descent 3 directsound multi channel audio?

[carmatic]

any of you have D3 installed on W7, with a surround sound audio setup ? and using directsound mode , not directsound3d or EAX for those of you using creative soundcards with alchemy

does D3 output to all the channels or is it only stereo?

i only have headphones, just tried SRS audio sandbox and SRS hd audio lab... for some reason, D3 outputs mono when i choose them as my audio devices... and in the case of SRS hd audio lab, it has a horrible limiter effect which brings down the sound level everytime a sound effect plays...

::edit:: turns out that D3 only supports 4 channel audio, and the SRS virtual devices were trying to output 5.1 sound... SRS audio sandbox has a quadrophonic option, but hd audio lab doesnt...it doesnt completely work tho, the rear speakers are in mono

[carmatic]

so im just trying to get positional audio to work in D3 .... i have found 2 options so far,

SRS audio sandbox ....using D3's directsound 4 channel output and using the SRS filter to create virtual surround sound this is basically like a 'virtual sound card' , affects all the sounds on my computer and it makes everything sound really tinny... but it does simulate 5.1 speakers over headphones, but then again D3 only supports 4 channel audio and that seems to break the effect, effectively making it produce distorted stereo....i cant seem to hear the difference between front and back

directsound3d ... using the audio drivers and D3's native direcctsound3d support to create a much more perceptible 3d effect in the sound, i can definitely hear the different between front and back, but the downside is that half the sounds seem to be missing, the most obvious being the flare shooting sound but also things like doors, gyro voices, sickle bot sounds...

[Krom]

You should set your windows speaker configuration to match what you are actually using. So if you have a 5.1 system wired up and are using it out loud set it to 5.1, or if you are using headphones set it to either stereo or headphones. If you have it set to 5.1 but don't actually have a physical 5.1 system properly connected to all the right outputs then all sounds that get played on whatever channels aren't connected will go nowhere. Even if you DO have a 5.1 system, if it isn't connected properly than it will drop sounds, if flare sounds and door sounds are missing its probably the center channel that isn't connected.

It is probably a good idea to test playback of every channel in your windows system and tune your speaker configuration to match what actually works (or properly connect the extra channels if that is an option).

[Foil]

I use D3 with DirectSound3D using Creative's Alchemy drivers for my 5.1 setup in Win7. Works okay.

It takes a while to get used to, because the relative volume of positional sounds can get wacky, but I enjoy it.

[Grendel]

I hated the 3D sound in D3, irritated the heck out of me -- sounds are created stationary, ie. you move away from the laser sounds when shooting while moving. Gives you false position readings for other ships as well.

[carmatic]

I hated the 3D sound in D3, irritated the heck out of me -- sounds are created stationary, ie. you move away from the laser sounds when shooting while moving. Gives you false position readings for other ships as well.

really? i thought only D1 and D2 had static sound, and D3 had proper realtime sound positioning, the door opening/closing sound effects, the long explosions, the Tubbs bots, they all sound like they pan in realtime for me, but then again i have been spending a majority of the time in plain stereo mode...

directsound3d definitely tracked the movement tho, it has a very obvious doppler effect which updates realtime... and it also creates a virtual surround effect on my headphones properly, but too bad so many sounds have their volumes set way low, and things like the sickle bots and the thief are basically silent... its basically broken...

[carmatic]

You should set your windows speaker configuration to match what you are actually using. So if you have a 5.1 system wired up and are using it out loud set it to 5.1, or if you are using headphones set it to either stereo or headphones. If you have it set to 5.1 but don't actually have a physical 5.1 system properly connected to all the right outputs then all sounds that get played on whatever channels aren't connected will go nowhere.

the thing is, if i set my audio to 4-channel, then D3 will have proper positional sound, but if i set it to 5.1, D3 outputs in mono...

[NamelessPFG]

You should set your windows speaker configuration to match what you are actually using. So if you have a 5.1 system wired up and are using it out loud set it to 5.1, or if you are using headphones set it to either stereo or headphones. If you have it set to 5.1 but don't actually have a physical 5.1 system properly connected to all the right outputs then all sounds that get played on whatever channels aren't connected will go nowhere. Even if you DO have a 5.1 system, if it isn't connected properly than it will drop sounds, if flare sounds and door sounds are missing its probably the center channel that isn't connected.

It is probably a good idea to test playback of every channel in your windows system and tune your speaker configuration to match what actually works (or properly connect the extra channels if that is an option).

That is actually a bad idea if you're like me and use CMSS-3D Headphone on X-Fi cards. You have to set the Windows sound control panel to 5.1 or 7.1 and the X-Fi control panel to Headphones for it to work as intended in newer titles with software-mixed audio. Creative actually advises this themselves. (As to why the drivers don't set that up automatically, I have no idea.)

However, in theory, this shouldn't matter for a DirectSound3D game like Descent 3, because it's sending the 3D sound positional data straight to the sound card driver, which then decides where and how to play back the sounds.

As for 5.1, I tested it through Dolby Digital Live from my X-Fi Titanium HD to my SU-DH1 (a Dolby Headphone DSP not much unlike the Astro Mixamp or Turtle Beach Ear Force DSS), and I can tell apart front and rear just fine in Descent 3, suggesting that it works as intended. (Doesn't work as well as CMSS-3D Headphone, though, which presents a more binaural sound space.)

It might be that those SRS applications aren't functioning quite right...or because the OP is using just plain DirectSound and not DirectSound3D wrapped via ALchemy or 3DSoundBack or GX2.5 (Xonar) or so forth.