Home theater type surround-sound for VR?

[RockClaw]

Somebody said in a previous post that surround sound wouldn't work because it would require the sound to move around through the speakers as you move your headset... but this just doesn't ring true to me. Contemplate with me, please...

If I set up a say... 11.1 sound system and stand in the middle of it, wouldn't that work?

Imagine a noise is coming from the North, and that sound comes from your front center speaker. Well, if I face south, the sound comes from behind me. If I face North, the sound is in front of me.

The sound positions should actaully be FIXED within the cardinal coordinate system.
It is YOU that moves.

I think that an external surround sound system would be GREAT in general for VR, with the close headphone-like speakers being used only for sound that is very close to your ears... like somebody whispering to you.

What do people think?

[--ranXerox--]

Imagine it this way. Your wall speakers are not moving around with your head unlike your 2 attached stereo speakers move around with your head. It will not work.

your 11.1 speaker system will work if you are sitting down facing the center channel. I know this because I do this with project cars and elite dangerous and many sitting down games. If you stand up and turn, then the audio becomes misdirected because the wall speakers do not move with your head.

[RockClaw]

Originally posted by --ranXerox--:

Imagine it this way. Your wall speakers are not moving around with your head unlike your 2 attached stereo speakers move around with your head. It will not work.

your 11.1 speaker system will work if you are sitting down facing the center channel. I know this because I do this with project cars and elite dangerous and many sitting down games. If you stand up and turn, then the audio becomes misdirected because the wall speakers do not move with your head.

This is from a post off youtube of someone actually using a 5.1 system with their VR games.

"A lot of people ask the same question you did. Some people give a completely wrong answer, so I will clarify it for you, as an actual user of surround sound in VR. The sound in a game is determined by the location of the sound source, in the game environment. It has nothing to do with the position or rotation of a VR headset. It is just like walking in a park in real life. You will hear the sounds coming from their source. A kid on the swings to your right. A dog barking behind you, etc. None of these sounds have anything at all to do with you or the direction you are facing. You hear them from the direction of their origin, regardless of where you are facing. It is exactly this way when using surround sound in VR. If you hear the dog behind you and turn around to face it, the sound will come from in front of you, because you turned to face it."

I guess with flat games, the dog is behind you (back speakers) when you face the front of the room, but the dog would come from the front speakers (still behind you) when you turn around. I think I understand the problem now. VR games need to send environmental object based sounds to the sound system that dont move around when you change headset orientation. It should be simple to make this an option in VR games (static sound field).

[Rectus]

The only game I've seen that supports fixed speakers is Elite: Dangerous. It's relatively easy to implement for seated games, since the game always knows which way forward is, and you're always approximately in the same position. I don't think there are any pre-made solutions for this though.

For roomscale games, you would need some way of calibrating the speaker system to know where the speakers are in relation to the play area, or the spaceialization will be off depending on where in the room you are.

It's still a lot easier to use headphones that move with the players head, since that is already how audio systems for flat screen games are set up to work.

[RockClaw]

Originally posted by Rectus:

The only game I've seen that supports fixed speakers is Elite: Dangerous. It's relatively easy to implement for seated games, since the game always knows which way forward is, and you're always approximately in the same position. I don't think there are any pre-made solutions for this though.

For roomscale games, you would need some way of calibrating the speaker system to know where the speakers are in relation to the play area, or the spaceialization will be off depending on where in the room you are.

It's still a lot easier to use headphones that move with the players head, since that is already how audio systems for flat screen games are set up to work.

OK, got it, thanks!

[Kobs]

I have a 5.1 setup in the room I play in, it's all good and fun till you move but if you stay still in the middle or sitting the sound is better than headphones for sure I have a G2 but it's more problems to do this and the G2 headphones are like the Index so it still sounds awesome with the headphones

[RockClaw]

Originally posted by Kobs:

I have a 5.1 setup in the room I play in, it's all good and fun till you move but if you stay still in the middle or sitting the sound is better than headphones for sure I have a G2 but it's more problems to do this and the G2 headphones are like the Index so it still sounds awesome with the headphones

Yes, playing Skyrim VR now. I would love to have the sub booming. This will probably be an optional feature of future games I would think.

[--ranXerox--]

you can play skyrim sitting down and enjoy the booms!

[Dionysus 🐭]

Originally posted by RockClaw:

Somebody said in a previous post that surround sound wouldn't work because it would require the sound to move around through the speakers as you move your headset... but this just doesn't ring true to me. Contemplate with me, please...

If I set up a say... 11.1 sound system and stand in the middle of it, wouldn't that work?

Imagine a noise is coming from the North, and that sound comes from your front center speaker. Well, if I face south, the sound comes from behind me. If I face North, the sound is in front of me.

The sound positions should actaully be FIXED within the cardinal coordinate system.
It is YOU that moves.

I think that an external surround sound system would be GREAT in general for VR, with the close headphone-like speakers being used only for sound that is very close to your ears... like somebody whispering to you.

What do people think?

There is no need to use a home theater as all home theater surround sound setups are subpar in comparison to good HRTF/binaural audio (which is how you actually hear in real life). Most VR games likely will not even support surround sound output as they are already outputting HRTF audio. The only way I could find this useful is with poor quality ports that don't use HRTF audio but do support a surround sound output, or with Vorpx/flat to VR mods.

If you want to use a subwoofer with VR, use Voicemeeter. Have one of the virtual inputs set to 2.0 (taking in the already HRTF audio from the game), and having two outputs, one to your VR headset, and another to your subwoofer/receiver. Voicemeeter does have an LFE filter, but i'm not sure how well it works. If you have a decent receiver, I would think that you would be able to isolate the subwoofer, and send audio to it only.