thread has been based on speculation, and only works to stifle discussions by those enjoying Dredge, but looking to engage in communication regarding the potential of Dredge to utilise available surround output methods that may be possible.

I am not a game developer myself and it would not shock me if Dredge is tooled in a way that currently makes utilising the available methods of surround output impossible. I'm not in any way trying to suggest the developers are doing a poor job, i would like to know if dredge has surround on other platforms like switch or PS

[🦊Λℚ𝓤ΛƑΛᗯҜᔕ🦊]

Originally posted by MyNegev:

~You Speculated that based on the true information that Vista ended support for hardware sound acceleration.

I never said acceleration at all. You added that, not me. I specifically said that support for hardware surround sound in games at all ended there and is no longer possible.

[MyNegev]

Originally posted by Aquafawks:

Originally posted by MyNegev:

~You Speculated that based on the true information that Vista ended support for hardware sound acceleration.

I never said acceleration at all. You added that, not me. I specifically said that support for hardware surround sound in games at all ended there and is no longer possible.

Yes, you specifically said that, and i corrected you, did you stop reading at that point in my comment? Before Vista, a Creative sound card could offload the CPU processing time of doing sound calculation. With Windows Vista MS changed this to require all sounds be handled on the CPU. This didn't change anything specific to how surround sound works on PC. The only times that games lost surround sound is when they locked surround to hardware acceleration.

Seek to learn, not dwell in miscommunication.