studiosound said:

Correct. That's how things used to work with DirectSound3D/OpenAL and CMSS-3D on the X-Fi cards.
Now your sound card (or software) can only take a 5.1/7.1 signal and mix it down.

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Yes, thanks for pointing it out but I already know this. I suppose I was just saying that I hoped X-Fi MB3 was grabbing the audio before Windows/Microsoft got its grubby hands on it, like ASIO and WASAPI do, but I guess there still (mostly) hasn't been a solution since Vista changed the audio stack.

blueninja0 said:

As Yethal said, back then (and still today on Source games) games that used OpenAL or DirectSound had complete 3D sound. That means 360 degrees around you and even up and bellow. That 3D information was fed to the sound card and stuff like CMSS-3D could take advantage of that to create an awesome virtual surround experience. Today games pre-render the sound in-engine and output it at most as 7.1 channels (as is the case for BF4).

My bet is that games that have stereo vs surround settings in-game, can output surround sound even if the default output device is set to 2.0 in Windows. I have yet to test it on games that configure themselves based on the Windows configuration. Anyone wants to recommend me one game that does so that I can test it and report back?

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OpenAL/DirectSound/Aureal3D all were BETTER than 360°, since 360° only describes a circle/ring rather than a sphere. But you knew that, I'm just saying you don't have to explain that to me.

I was not into PC gaming during the XP era, so I missed the heyday of Truely 3D audio, but I've done a BIT of research (and always open to learn more).

The last game to be able to use OpenAL (besides Source engine games) that I know of was Borderlands 2. You had to edit an .INI file, but then it was there. Wonder if the same trick worked for Borderlands: The PreSequel?

yethal said:

Games did that back in OpenAL times. Now sound engine renders the output already divided up into discrete channels.

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Yeah, now if only a driver could get the audio before the sound engine did that, or had a sound engine that worked more closely with SBX/TrueAudio/Sphere etc. I still feel that the incoming VR games are our best hope.

yethal said:

Technology You're referring to is called Dolby Atmos and currently only Overwatch supports it for headphones (Battlefront is Home Cinema only).

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Star Wars Battlefield. I forget, but it either has Dolby ATMOS or DTS:X headphone.

Like, almost all games support one form of 5.1/7.1 home theater surround or another, which is why I backed the Smyth Realiser A16 project on Kickstarter, but hopefully more games (and movies, why not) get binaural support and true 3D positioning for headphones.

Battlefront only has Atmos to the receiver and not the same plugin like Overwatch, though with the Realiser A16 you could make very good use of it. 

studiosound said:

   
SBX is acting as a spatializer when set like this. It's a really good spatializer, but a spatializer nonetheless.
A game can't send 5.1/7.1 audio to a stereo device. The Windows device settings override anything that a game can do.
Your video doesn't sound like proper 7.1 SBX Surround at all.

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I'm sorry, but if SBX Surround is generating a completely different sound on that fire crackling from the front vs the back, it is somehow getting the 7.1 information. When SBX is off there is no distinction. I don't know what you mean by "proper", but if you're on Windows 10, can you record for me a scene similar to that in BF4 with proper SBX Surround so that we can compare it?
 
To make it even more certain that SBX Surround is getting 7.1 information even as a 2.0 device I tested it with a 7.1 speaker test sound file on Foobar2000 and there is a clear distinction between the front speaker testing and the back speakers. When SBX is off, the front and back sound exactly the same.
If you don't believe me try it for yourself. This might be some new Windows 10 sound API changes.
EDIT: You can test it on Foobar2000 or any other surround capable player with this file: http://samplemedia.linaro.org/Audio/multi-channel/Nums_7dot1_24_48000.wav

yethal said:

  Technology You're referring to is called Dolby Atmos and currently only Overwatch supports it for headphones (Battlefront is Home Cinema only).

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Ah, I was not aware that Battlefront was only available for Home Theater setups. I don't have either game.
 

evshrug said:

Yes, thanks for pointing it out but I already know this. I suppose I was just saying that I hoped X-Fi MB3 was grabbing the audio before Windows/Microsoft got its grubby hands on it, like ASIO and WASAPI do, but I guess there still (mostly) hasn't been a solution since Vista changed the audio stack.

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I believe OpenAL can do this, but it's not something that many games support.
5.1 or 7.1 mixed for headphones can still sound really good though.
 

blueninja0 said:

  I'm sorry, but if SBX Surround is generating a completely different sound on that fire crackling from the front vs the back, it is somehow getting the 7.1 information.

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The game can't send 7.1 information to a stereo device. It's as simple as that.
Just because it sounds different (because it's being processed by SBX Surround) does not mean that it's receiving 7.1 information from the game.
 
There are two things to try:
1. Enable SBX Surround in MB3, and watch your "SBX Off" video.
2. Set things up so that it's using your Realtek hardware as the playback device, with the X-Fi MB3 device set to 7.1. Either connect your headphones to the Realtek output or use the "Listen to this device" option on Realtek's "Stereo Mix" recording device to forward that audio to your ODAC. This will let you hear what real 7.1 SBX Surround sounds like.

studiosound said:

   
The game can't send 7.1 information to a stereo device. It's as simple as that.
Just because it sounds different (because it's being processed by SBX Surround) does not mean that it's receiving 7.1 information from the game.
 
There are two things to try:
1. Enable SBX Surround in MB3, and watch your "SBX Off" video.
2. Set things up so that it's using your Realtek hardware as the playback device, with the X-Fi MB3 device set to 7.1. Either connect your headphones to the Realtek output or use the "Listen to this device" option on Realtek's "Stereo Mix" recording device to forward that audio to your ODAC. This will let you hear what real 7.1 SBX Surround sounds like.

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You're right, it sounds different. But I still stand that there is a back/front difference on the sound I recorded and on the tests I made, but I found out why. Apparently, when you're outputting rear speaker channels to a Windows configured for 2.0, the Windows's DSP applies a subtle filter to the rear speakers that make them sound different from the front channels. That's the explanation as to why there was a difference even when outputting to the ODAC.
You can test this easily on Foobar2000 with a multi-channel audio sample like this and using the "move stereo to rear speakers" DSP (ofc disable any virtualization). Theoretically it should sound the exact same on a 2.0 device, but Windows makes it sounds different.
 
Now to make it work properly... I guess I'll try to route the audio through a 7.1 virtual audio cable. Anyone tried that here?
 
 
EDIT: aaaand apparently the virtual audio cable is not detected by MB3 for some reason.... sigh... I'm running out of options.

blueninja0 said:

There is a clear distinction from sounds coming from the front vs the back. The MB3 application is clearly getting the 7.1 channels somehow. I'll record a video to show you guys later. I also thought it would not work.

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X-fi MB3 does capture 7.1. It's just not AS effective when you have both speaker out AND mb3 enabled in sound properties.

I must say, I forgot that I bought this long time ago and I decided to look through my old email again and I still had th email for product key. Installed, set sorround to maximum on mb3 software, set my realtek software to 7.1 and I must say this virtual sorround is very effective for directional audio and positioning. This is what gaming is all about!

Oops, I meant it is more effective when you have BOTH xfi speakers and normal realtek speakers enabled in sound properties opposed to just having xfi enabled and all others disabled.

searchofsub said:

Oops, I meant it is more effective when you have BOTH xfi speakers and normal realtek speakers enabled in sound properties opposed to just having xfi enabled and all others disabled.

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I dont get it. Are you supposed to disable sound devices? I never did that.

blueninja0 said:

I dont get it. Are you supposed to disable sound devices? I never did that.

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I went back to re-read the initial post and it seems I have misinterpreted your initial post. I meant I was getting 7.1 sound through my internal motherboard sound card (through headphone jack on my PC) using MB3 software. If I disble my realtek drivers and use speaker out MB3 as default sound device, It would still give me 7.1 sound but not as directional if I were to just leave both driver enabled (default windows setting) vs. disabling one or the other. I would still get sound though. I have not tried outputting through a seperate external dac/amp.

searchofsub said:

I went back to re-read the initial post and it seems I have misinterpreted your initial post. I meant I was getting 7.1 sound through my internal motherboard sound card (through headphone jack on my PC) using MB3 software. If I disble my realtek drivers and use speaker out MB3 as default sound device, It would still give me 7.1 sound but not as directional if I were to just leave both driver enabled (default windows setting) vs. disabling one or the other. I would still get sound though. I have not tried outputting through a seperate external dac/amp.

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Did you check that the MB3 X-Fi device was still able to be configured as 7.1 in both instances? That's probably what caused things to sound different.

What do people think of the new Sennheiser GSX 1000 and GSX 1200? They're new amps/dacs/soundcards (I don't know this stuff well) with Sennheiser's own in-house developed surround engine.
I have an Astro MixAmp from my console days which I have used with stereo since my motherboard doesn't support Dolby surround and I don't have a soundcard that does either.
But with the GSX 1000 and GSX 1200 I can set it up as a surround sound soundcard and get 7.1 without needing a motherboard or soundcard that has to deliver 5.1/7.1 to it.
 
I don't know what else does this, there's so many DAC's, amp's, soundcards, or combinations of them in one unit, some that natively support 7.1 or need something else to deliver 5.1/7.1 to it first.
I haven't been able to even begin to figure out what my options are.
 
At this point it's looking like I'm just going to get one of these Sennheiser things because I already have headphones from them and have faith in them as a company lol.
The GSX 1000 and 1200 appear to do everything I need, I just don't have a clue if Sennheiser's surround is going to be as good as Creative's or Dolby Headphone.
The only other thing that has caught my eye is the SoundBlaster G5
 
I don't really want an internal soundcard if I don't need it, which I don't with this and who knows what else. Too many options.
These Sennheiser amps/dacs/soundcards/whatever also control mic input too which is convenient, my Astro MixAmp does this as well.
 
If anyone has any input or can make the options a little clearer I'd appreciate it. I'd like to get the best thing for my money.
Thanks!
 
Edit: Apparently the new MixAmp TR works the same, and acts as a 5.1 soundcard via USB on PC unlike the old ones which require a soundcard or motherboard that can output Dolby 5.1 over toslink. So I suppose that's a Dolby Headphone option that also functions as a soundcard, amp, and dac all in one.

I guess I'm the only one interested in Sennheiser developing a new binaural audio technology 
I hope it's even better than Creative's SBX. Sennheiser is usually near the best in everything they do, but developing a virtual surround technology is pretty different for them.
I'm cautiously optimistic and eagerly awaiting someone to get their hands on it and record some comparisons.
 
I'll be getting it on release, I'll be surprised if it isn't one of the best. Sennheiser definitely has the R&D department to make something great.
Worst comes to worst I'll return it or sell it and get a Creative Sound Blaster G5 as it looks to be the current best choice.

hunched said:

  I guess I'm the only one interested in Sennheiser developing a new binaural audio technology 

I hope it's even better than Creative's SBX. Sennheiser is usually near the best in everything they do, but developing a virtual surround technology is pretty different for them.
I'm cautiously optimistic and eagerly awaiting someone to get their hands on it and record some comparisons.
 
I'll be getting it on release, I'll be surprised if it isn't one of the best. Sennheiser definitely has the R&D department to make something great.
Worst comes to worst I'll return it or sell it and get a Creative Sound Blaster G5 as it looks to be the current best choice.

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It is interesting ofc. But at the moment, knowing that virtual surround is entirely possible in software without any noticeable latency, I'll shun all proprietary developments that locks us to their products. Luckily the latest developments in Virtual Reality audio might save us from this mess.

blueninja0 said:

   
It is interesting ofc. But at the moment, knowing that virtual surround is entirely possible in software without any noticeable latency, I'll shun all proprietary developments that locks us to their products. Luckily the latest developments in Virtual Reality audio might save us from this mess.

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Are we sure the latency isn't worse? I haven't looked too much into this stuff.
I know of Creative X-Fi MB3, Razer Surround, and the Out of Your Head thing. Razer Surround is bad.
 
I'm okay with physical products. The Sennheiser GSX 1000 & GSX 1200 are dac/amps that also function as external soundcards that are guaranteed to work. It does everything in one unit.
With the software route, you have to deal with their garbage software and should have a DAC and probably an amp anyway or it won't sound as good.
 
I can't say I'm too happy with how the whole gaming audio situation either. How every technology is just some software/drivers that could run on basically everything but is locked and licensed.
There's a pretty famous Techpowerup thread about unlocking Realtek drivers for Dolby support, but I can't be bothered.
 
I'm not too optimistic about VR audio developments fixing all or most future games. These solutions are far more universal and will probably remain so for a long time.

hunched said:

  Are we sure the latency isn't worse?

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I haven't measured them scientifically but Razer Surround had horrible latency when I tested it (it was months ago though) whereas Creative X-Fi MB3 added no lag that I could detect.
 
Sure, if you also need a DAC and amp it might suit you, but for example, I alread had an O2+ODAC external amp + DAC and I wanted to benefit from virtual surround, which I couldn't because it was locked to vendor hardware, even though the signal is probably processed in software anyway, in the drivers. It's a bit sad.
 
If you end up getting the Sennheiser make sure to share your finds here!