Surround sound?

[Malidictus]

Does Payday 2 support Surround Sound at all? I have a 5.1 Surround Sound system, and I'm getting some really, REALLY weird directional sound. Normally if a game plays only Stereo sound (like most do if they don't offer an option), I'll get sound only out of my Front Left and Front Right speakers. That's not what's happening. I'm getting sound out of both the Front speakers AND the Back speakers, but not out of my Centre speaker or my Subwoofer. This tells me the game's broadcasting in 4.0 surround, at least I think so.

Even then, the sound that comes out is very, VERY heavily biased towards the left. Let's say I set down a single drill and stand directly in front of it, facing the drill. I'll hear the drill as though it were on my left. If I turn around so the drill is on my right, it still sounds like it's on the left, only farther away. If I turn around such that the drill is on my left, it sounds indeed like it's on my left, but very close. What the hell is going on?

I also have which is supposed to be able to split stereo sound across 5.1 speakers, but all that does is enable the centre/subwoofer. It doesn't actually fix the shoddy directional sound. Does anyone know of a way to fix this, or at least have any idea what could be causing it?

[76561198162727631]

No. Just use headphones.

[Toastie Buns]

The heist supported 5.1 surround but the rear speakers never got utilised for anything more than a mere murmur. I wouldn't be surprised if the same happens here.
Let's go check!

Edit: http://pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Payday_2#Audio_settings

That answers that.

[Max]

They supported it a few patches ago

[Malidictus]

Well, I figured out part of the problem. My speakers are apparently dying. I don't exactly have them set up very well so the rear left speaker is much closer to me than the rear right. The problem is the rear right speaker is dying and is very very quiet while the rear left is louder than the rest. It made the whole setup feel loaded towards the left. I'll need new speakers, but for the time being I've switched the two offending ones around. Now the loud one is far away and the quiet one is close to me, so it somewhat evens out.

The native 5.1 support is still suspect, however. The game seems to broadcast only on the front and rear channels, but not on the centre/subwoofer channel, which is annoying. there's also no option to set this, which is a major no-no in my opinion. I'm just surprised that even as far back as 2013, there were still games which don't at least have the option for various speaker setups. Not everyone plays with headphones, after all.

[Toastie Buns]

Can't you mess with balance until it the two equal each other out?
Or alternatively just kill the range it's loud in....though that might lead to some strange music.

[Malidictus]

I'm running a Sound Blaster Audigy FX card, and that doesn't seem to have the capacity for room correction or per-speaker volume settings that I can see. Otherwise I would. It just makes sense. *edit* Actually, they do. I found a "mixer" setting which allowed me to lower the rear right speaker's volume to 80%, so along with distance it should be fine.

[Toastie Buns]

Yeah, even Sound in Control Panel has a balancing slider. That would have been my next suggestion, but apparently you found the software suite version of it.
Noice, problem solved. Alert the villagers, pitchforks aren't needed!

[Malidictus]

Originally posted by Toastie Buns:

Noice, problem solved. Alert the villagers, pitchforks aren't needed!

Well, solved-ish. My speaker setup is slowly dying a painful death. Those speakers are pretty old. I like to say "older than my newphew," which is about right since they're something like 10 years old. The one in question - the speaker that's quiet - has been dropped on the floor from desk height at least twice that I remember, which is probably why it's on the fritz. I'll need to replace the spakers eventually, and I don't know if there's any real point in replacing them with another 5.1 surround set.

Very few things support 5.1, it seems, and 2.1 (two speakers and a subwoofer) just seems like a more reliable alternative with no real downsides.