Only 2.1 on a working 5.1 Windows setup

[Dagon]

Does Starfield work in 5.1 four you ?

I'm not getting surround sound in the game (no voice on surround (back) speakers when NPC is on my back), easy to check in the Vanguard museum).

In doubt, I checked with Cyberpunk 2077 : the 5.1 surround speakers are working well, getting different voices/noises on my surround speakers when something happens on my back, so it seems it's a Starfield configuration problem.

Is this the case for you all ?

Any idea where I can check Starfield configuration files to fix this annoying bug ?

Thank you !

[PolygonBronson]

So, I've been having the same issue of Starfield not utilizing my surround sound set up despite it working fine in other games. After some trial and error, I finally figured out a fix so hopefully this post can help someone else out in the future (or OP, if it's still a problem for them).

I think the issue in Starfield comes from how the surround is handled in Windows. The good news is the fix I found is free and pretty simple. I should also preface this with that this was a fix for Windows 10, I haven't tried it on 11. This next paragraph will some background on my setup, if you just want the solution, skip down to the one after that.

I have a rather unorthodox setup where I'm running a optical Toslink cable out of my motherboard into my AV receiver that is wired for 5.1 surround (my gaming PC is also a HTPC). The issue with Toslink is that it can't do PCM (uncompressed) 5.1, it only has the bandwidth for 2 channel. However, it can do 5.1 when it's encoded with something like Dolby Digital. However, most things in Windows will not encode it into Dolby, including games. So my workaround was to install a sort of hack that was originally designed to force NVidia GPUs to output surround via HDMI since it will only default to 2 channel PCM, just like Toslink, for some reason, despite having the bandwidth for it. Anyways, this hack basically encodes ALL sounds within Windows in Dolby on the driver level, and thankfully it also works with 2 channel content as well, so it's been a set-up-and-forget solution for me for the past year.

Enter Starfield, It's the only game that I've played that has surround sound support that does this, but It seems to detect if 5.1 is present from the "Sound" menu for "Playback Devices" in the Control Panel (NOT the sound settings accessed through the "Settings" app) instead of on a driver level like most other games, including Fallout 4, funnily enough. So, since my hacky workaround to get surround sound does NOT let you use the "Configure" button via the Sound menu in the Control Panel (you do that via a tool when you set it up), the game thinks it's a stereo system and only defaults to 2 channels. So, the trick here is getting Starfield to think it's a more traditional surround device.

Once I realized this I did some searching and found a free program that can do just what I needed it to, VoiceMeeter Banana[vb-audio.com]. This program is designed mainly for streamers to mix their mic audio with their game audio or other sound inputs and even can output this mix to multiple devices. But the important thing here is that it detects my Dolby encoded 5.1 audio and has full surround sound support. Basically, all you need to do is set the Hardware Out A1 to the WDM version (more on why you want the WDM one later) of your normal 5.1 surround sound device (my motherboard's Toslink, in my case) from the drop down, and then, set your Windows sound device to the "Voicemeeter Input" VAIO device. This is a traditional surround device so you can set it to 5.1 surround sound in the Sound section of the Control Panel via the "Configure" button and Voilà! Starfield now should recognize the audio as surround!

One big gotcha to this is that it this program dramatically increases the audio delay since it's processing it through the program before sending it out. The default settings cause a distracting amount of delay, but this can be reduced a little so it's more tolerable. Open the Voice Meeter settings (Menu > System Settings / Options...). Near the bottom there should be some buffering options. Select the "Buffering WDM" value and change it from 512 to 128. Play some audio through your system to test and make sure it can handle this lower buffer setting. If it's dropping out and has static, try a higher buffer value until those audio artifacts go away. I was able to do the 128 buffer and while it still lags a little bit, it's way better than when I was using a MME device at the default of 1024!

Anyway, I hope this helps someone get surround sound working in Starfield! Hopefully my directions were clear, I did try to cover all of the important bits that I could think of. The hassle is worth it, though! Starfield is so much more immersive in 5.1, in my opinion. Maybe there will be a mod that will enable better surround sound detection one day or maybe they will patch the game someday to make it no longer an issue, but I'm not holding my breath.

P.S. If anyone is feeling overwhelmed by the Voice Meeter program's interface, there are tons of instructional how-tos for this program on YT (that's where I found instructions on how to change the buffer settings to reduce the delay), so do some watching if you are getting stuck or having issues with it.

[WarPuppy]

Originally posted by PolygonBronson:

Once I realized this I did some searching and found a free program that can do just what I needed it to, VoiceMeeter Banana[vb-audio.com].

I also had trouble with Windows 11 outputting 5.1 sound to my old soundbar before since no matter what I do windows won't recognize my soundbar as 5.1 device because my connection is PC>>HDMI>>TV>>HDMI ARC>>Soundbar. Some games and apps get your sound setup from Windows and those won't have 5.1 sound as well. After some searching I also found the Voicemeeter app which solved my problem since it acts like software version of 7.1 A/V receiver and make Windows see your sound setup that way as well.

After tinkering with the app a bit I realized Voicemeeter also let me assign each sound channel to each connection separately. Which means I could also use the program to setup an actual 5.1 using my old active speakers I have lying around!

So my 5.1 setup currently have front LR speakers connected via USB, center speaker via Bluetooth, rear speakers via 3.5mm, and the old sound bar mainly for subwoofer that came with it via HDMI>>TV>>ARC. However, I had to adjust audio delay manually though because each connection has different delay but it's not difficult since you can find many metronome clips in YT to sync the speakers by yourself. And also need to adjust volume and EQ separately for each speaker to get coherent sound volume and use Windows or in-game volume adjustment instead of speakers' volume knob if I want to adjust overall sound volume.

[scottbowes]

I had this same issue in FO76 so I tried the fix posted here in the Starfield custom and prefs ini's and it worked
https://www.reddit.com/r/fo76/comments/13ptjt7/psa_how_to_get_surround_sound_5171_on_pc/

[PolygonBronson]

Originally posted by scottbowes:

I had this same issue in FO76 so I tried the fix posted here in the Starfield custom and prefs ini's and it worked
https://www.reddit.com/r/fo76/comments/13ptjt7/psa_how_to_get_surround_sound_5171_on_pc/

This is good to know! I didn't even think to look for FO76 fixes when I was trying to fix my problem with Starfield. However, I just tried the ini edit in this reddit post and it's not working with my setup, unfortunately, it's still just stereo. I'm almost positive it has something to do with the hacky way I have 5.1 set up on my system. Guess I'll have to stick with Voicemeeter for now.

[Jaggid Edje]

Originally posted by scottbowes:

I had this same issue in FO76 so I tried the fix posted here in the Starfield custom and prefs ini's and it worked
https://www.reddit.com/r/fo76/comments/13ptjt7/psa_how_to_get_surround_sound_5171_on_pc/

Thanks for sharing that here.

[McGrits]

I have Starfield working in 7.1. I made sure my computer/tv/receiver were all in line before the game came out by testing it on FO3. Took a couple settings updated back then, but Starfield works just fine.

[[FOAD]Iron]

I have 7.1 and only the left/right/centre channels work in this game.

[Mexicola9302]

I got 7.2 sound and all speakers work as intended via HDMI 2.1.

[Lemiarty]

It seems to be a little bit flakier than just not working. Sometimes entering the Astral Lounge has my feet vibrating from the sub-woofer and other times it's clearly running just on the front speakers and not the sub-woofer at all. I'm gonna have to mess with it after work today, if just setting some values in the ini fixes the problem, that's too simple to ignore.

[shinfaster]

I had this problem too, but it works now! I upgraded the HDMI with the APO Driver program and with the right settings the surround effect works in Starfield! (After uninstalling the program, it is recommended to use Ccleaner to clean the registry!)

LINK:
https://puresoftapps.blogspot.com/2018/04/realtek-apo-driver.html

[Nanami]

This thread was quite old before the recent post, so we're locking it to prevent confusion.