[BlueNinja0]

   
Games (FPS in particular) already generate spacial information and that's been true since the very beginning of competitive gaming.  Are you really going to tell me that no one has been able to hear front/rear sound for the past 15 years?  That's a little ridiculous.  I'll grant you that virtual surround is more detailed and convincing, that's what I was talking about with the immersion aspect in my last post.  The point I was making is that in a *competitive* game immersion doesn't matter, all that matters is getting the information as quickly and simply as possible and the headphone setting is vastly superior to virtual surround in that regard.

 
I was not speaking strictly about competitive positioning. And I understand Virtual Surround is a trick and sound positioning is just a constructed brain perception. That is not what I was discussing.
You seem to generalize that all FPS game's headphone settings is superior. That is incorrect. Even though some games indeed offer some front/back cues with that setting, that's certainly not the rule. Many games just use the headphone setting to compress the dynamic range of the sound output considering that headphones are of lesser capacity than speakers. Try a game like Battlefield 4 and set a sound to happen at the exact same distance in front of you, then behind you, and you'll hear no difference, no matter the sound setting. Same applies to vertical positioning. Some games do, others don't. It's not a rule and it depends on the audio engine used and if they have HRTF functions applied to the Headphone setting. Others just use a simple volume filter that lowers sounds from the back slightly, which obviously provides no positional cue.
 
I'll not comment on the strategical aspect of sound you discussed because it's beyond what I wanted to point out and I usually don't play FPS competitively. Others might want to chime in.

 

[Aithos]

   
I was not speaking strictly about competitive positioning. And I understand Virtual Surround is a trick and sound positioning is just a constructed brain perception. That is not what I was discussing.
You seem to generalize that all FPS game's headphone settings is superior. That is incorrect. Even though some games indeed offer some front/back cues with that setting, that's certainly not the rule. Many games just use the headphone setting to compress the dynamic range of the sound output considering that headphones are of lesser capacity than speakers. Try a game like Battlefield 4 and set a sound to happen at the exact same distance in front of you, then behind you, and you'll hear no difference, no matter the sound setting. Same applies to vertical positioning. Some games do, others don't. It's not a rule and it depends on the audio engine used and if they have HRTF functions applied to the Headphone setting. Others just use a simple volume filter that lowers sounds from the back slightly, which obviously provides no positional cue.
 
I'll not comment on the strategical aspect of sound you discussed because it's beyond what I wanted to point out and I usually don't play FPS competitively. Others might want to chime in.

 
Well my entire post was specifically about competitive games, because that's what people are asking about.  I thought I pretty clearly said that if you want to play games for fun or casually then you can do what you want (I wasn't commenting on that), but if you want to play competitively then what I'm talking about applies because it's all fundamentals of competitive FPS games.
 
I haven't played every FPS game out there but I've played several games in most of the "modern" style FPS games (CS, Battlefield, CoD, etc) and I've never noticed a single one where you couldn't tell if something was ahead or behind you.  I'm pretty sensitive to audio and I'm confident in saying that I would have noticed and it would have driven me nuts if that was the case.  
 
I'm not saying that the quality isn't lower, it may be, I'm just saying that there isn't a popular FPS game in the last 10 years that hasn't had basic positional audio even without surround sound.  Don't forget, if you're playing with surround sound and you turn it to a headphone setting that it's going to be so different you may have a hard time interpreting the positional information.  
 
I don't know, maybe I'm just a lot more tuned in to positional audio in games than most people.  I've been playing competitive online FPS games since 1997 so I've got a pretty absurd number of hours into it compared to most gamers, I play both CS:GO and LoL with people who weren't born when I started playing online games...makes me feel old
 
edit: also, I forgot to mention...many games have config settings (console settings) that allow you to tweak the audio settings.  Source engine games included, so if people aren't using a proper config file for their setup that makes a TREMENDOUS difference.  The settings are NOT in the menu and they are not very intuitive, but you can manually adjust how the game handles positional audio.

 

[BlueNinja0]

   
I haven't played every FPS game out there but I've played several games in most of the "modern" style FPS games (CS, Battlefield, CoD, etc) and I've never noticed a single one where you couldn't tell if something was ahead or behind you.  I'm pretty sensitive to audio and I'm confident in saying that I would have noticed and it would have driven me nuts if that was the case.  
 
I'm not saying that the quality isn't lower, it may be, I'm just saying that there isn't a popular FPS game in the last 10 years that hasn't had basic positional audio even without surround sound.  Don't forget, if you're playing with surround sound and you turn it to a headphone setting that it's going to be so different you may have a hard time interpreting the positional information. 

 
I insist that it is not true that most FPS games have front/back up/down positional audio just with the standard Heaphones setting. I remember Left 4 Dead 2 for example, which uses the same audio engine as CS:GO (OpenAL or Miles Sound System), did not have any sound cue with regards to elevation or front/back. You can read some discussion about the engines here: http://www.reddit.com/r/GlobalOffensive/comments/256kgn/can_valve_do_anything_about_csgos_positional/
I also went to the trouble of recording a clip of BF4 with the Headphones setting so that you can listen that there is no vertical or front/back cues (skip to 1:35, didn't bother to crop it, sorry):

Ignore the slight left/right misalignment as my mouse flick was not pixel-perfect.
 
It is possible that you're so used to the maps and enemy behavior that you can deduce where they are with the help of the sound because you're so used to it. There's also a subconscious reflect that happens both in real life as in FPS games of turning your head in-game just so slightly that you can distinguish if a sound is coming from the front/back up/down (left vs right ear). But it is incorrect to state these games have the HRTF functions implemented in game. As you can see from that video as example, it does not.
I don't have CS:GO installed but if you insist that there is HRTF in the CS:GO Headphones setting, I would like to see you post a clip like I did. Not saying you're lying but I'm genuinely curious.

 

[Aithos]

Ok, a couple things.
 
1) I agree that there is a subtle shift between directly in front and turning your head slightly to distinguish sounds, and I never stated that all games implement HRTF.  What I said is that all the games include basic positional audio and that I've never played a game where I couldn't tell if something was in front or behind me.  
 
2) I had no problem distinguishing when the plane was in front of you vs behind, there was a noticeable difference in the volume and it was a pretty clear shift from the top portion of the headphones to the rear.  It was just as easy to distinguish front/rear vs left right based on the balance of sound, when it was in front you could hear from both ears and when it wasn't it was skewed to whichever side you faced.  The one thing that was a little less obvious was behind and to the side, a plane flying isn't nearly as noticeable as gunfire or footsteps so I think that's more environmental than a positional issue but that's just my opinion.
 
The point I've been making the entire time isn't that there is no difference between using virtual surround and headphones, and it isn't that all games have the same types of audio (positional or otherwise).  The point is that the *ONLY* thing that matter in competitive gaming is information and whether you can process it clearly and quickly.  
 
I agree there is a reflex of turning your head to distinguish positional audio, that's because our ears aren't on the front of our heads they are on the side.  It's completely natural to do that and in competitive games you are going to be doing that to watch different positions ANYWAY.  In any situation where you are relying on audio for information (no visual) there is no penalty for turning your head, in fact you should be doing that because enemies can approach from multiple angles at the same time.
 
I'm not trying to be a pain, I just want you to understand the fundamental mindset difference between what I'm talking about and what you're talking about.  You're looking at it from the perspective of an audio guy and casual gamer.  You *care* about the quality of the sound and the accuracy and the immersion.  
 
I'm looking at it from the perspective of a competitive gamer.  All I care about is whether I can figure out where to shoot, and the answer is overwhelmingly yes even without virtual surround and so there are no positives to it that outweigh the negatives it brings.  That's why I said that *specifically* for competitive gaming you should forget virtual surround and stick with a basic headphone setting.  Leave the fancy stuff for music, movies and single player games...
 
edit: obviously I care about sound quality and all that stuff too, just not when it comes to competitive gaming where my only concern is winning.

 

[BlueNinja0]

I never stated that all games implement HRTF.  What I said is that all the games include basic positional audio and that I've never played a game where I couldn't tell if something was in front or behind me. 

You cannot tell if someone is in front or behind you with sound alone without HRTF. It is literally impossible. A difference in sound from the front vs back is called HRTF.
 

a plane flying

Sorry, I knew I should've cropped the video, but I wrote in my post to skip to 1:35. That's the testing part, with the wreckage and the fire crackling. I'm trying to do the most scientific test the game allows me to do without wasting hours on it to prove you this game has no HRTF. The best method is to test it on a static object. Listen to the 1:35 onwards part. If you tell me there is a difference between front and back on the fire crackling I can export the sound wave to a visualizer and show you they're the same.

 

[Aithos]

  You cannot tell if someone is in front or behind you with sound alone without HRTF. It is literally impossible. A difference in sound from the front vs back is called HRTF.
 
Sorry, I knew I should've cropped the video, but I wrote in my post to skip to 1:35. That's the testing part, with the wreckage and the fire crackling. I'm trying to do the most scientific test the game allows me to do without wasting hours on it to prove you this game has no HRTF. The best method is to test it on a static object. Listen to the 1:35 onwards part. If you tell me there is a difference between front and back on the fire crackling I can export the sound wave to a visualizer and show you they're the same.

 
Ok, I still don't think you get what I'm driving at so let me make this very simple:
 
I don't care about HRTF, I don't care about "scientific", the ONLY thing I care about is what the practical application is and whether you can tell where someone is.  As I said in my very first post - there is basically never a situation where you will be relying on audio with someone directly in front or behind you, so it literally doesn't matter if there is HRTF from a gameplay perspective.  You will always have the information you need to know where people are without it purely based on left/right, what you can see, and what the map (and minimap) looks like.
 
Literally everything in FPS is based on angles, in your video the plane at the beginning is a much more meaningful test of positional audio than the thing with the fire, think about it...what possible situation would you be in where someone is directly in front of you that you can't see AND you can't turn for even a couple milliseconds to get an audio clue?  There isn't one.  Again, I'm ONLY talking about for competitive gaming performance, not for audio quality or experience.

 

[BlueNinja0]

   
Ok, I still don't think you get what I'm driving at so let me make this very simple:
 
I don't care about HRTF, I don't care about "scientific", the ONLY thing I care about is what the practical application is and whether you can tell where someone is.  As I said in my very first post - there is basically never a situation where you will be relying on audio with someone directly in front or behind you, so it literally doesn't matter if there is HRTF from a gameplay perspective.  You will always have the information you need to know where people are without it purely based on left/right, what you can see, and what the map (and minimap) looks like.
 
Literally everything in FPS is based on angles, in your video the plane at the beginning is a much more meaningful test of positional audio than the thing with the fire, think about it...what possible situation would you be in where someone is directly in front of you that you can't see AND you can't turn for even a couple milliseconds to get an audio clue?  There isn't one.  Again, I'm ONLY talking about for competitive gaming performance, not for audio quality or experience.

 
I'm not talking about audio quality, experience, competitiveness or anything in between. You stated most FPS games (including Battlefield) include HRTF in the headphone settings, which is false, and I didn't want to let that pass so that others are not misinformed. That is all.
I understand your competitive view on not relying on HRTF. It is your opinion.

 

[halcyon]

Has anybody tried the Powercolor Devil HDX Sound card based on the CMedia CM8888 chip. It has the standard CMedia Xear 3D (EX). It'd be interesting to hear how it compares in 3D multi-channel sound headphone virtualization to the other offering like SBX Studio Pro. It'd be interesting to hear how it compares in 3D sound positioning accuracy.

 

[Trojita]

  I rewrote the steps into an actual guide. Crosspost from the MLE thread:
 
Here's how to do the handoff of CMSS processed output completely in software:
  Before following this checklist, make sure your current audio device is fully configured for CMSS (Windows configure speakers wizard is done and set to a surround setup, Creative Console speakers set to headphones, CMSS-3D is enabled, Crystalizer is disabled, "Disable Sound Blaster enhancements" under the Sound Blaster tab of your default audio device's properties is unchecked). I like unchecking the sub in the Windows wizard here to create a virtual 5.0 rather than a virtual 5.1 because I think it may help tame the overbearing bass some of you were talking about on the 770 80 ohms. The Beyers are already mashing together the bass output from the other 5 virtual channels into a pair of very bass-capable headphones, do you really need a virtual sub as well? Also, as we all know, subwoofer bass position is something your brain can't pinpoint, so I don't see why you'd want lots of it in your pinpoint accurate virtual surround. I think I remember hearing a noticeable difference with this changed in my limited A-B testing with a ripped BD of Evangellion 1.11 (the last battle scene has explosions and technobabbling jumping ALL over every channel when I listen with my physical 5.1 Acoustic Research HC6, so far it's by far the best test of virtual surround I've tried yet), but I wish I had another pair of Beyers to do a real A-B and not rely on my terrible memory/imagination.
 
1. Right click on your volume tray in Windows 7 and select "Recording devices"
2. Select "What U Hear" and click "Properties" (cringe inducing grammar there Creative)
[Note - you do NOT have to set this as the default recording device]
3. Select the "Listen" tab and check the box marked "Listen to this device"
4. Under the drop down marked "Playback through this device:" select your desired DAC
5. Make sure "Continue running when on battery power" is selected as a software passthrough should have no effect whatsoever on your battery life
6. Select the "Levels" tab and set it to something comfortable, as the volume control for the Creative card's standard output will have no effect on the volume of the software recording device.
7. Enjoy listening to CMSS freed from the noisy and inferior hardware confines of your internal soundcard!
 
In other news, I've been trying to figure out whether I can use the Windows 5.1 balance setting to adjust the virtual surround. It doesn't work in the Creative headphone test, but I think that might just be a recording. If I can use that balance menu to adjust the volume of the virtual surround mix and turn up the rear speakers, that would be really nice. Don't know if that would work in combination with the Creative handoff to another DAC though, even if it did indeed work on the CMSS virtual surround in the first place.

 

So the above guide will enable me to use the X-FI Titanium's CMSS 3d audio processing outputted to an external DAC that will take the all digital signal, process itself, and then send it to an attached amp which sends it to headphones. Anyone here do that? How's the difference in audio quality? Was thinking about doing this and getting Schiit DAC&AMP's or the Grace m9XX.

 

[BlueNinja0]

  So the above guide will enable me to use the X-FI Titanium's CMSS 3d audio processing outputted to an external DAC that will take the all digital signal, process itself, and then send it to an attached amp which sends it to headphones. Anyone here do that? How's the difference in audio quality? Was thinking about doing this and getting Schiit DAC&AMP's or the Grace m9XX.

 
I do it with my old PCI X-Fi XtremeMusic and it works perfectly. The sound quality is exactly the same as if you were using the sound card itself, to my ears (I recommend you configure all devices involved to the same sample rate to avoid Windows having to re-sample the sound, possibly degrading quality or increasing the latency). The only slight change you might notice is a bit of latency. I don't know if it's caused by the processing or by the routing of the sound to the external DAC, but it's only a slight difference. I'm planning to do a test myself and post it on this thread when I get the time: http://forum.symthic.com/battlefield-4-technical-discussion/5855-improving-bf4-s-positional-audio-with-profsave-profile/index14.html#post308859
 
I wish I had a way for it to work without needing to attach the actual sound card in my mobo because realistically it's there doing absolutely nothing. It's just there for the Creative drivers to work, but all the processing is done in software and the card is just consuming power and gathering dust, but oh well.

 

[Senes]

Are we ok to say that :
Soundblaster Xfi MB3 ( http://software.store.creative.com/p/software/sound-blaster-x-fi-mb3 ) ==> Schiit Bifrost optical ==> stax amp ==> SR-507

Will allow me to profit from the "5.1 emulated surround" ?

Also, do you other ways to get "surround" for gaming with a DAC like that ?

 

[BlueNinja0]

  Are we ok to say that :
Soundblaster Xfi MB3 ( http://software.store.creative.com/p/software/sound-blaster-x-fi-mb3 ) ==> Schiit Bifrost optical ==> stax amp ==> SR-507

Will allow me to profit from the "5.1 emulated surround" ?

Also, do you other ways to get "surround" for gaming with a DAC like that ?

 
Digitalninja answered to my post with some info that might be relevant to you.
http://www.head-fi.org/t/593050/the-nameless-guide-to-pc-gaming-audio-with-binaural-headphone-surround-sound/3465#post_12184705
I don't know if the Schiit allows for 5.1 configuration, but if it does, it should work. Please post back your findings. I'm also interested in alternatives.

 

[Senes]

Well, I will only be able to test this next month so... (no money to buy MB3 x) )

However, I do think that if we go through optical and not USB we can get surround in our DAC

Because with USB device we need news drivers for windows that will surpass Creative drivers
And with optical device we do not need news drivers, so every "processing" to the sound can be made, then emitted by the optical output then converted to analog by the DAC

Sorry for the english; i'm freaking sleepy right now

 

[BlueNinja0]

  Well, I will only be able to test this next month so... (no money to buy MB3 x) )

However, I do think that if we go through optical and not USB we can get surround in our DAC

Because with USB device we need news drivers for windows that will surpass Creative drivers
And with optical device we do not need news drivers, so every "processing" to the sound can be made, then emitted by the optical output then converted to analog by the DAC

Sorry for the english; i'm freaking sleepy right now

Makes sense. Looking forward to your findings.

 

[Kenjiwing]

Hey guys... this thread is long as **** and I could really use some guidance. Id like to add Virtual Sound or 3d sound or whatever its called to my setup. The only FPS I play is CS:go so it needs to support that.
 
I currently have
 
nuforce dac (ill replace this with a soundcard) - Little Dot Mk III Amp -- Beyer Dynamics BT 880s and AKG K7XX  - Windows 10
 
I know I will need to add a soundcard for this setup can you recommend one? I also just want to know if I would need anything else.

Thanks!