Mass Effect 1 Surround Sound Fix

Because Bioware again shipped some broken, old OpenAL32.dll where surround is not working properly here are steps to fix it

Steps

1. Download openal soft from https://openal-soft.org
2. Put file from Win32/soft_oal.dll as OpenAL32.dll to Windows/SysWOW64 and file from Win64/soft_oal.dll as OpenAL32.dll to Windows/system32, override if necessary
3. Delete OpenAL32.dll from binaries in game directory
4. Put this:

[ISACTAudio.ISACTAudioDevice]
MaxChannels=128
UseEffectsProcessing=True
TimeBetweenHWUpdates=15
MinOggVorbisDurationGame=20
MinOggVorbisDurationEditor=4
DeviceName=
ReserveChannels=2
TotalAvailableChannels=128
UseEffectsProcessing=True

To BIOEngine.ini in config directory in path like Mass Effect Legendary Edition\Game\ME1\BioGame\Config, make it read-only so game doesn't override it. There should be already section like ISACTAudio.ISACTAudioDevice so put it there

5. Run alsoft-config.exe from openal-soft-{version}-bin\alsoft-config and set your desired channels - in my case it's 7.1 and click apply, you can try other options, whatever seem to be better for you
6. (Optionally) go to %appdata%, there should be file alsoft.ini and you can try adding two options there:

volume-adjust = 6
front-stablizer=true

volume-adjust increases overall sound volume -24 to 24
front-stablizer - mixes sound from left and right channel to center
7. Just run a game, you should have surround sound working fine now
8. If it doesn't work try restarting your PC
9. Also it might work if you replace dll only in a binaries folder - but i didn't try it

[Jom]

Try simply switching the equalizer instead. If you use realtek, realtek audio console -> sound effect -> equalizer 'party' gave me a better result than switching dll's. Using the original ones, no config changes.

[Kain]

Shouldn't this last line called front-stabilizer=true and not stablizer?

[sq_paradox]

What's so frustrating is that the game should support XAudio2. It's in BIOEngine.ini. But setting AudioDeviceClass=XAudio2.XAudio2Device doesn't do anything, the game still uses the OpenAL settings.
They could have fixed this but instead they broke it more, ie no center channel.

[gurt]

@Juri yep you're 100% right. Thanks!

[Landrin201]

This doesn't work for me; when I try to run the game after doing all of the above, I get an unspecified error that just says "something is wrong with your game please reinstall." I'm at my wits end, this isn't playable with the sound like this.

[[UMK] Zoomer]

Really? Well, this shows the quality of the release. I mean, have they spent any time at all or they simply repackaged the three games and shipped them? How this could've passed the QC? Do they play on soundbars or monitor speakers or some such? lol

[dinosauriac]

I knew something was off. After suffering through 20 hours of incredibly weird sound mixing this feels almost essential. Guns don't deafen me anymore and I can actually properly hear ambient NPCs talking on the Citadel.

[Juri]

Yes makavelic, this is pretty much upmixing sound of front channels to center channel, they broke something in this remaster because as i remember there were normal sound in original trilogy after replacing this dll.

[Fruban]

Is there anything we can do to get EAX effects enabled via OpenAL Soft's EFX extension it mentioned on the download page? I can confirm we are missing environmental effects since I can hear extra things like reverb on voices in Joker's cockpit on my PC's Creative X-fi that are missing in the same scene when I pipe the audio to the home theater receiver. (No tweaking needed on PC sound card.)

Otherwise great work on this, thank you for this working solution! I'd be willing to help test if you think I could help somehow.

[Makavelic]

front-stablizer=true makes sound come out of center channel but I don't think it's working perfectly. When talking to someone, the dialog is loudest coming from the center but it also comes out of the left and right speakers at the same time.