5.1 Surround Sound?

[Malidictus]

So I have 5.1 surround sound speakers coming out of an onboard Realtek sound card. Trouble is, Payday doesn't use most of my speakers. All of the game's sounds come out of Front Left and Front Right. Now, I presume that's because Payday 2 only does stereso sound, fair enough. But when I still used a Sound Blaster card, it had an option for "Stereo Xpand," which basically took two-channel stereo and split it among all the speakers in a fairly intelligent way.

This Realtek card supposedly has that, too - it has an option called DTS Connect. Trouble is that this option seemingly does nothing. Windows 7 and most games still play stere sound out of Front Left and Front Right. Is there anything I can do to fix this? It's really annoying.

[Rockfire ✘]

Just use virtual surround sound, if its an option.

[Toastie Buns]

Rockfire původně napsal:

Just use virtual surround sound, if its an option.

This. Start ticking boxes in Realtek Audio Manager.

[Malidictus]

I've ticked all the boxes in the Realtek Audio Manager, that's the problem. It doesn't work. The only real option I have for spreading Stereo sound to 5.1 surround is DTS connect. Payday 2 simply seems to disregard it, because Windows 7 disregards it... I guess. I'm getting sufficiently annoyed to the point of just plonking down whatever a current-generation Sound Blaster card costs. At least the Creative Stereo Xpand works with everything.

[Toastie Buns]

Next suggestion is to try emulators, dude. Best of luck.

[Robinson Drake]

You could perhaps try using a virtual surround sound program like the one that Razer offers, or other such things.

Otherwise, I have a suspiscion you could find a way to enable it on the Real-Tek, but this seems more like a proper tech-support question for Real-Tek/Windows customer support. Have you sought their responses to your inquiries yet?

You can also look into Creative's software line, where they have some 'sound enhancers' themselves that might force some speaker use without a hardware upgrade.

Relevant Links:
http://www.razerzone.com/surround
http://software.store.creative.com/p/software/sound-blaster-x-fi-mb3

[Malidictus]

Quark Bent původně napsal:

You could perhaps try using a virtual surround sound program like the one that Razer offers, or other such things.

Yes, I was hoping for one such. I'll definitely check your Razer link. I should never have listenet to people tell me I don't "need" a separate sound card. Don't need my ass - only a Sound Blaster has been able to get me proper 5.1 so far, and I've been running 5.1 for 10 years, if not more. If Razer can't do it for me, a hardware upgrade will have to do.

Quark Bent původně napsal:

Otherwise, I have a suspiscion you could find a way to enable it on the Real-Tek, but this seems more like a proper tech-support question for Real-Tek/Windows customer support. Have you sought their responses to your inquiries yet?

I've browsed through a lot of their support threads of people with the same problem as me. There aren't any good suggestions. Get new drivers, use "Speaker Fill," etc. and that's effective to a point. It works on multimedia. It does not, however, work on games or windows audio itself. Seems like Sound Blaster cards do the upmixing in the device itself, while Realtek cards do the upmixing in the audio codecs that not everything uses. *sigh*

Thank you for the suggestions. I'll go try them out.

*edit*
Yeah, that didn't work. Both the Razer and Creative tool suites are designed for DOWN-mixing audio from 7.1 to Stereo. I need something which up-mixes Stereo up to 5.1. Sound Blaster X-Fi Stereo Xpand does this, but that's a feature of Sound Blaster cards. *sigh* Damn you, tyrany of inanimate objects...

[Toastie Buns]

So I did some digging around honing my bushido google-fu and it seems this thread is relevant

http://www.techpowerup.com/forums/threads/unlocked-realtek-hd-audio-drivers-with-dolby-digital-live-and-dts-interactive.193148/

Seems like you need to hacktivate DDL for all your upmixing needs.
Hope this helps. [IGNORE IF YOU CAN ALREADY SEE DOLBY OPTIONS IN AUDIO MANANGER]

[Malidictus]

What's absolutely vexing about this situation is I already have access to DTS Connect, which encompasses DTS Interactive. Payday 2 just ignores that and plays over whatever speakers it damn well pleases. This works for destop applications like Winamp and most video players, but it doesn't seem to do anything for games.

*edit*
I actually played around with DTS Connect, and it works like you'd expect - expanding the angle in the UI moves sounds towards the "exterior" speakers, primarily rear left and rear right. Narrowing the angle moves everything towards centre... In WinAMP, but NOT in Payday 2. Payday 2 just outright ignores DTS settings and broadcasts on front left, front right and apparently centre/subwoofer, though the latter is very very quiet.

At this point, I've decided to just plonk down some cash and get myself a Sound Blaster card. This ♥♥♥♥ has been bananas ever since I got rid of my crappy old X-Fi Xtreme Audio. That card was bargain basement quality and it's STILL miles above my Realtek in-built one. God ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ damn it!

[Toastie Buns]

Malidictus původně napsal:

What's absolutely vexing about this situation is I already have access to DTS Connect, which encompasses DTS Interactive. Payday 2 just ignores that and plays over whatever speakers it damn well pleases. This works for destop applications like Winamp and most video players, but it doesn't seem to do anything for games.

I was more referring to Dolby than DTS. It seems Home Theatre has an option to expand stereo.

[Malidictus]

The Doulby 3D techology tree is actually "fake surround" sound, near as I can tell. It uses the same number of speaker channels, but applies smart processing to varry the sound and create a better feeling of direction. I'll try and get the driver working, but the thread in question is from 2015, while I'm right now using a Realtek 2015 driver. I'll see what I can do about it.

*edit*
Something else to mention - I'm not using digital output. My speakers only support analogue, so I'm using the coloured jacks at the back. The Doulby Digital 5.1 thing seems to require digital output. My card is actually already capable of this in digital output, but not in analogue. My old Sound Blaster card could do it in analogue, as well.

[satsun]

I haven't tested Payday 2 in a while, but last I checked, it just doesn't support surround sound AT ALL. It's a stereo game with no surround technology implemented and when a game only outputs dry stereo then no amount of surround sound virtualization can make it sound like it's outputting surround. I've tested with Creative CMSS-3D and it does nothing.

If the game had some kind of real-time Dolby ProLogic feature, then stuff like CMSS-3D would probably work, but since the game only outputs in plain stereo, no amount of surround virtualization can simulate positional audio or upmix stereo in discrete surround speakers. For surround virtualization to work, the virtualization software must first be fed from a source that outputs to 4 or more speakers.

This has been an issue for a long time and they seem to have no interest in fixing it. It shouldn't be rocket science, they have the audio middleware in place to do it but it's just not happening.

[Malidictus]

satsun původně napsal:

I haven't tested Payday 2 in a while, but last I checked, it just doesn't support surround sound AT ALL. It's a stereo game with no surround technology implemented and when a game only outputs dry stereo then no amount of surround sound virtualization can make it sound like it's outputting surround. I've tested with Creative CMSS-3D and it does nothing.

I'm not that interested Surround Sound as much as I want it outputting from all of my speakers. As it stands, it uses mostly just two of my six. Creative's Stereo Xpand actually does exactly this - it takes 2-channel sound and splits it among the six speakers. It does a pretty good job of it, too, since it sounds pretty "surround-like." It worked on everything when I still had my old X-Fi Xtreme Audio sound card. Even in Payday, believe it or not. It's not perfect, but it's better than using 2 out of 6 speakers.

I broke down and decided to just buy a dedicated sound card. Turns out they're not as expensive as I worried they might be. Biggest issue is the hardware place is going to ♥♥♥♥ me around all week for it. Guess if there are no other options...

[Malidictus]

OK, update: After a lot of haggling, I have a brand new shiny Sound Blaster Audigy FX. As I expected, this card was able to put sound on all speakers, even in Payday 2. It's obviously still Stereo sound so it's not perfect even in 5.1, but that's not the point. I now have sound in all speakers, including Rear Left, Rear Right and Centre! This is what I always wanted, just a pity I had to buy a dedicated sound card to get it, but it turned out it wasn't very expensive. Yay!

For all of you guys with 5.1 cursing your luck and getting sound out of Front Left and Front Right only (like I was), Sound Blaster cards offer a fix. It's not perfect, it's never going to be true 5.1 sound (Payday 2 outputs only 2 channels), but at least you can use all of your speakers.

In conclusion, ♥♥♥♥ Realtek HD Audio, Creative Sound Blaster master race FTW.

[Guiboune]

It's weird because Payday 2 probably uses the same engine for console (which I assume supports 5.1). If that's the case, they purposely disabled 5.1 for whatever reason. Would be really nice to have on PC though.

For future reference, virtual surround still only uses 2 channels.

[Malidictus]

Guiboune původně napsal:

For future reference, virtual surround still only uses 2 channels.

Sure, but that's not too big of a deal. My primary concern was having sound come out of ALL of my speakers. It does that now, so I'm happy :) Even if it's slightly ♥♥♥♥ surround, it's better than only getting sound out of two speakers.