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Reply 40 of 80, by Stretch

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Yes, the Gamecube used Prologic II. That is why the Dolphin emulator utilizes the Foobar2000 FreeSurround plugin for Dolby up-mixing.

Win 11 - Intel i7-1360p - 32 GB - Intel Iris Xe - Sound BlasterX G5

Reply 41 of 80, by Desomondo

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kolderman wrote on 2022-09-12, 03:04:

Is there a reason surround sound depends on environment extensions?

I think in this case it's because the only other option besides EAX 1, 2 or 3, is "Miles Fast 2D Positional Audio". I've noticed that lots of older games only offer options for standard DirectSound (2D), A3D and EAX, the later of which, if I understand it correctly, requires DirectSound3D to operate. Correct me if I'm wrong, but Infinity Ward could have offered a generic DirectSound3D option - plenty of other games do - they just didn't in this case.

Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-09-12, 06:26:

Just to be safe, could you test Gunman Chronicles one more time?

Ok, I retested both Gunman Chronicles and Half-life and now I'm really confused. In both games, most of the time I hear nothing from the center channel, no NPC voices, gunfire, doors opening, steam pipes hissing, etc. but occasionally I do hear something. I think it's reverb! When I'm in a particularly claustrophobic area of a map with narrow walls, low ceilings, etc, I can hear the echoes of dialogue and sound effects coming through all five speakers including the center. It's really easy to tell in Half-Life by running through the Hazard Course - instant reverb coming through all speakers including the center. If you start the main game proper however, the center speaker doesn't make a peep through the whole tram ride! I still think both games are quad-channel - actual positional audio cues are limited to only four speakers - but stuff is heard from the center channel... so I don't know. I also retested SiN and Heretic II as well, playing throught the opening level of each, and the center channel was completely silent for both games.

Do you have a copy of Half-Life and / or Gunman to check for yourself? I'm really curious to know if you hear the same thing since you've got a similar setup. I tried a second set of 5.1 speakers just in case and the behavior was the same, but both are Logitech's so maybe it's a quirk. Or maybe it's the drivers doing something weird with EAX. Who knows...

Win98: PII 400 | 440BX | Voodoo3 | Live + SB16
WinME: P4 HT 641 | 865G | Geforce4 Ti4400 | Audigy2ZS
WinXP: C2 Q9400 | G41 | Geforce GTX 280 | X-Fi
Win7: i7 2600K | P67 | Geforce GTX 980ti | X-Fi
Win10: R7 5800X | X570 | Radeon RX 6800 | X-Fi Titanium

Reply 42 of 80, by Joseph_Joestar

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Desomondo wrote on 2022-09-13, 02:08:

Do you have a copy of Half-Life and / or Gunman to check for yourself? I'm really curious to know if you hear the same thing since you've got a similar setup.

I do have the retail CD version of Half-Life, and I might be able to do some testing over the weekend.

For reference, I'm using a set of Logitech X-530 speakers with my Audigy.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 43 of 80, by Desomondo

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Cool. I’d be interested to know if you experience the same behavior. I’ve got a set of Logitech X-540’s and Z906’s for comparison.

I’ve pretty much gone through all the CD based games I have (at least those you hadn’t listed yourself) that are supposed to have some sort of surround sound. All the newer games I have are on DVDs and I don’t have a DVD player in this PC. The last two I tried today were a bust: I couldn’t get Command & Conquer: Renegade to even launch on this machine – no idea way – and The Wheel of Time gave me only stereo sound regardless of the advanced audio options selected, dispute running on the Unreal Engine. If I accidentally stumble upon some more while gaming I'll let you know.

Win98: PII 400 | 440BX | Voodoo3 | Live + SB16
WinME: P4 HT 641 | 865G | Geforce4 Ti4400 | Audigy2ZS
WinXP: C2 Q9400 | G41 | Geforce GTX 280 | X-Fi
Win7: i7 2600K | P67 | Geforce GTX 980ti | X-Fi
Win10: R7 5800X | X570 | Radeon RX 6800 | X-Fi Titanium

Reply 44 of 80, by Joseph_Joestar

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Desomondo wrote on 2022-09-14, 03:11:

Cool. I’d be interested to know if you experience the same behavior.

I tested Half-Life + patch 1.1.1.0 today and I can confirm your findings. The game uses 4 speakers normally, but the center speaker does become active when reverb/echo effects are present.

I guess that technically counts as 5.1 surround, though I do wonder why they chose not to use the center speaker for playing NPC speech, as is the norm.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 45 of 80, by Desomondo

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Thanks for doing that. I'm glad it's not just my system. It's certainly an... interesting design choice.

I reinstalled Windows and retried a couple of games that I wasn't able to run last time. This time they worked... go figure:

Command & Conquer: Renegade - supports at least 5.1 surround. Select "Surround Sound" in the audio options. It doesn't seem to matter which audio API you select - even Miles 2D works here.

Kiss: Psycho Circus: The Nightmare Child - supports at least 5.1 surround. Select the "DirectSound 3D Hardware" option in the audio menu.

Win98: PII 400 | 440BX | Voodoo3 | Live + SB16
WinME: P4 HT 641 | 865G | Geforce4 Ti4400 | Audigy2ZS
WinXP: C2 Q9400 | G41 | Geforce GTX 280 | X-Fi
Win7: i7 2600K | P67 | Geforce GTX 980ti | X-Fi
Win10: R7 5800X | X570 | Radeon RX 6800 | X-Fi Titanium

Reply 46 of 80, by Joseph_Joestar

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Desomondo wrote on 2022-09-19, 02:25:

Thanks for doing that. I'm glad it's not just my system. It's certainly an... interesting design choice.

I imagine there could be more games from that time period which use an odd surround implementation. It probably took developers some time to conform to the newly emerging sound standards in PC gaming. Some obviously did a better job than others e.g. the folks behind Unreal and Thief were way ahead of the curve.

I reinstalled Windows and retried a couple of games that I wasn't able to run last time. This time they worked... go figure:

Thanks! Added those as well.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 47 of 80, by Desomondo

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I dug out another sound card I had lying around, an AOpen Cobra AW744L II (Yamaha DS-XG), which supports Sensaura, and tried out a couple more games. It only supports 4 speaker output but it's better than my gimped Vortex 2 which is only stereo! The speaker fill option "Special 4ch" has been disabled in the Yamaha Audio Config panel.

Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II - supports at least 4 speakers. Enable A3d in the sound menu. Unlike with the Audigy this time I could hear audio in the rear speakers!

MDK - supports at least 4 speakers. Requires an A3D patch (I used the combined D3D+A3D patch), then enable 3D sound in the Sound menu in-game. With the Audigy all sound was missing.

Win98: PII 400 | 440BX | Voodoo3 | Live + SB16
WinME: P4 HT 641 | 865G | Geforce4 Ti4400 | Audigy2ZS
WinXP: C2 Q9400 | G41 | Geforce GTX 280 | X-Fi
Win7: i7 2600K | P67 | Geforce GTX 980ti | X-Fi
Win10: R7 5800X | X570 | Radeon RX 6800 | X-Fi Titanium

Reply 48 of 80, by Joseph_Joestar

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Desomondo wrote on 2022-09-22, 02:55:

I dug out another sound card I had lying around, an AOpen Cobra AW744L II (Yamaha DS-XG), which supports Sensaura, and tried out a couple more games. It only supports 4 speaker output but it's better than my gimped Vortex 2 which is only stereo!

That's a very nice card indeed! I have a similar one but it's currently sitting in storage. I do remember testing its 4 speaker support some time ago and it worked well enough.

Star Wars: Jedi Knight: Dark Forces II - supports at least 4 speakers. Enable A3d in the sound menu. Unlike with the Audigy this time I could hear audio in the rear speakers!

Very interesting. Technically, one would expect this to work on the Audigy as well since its drivers do support A3D 1.0, but I guess Creative messed up somewhere. Oddly, the PC Gaming Wiki mentions 7.0 surround, but only when using software solutions like Alchemy or DSOAL. I'm not sure if it's possible to achieve more than 4.0 in this game when using actual retro hardware and Win9x.

MDK - supports at least 4 speakers. Requires an A3D patch (I used the combined D3D+A3D patch), then enable 3D sound in the Sound menu in-game. With the Audigy all sound was missing.

Nice! Another point for Sensaura/A3D it seems.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 49 of 80, by Desomondo

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-09-22, 06:26:

That's a very nice card indeed! I have a similar one but it's currently sitting in storage. I do remember testing its 4 speaker support some time ago and it worked well enough.

It's definitely a cool little all-rounder feature wise. Unfortunately I had a pretty bad experience with it overall. Mine seems quite temperamental, at least in this system, with lots of crashes and BSODs. It would lockup every single time I tried using it's SB Pro emulation in Windows regardless of PCI slot or configured resources. It assigns the same IRQ to the emulated SB Pro as the card itself which doesn't seem right, at least compared to how all my other PCI soundcards do it. The computer wouldn't shutdown cleanly sometimes with it installed, and the sound quality overall was a little lacking and muffled compared to the Live, Audigy or Vortex cards. In the end I pulled it and went back to the ZS. I've got a cheap Vortex Advantage SQ1500 card, with rear speaker jacks, on order. If it all works out, I'll probably switch over to that for all my A3D 1.0 needs from now on.

Anyways, I tried out a few more games over the weekend and found two with surround sound support:

Duke Nukem: Manhattan Project – supports at least 5.1 surround. Make sure to deselect the “Disable Hardware 3D Sound” option in the Advanced Settings in the external Quick Setup menu which is enabled by default.

Tribes: Vengeance – supports at least 5.1 surround. Enable “3D Sound” in the in-game audio options. Unfortunately it disables all music playback when enabled and the 3D sound positioning seems a little mis-calibrated, like the center point of origin for player generated sounds is slightly behind the player. The player’s gun fire sounds come from the rear speakers for example.

Win98: PII 400 | 440BX | Voodoo3 | Live + SB16
WinME: P4 HT 641 | 865G | Geforce4 Ti4400 | Audigy2ZS
WinXP: C2 Q9400 | G41 | Geforce GTX 280 | X-Fi
Win7: i7 2600K | P67 | Geforce GTX 980ti | X-Fi
Win10: R7 5800X | X570 | Radeon RX 6800 | X-Fi Titanium

Reply 50 of 80, by Joseph_Joestar

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Desomondo wrote on 2022-09-26, 03:07:

It's definitely a cool little all-rounder feature wise. Unfortunately I had a pretty bad experience with it overall. Mine seems quite temperamental, at least in this system, with lots of crashes and BSODs. It would lockup every single time I tried using it's SB Pro emulation in Windows regardless of PCI slot or configured resources. It assigns the same IRQ to the emulated SB Pro as the card itself which doesn't seem right, at least compared to how all my other PCI soundcards do it. The computer wouldn't shutdown cleanly sometimes with it installed, and the sound quality overall was a little lacking and muffled compared to the Live, Audigy or Vortex cards.

Yeah, DOS compatibility with these cards tends to vary depending on the motherboard (or rather the chipset) that it's paired with. I found that mine worked perfectly on a 440ZX chipset when connected via SB-Link, but that's kind of an edge case.

I can also confirm the muffled 3D sound issue, it's very evident in Thief for example. You can tweak this a tiny bit using updated Sensaura drivers, but that only helps so much. This is the reason why my card is sitting in storage and only gets pulled out when I need to record OPL3 or YamahaXG music via SPDIF.

Anyways, I tried out a few more games over the weekend and found two with surround sound support:

Added, thanks! The PC Gaming Wiki lists both as supporting 7.0 so I went with that.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 51 of 80, by Joseph_Joestar

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I tested two more games today - Red Faction and Daikatana. Red Faction delivers 5.1 surround sound on my system, though the PC Gaming Wiki has it listed as 7.0 so I'll defer to that.

On the other hand, I could only get stereo sound from Daikatana. Maybe someone else will have better luck with that game.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 53 of 80, by Joseph_Joestar

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Meatball wrote on 2022-10-05, 12:23:

‘Star Wars: Rogue Squadron 3D’ has native 4 speaker surround support.

Added, thanks!

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 54 of 80, by GL1zdA

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As far as I understand, all games using DirectSound3D for audio will be surround capable. Here's a list of DirectSound3D games:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SyOw7D0H2 … kI-gVTpyhc/edit
Same for OpenAL, unless it ends up in SDL:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j7hqIk0Lz … RRVsnGpLCE/edit

Also, please add specific versions to your list. Unreal changed its sound subsystem considerably between patches, and what works in 226f might not be true for previous versions.

getquake.gif | InfoWorld/PC Magazine Indices

Reply 55 of 80, by Joseph_Joestar

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GL1zdA wrote on 2022-10-07, 08:59:
As far as I understand, all games using DirectSound3D for audio will be surround capable. Here's a list of DirectSound3D games: […]
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As far as I understand, all games using DirectSound3D for audio will be surround capable. Here's a list of DirectSound3D games:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1SyOw7D0H2 … kI-gVTpyhc/edit
Same for OpenAL, unless it ends up in SDL:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1j7hqIk0Lz … RRVsnGpLCE/edit

Cheers, I'll take a look at those and see if I can add some of them to the list.

Also, please add specific versions to your list. Unreal changed its sound subsystem considerably between patches, and what works in 226f might not be true for previous versions.

Unless otherwise stated, all the games that I personally tested were using the latest official patch that can be applied on Win98.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 56 of 80, by Desomondo

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Joseph_Joestar wrote on 2022-10-02, 17:30:

I could only get stereo sound from Daikatana. Maybe someone else will have better luck with that game.

I tried out Daikatana too. Like you I could only hear stereo sound with the Audigy. Strange since the readme says it supports EAX and A3D. When I get a chance I'll try testing it with the Yamaha and see if that makes any difference.

I'd did quickly test two more games however:

Messiah - supports at least 5.1 surround. Retail release, no patch required. Enable A3D or EAX / DS3D in-game.

Serious Sam - supports at least 5.1 surround. Retail release, no patch required. Enable EAX in-game.

Win98: PII 400 | 440BX | Voodoo3 | Live + SB16
WinME: P4 HT 641 | 865G | Geforce4 Ti4400 | Audigy2ZS
WinXP: C2 Q9400 | G41 | Geforce GTX 280 | X-Fi
Win7: i7 2600K | P67 | Geforce GTX 980ti | X-Fi
Win10: R7 5800X | X570 | Radeon RX 6800 | X-Fi Titanium

Reply 57 of 80, by Joseph_Joestar

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Desomondo wrote on 2022-10-08, 03:00:

I tried out Daikatana too. Like you I could only hear stereo sound with the Audigy. Strange since the readme says it supports EAX and A3D. When I get a chance I'll try testing it with the Yamaha and see if that makes any difference.

I found a forum post claiming that Daikatana's surround support was dropped during development. It doesn't cite any sources, so I'm not sure how accurate that is.

Messiah - supports at least 5.1 surround. Retail release, no patch required. Enable A3D or EAX / DS3D in-game.

Serious Sam - supports at least 5.1 surround. Retail release, no patch required. Enable EAX in-game.

Thanks! Added both.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 58 of 80, by Joseph_Joestar

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I was testing the original 1999 release of Homeworld today and I decided to check for surround sound support. Unfortunately, I couldn't get it to trigger on my system, the sound only played back in stereo for me.

The PC Gaming Wiki indicates that this game should have up to 7.0 surround sound. Maybe there's something specific that needs to be done in order to enable it? Someone else might have better luck.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi

Reply 59 of 80, by Joseph_Joestar

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Just tested Moto Racer 2. This game got 3D sound support with patch 1.34. On my system, it delivers full 5.1 surround sound. The 3D sound option must be enabled for this to work.

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The next game in the series, Moto Racer 3, also has at least 5.1 surround sound support.

PC#1: Pentium MMX 166 / Soyo SY-5BT / S3 Trio64V+ / Voodoo1 / YMF719 / AWE64 Gold / SC-155
PC#2: AthlonXP 2100+ / ECS K7VTA3 / Voodoo3 / Audigy2 / Vortex2
PC#3: Athlon64 3400+ / Asus K8V-MX / 5900XT / Audigy2
PC#4: i5-3570K / MSI Z77A-G43 / GTX 970 / X-Fi