Forgive me if im mistaken but i dont believe there are any pc games that support dolby digital and dts formats. When will pc games start utilizing this? I think surround sound like 5.1 and 7.1 are a big part of gaming these days with consoles like 360 and ps3 supporting them, it makes gaming that much better. I cant count how many times my onkyo 7.1 system has saved me from being snuck up behind by an enemy locust in gears of war and being blown to bits by their shotgun. And IF pc games do start coming out with dolby digital, will you need a standalone sound card to process it to a home theater receiver or would onboard sound with digital optical out suffice?
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games supporting DD, DTS etc.
- Thread starter moto316
- Start date
Spliter Cell DA uses Dolby Digital Live. according to the audio requirments.
Sound Card: DirectX® 9.0c-compatible (EAX" recommended) - PC audio solution containing Dolby® Digital Live required for Dolby Digital audio.
Alot of newer soundcard have these technologies perhaps some game makers are picking up on this.
Sound Card: DirectX® 9.0c-compatible (EAX" recommended) - PC audio solution containing Dolby® Digital Live required for Dolby Digital audio.
Alot of newer soundcard have these technologies perhaps some game makers are picking up on this.
Audio in PC games can actually be better than "Dolby Digital" console games because:
A) No encoding latency or lossy compression when output remains analog. Dolby Digital and DTS encoding are both lossy, the former being somewhat more lossy than the latter.
B) Support for hardware-accelerated effects extensions (EAX) in some instances.
C) Capability to globally perform Dolby Digital or DTS encoding with certain cards if the user chooses.
A) No encoding latency or lossy compression when output remains analog. Dolby Digital and DTS encoding are both lossy, the former being somewhat more lossy than the latter.
B) Support for hardware-accelerated effects extensions (EAX) in some instances.
C) Capability to globally perform Dolby Digital or DTS encoding with certain cards if the user chooses.
i believe dolby digital live and that eax bullshit only supports 2.0 or 2.1 audio, not 5.1 surround sound, i want to know if there is a game out there that feeds audio to where the source is coming from, for example, somebodies is running up to me from behind, i should hear their footsteps from my back speakers.
You just defned "surround sound". All PC games that support surround mix audio in a discrete fashion via their respective APIs.
In fact, the audio API in Windows Vista is the exact same as the audio API used for the X360 (X3DAudio with the XACT toolkit). Games ported to and fro should be processed identically in Windows Vista, and extremely similarly in Windows XP via the DirectSound3D subset.
EAX has nothing to do with Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Live or "5.1" surround sound in general. With some cards, you can encode a 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS signal from all channels after performing EAX processing. Dolby Digital Live supports up to 5.1 audio.
In fact, the audio API in Windows Vista is the exact same as the audio API used for the X360 (X3DAudio with the XACT toolkit). Games ported to and fro should be processed identically in Windows Vista, and extremely similarly in Windows XP via the DirectSound3D subset.
EAX has nothing to do with Dolby Digital, Dolby Digital Live or "5.1" surround sound in general. With some cards, you can encode a 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS signal from all channels after performing EAX processing. Dolby Digital Live supports up to 5.1 audio.
Put the crack pipe down and slowly walk away...
Dobly Digital Live takes 5.1 PCM material and compresses it into 5.1 ac3 (dolby digital). Dolby Digital (.ac3) is an audio codec just like .mp3, .wav, etc. It has nothing to do with the amount of channels a game supports (all codecs can be multichannel).
EAX is a reverb layer that sits ontop of a DirectSound3D or OpenAL API. The API itself supports the amount of audio channels in a game (like 5.1 or 2.0). EAX just adds reverb effects.
No. Being Dolby Digital "certified" IIRC means a game uses .ac3 as its codec (ie: Half-Life 2 uses .mp3 as its codec, others use OggVorbis, etc).
Read the audio requirments for Splinter Cell DA. I posted them. That game requires a soundcard with Dolby Digital Live to use Dolby Digital. Saying NO PC game uses it is kinda strange when this game asks for a card with that support. Unless I am misunderstanding something.
The requirements don't make much sense, because sound cards that support Dolby Digital Live support it globally. The processor simply encodes the final mix of the six channels into a multi-channel AC3 stream. It's possible the game has the capability to "switch" DDL on in some way, but more than likely, they're using a blanket statement. The game supports DDL, so if you have a DDL-capable card, you'll get Dolby Digital output. The same is actually true of any other game, including ancient games that don't even support surround sound in any way (the encoder should encode six channels, only two of which containing any real information). So, it seems like their requirements don't actually mean anything.
Well I suppose you can look at it like that. If the game knows there is that hardware there it could take advantage of it. If you know what I mean. A DD Live card will encode the audio for better or worse, if the game is designed to use this hardware it could make it sound very good. What you said though about It "switching" the audio on, I would think it would output audio that is designed to take advatage of this possibly. I am just guesing from the info..
There is no way to design a game for DDL. All it does is encode 5.1 PCM audio into 5.1 ac3 audio. How does a game developer optimize for that?
Which is correct. They don't want to confuse users that just because a game uses the .ac3 codec, the audio can now simply be passed through to a receiver and then decoded. A DDL card is still needed for this to happen.
I don't think that's possible, no. I highly doubt the game even has the capability to interface with compatible cards at all, and the manual probably states something about enabling DDL in the card control panel prior to playing. So, the potential interaction between the game itself and DDL is zero if this assumption is accurate.
You could attempt to optimize for the behavior of the encoder before final mixing (loudness EQ, perhaps), but Dolby Digital is fairly linear anyway. And, because the game probably has no clue what system is using DDL and what isn't, the optimizations would be the same for everyone.
My guess is that Ubisoft just wanted to have a nice piece of brand familiarity on the box and not much more.
alg7_munif
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Actually the game sound is already optimized for DD encoding because the game is a multiplatform game so the audio is designed to give a good surround sound without EAX effects and the discreet channels are created in a way that the sound will be encoded to DD on consoles.
Hehehe!
alg7_munif
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I looked up for GRAW's requirement and found out this. I doesn't say anything about EAX is recommended but it mentioned something about DDL. Since I have GRAW and I have both cards X-Fi and X-Meridian, I load the game to see if there is any difference if I use X-Fi as my primary card and then I use X-Meridian as my primary card. I checked the audio setting and got this. My X-Meridian is only recognized as "Generic Hardware" in the game but the X-Fi is recognized as X-Fi. Is there something wrong with my X-Fi because I can only enable EAX feature with my X-Meridian???
Edit: Nevermind, I forgot that I left my X-Fi in entertainment mode, I tried it again with game mode and I can get the EAX effects, lol.
Edit: Nevermind, I forgot that I left my X-Fi in entertainment mode, I tried it again with game mode and I can get the EAX effects, lol.
The channels are discrete already, and EAX has really nothing to do with the surround mixing process (although reverberations will typically decay across the entire 5.1 spectrum).
I don't know what you may mean by "created in a way that the sound will be encoded".
alg7_munif
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It means that the game will be available on consoles so the developers should have considered the lossy compression and the surround algorithm of DD.
All games have lossy compression, just most don't use ac3. Having uncompressed audio would take way too much space (and the end user wouldn't even notice the difference).
so what are your guys' setups consist of to enable you to experience 5.1 surround sound? by that i mean when somebody in the game is speaking to you, it comes from the center speaker, the bass comes from the sub, the effects and explosions come out the right speakers pertaining to where your character is facing in the game, i want to know what sound card your using, if its hooked up by optical or analog and if your using a home theater receiver also
????
You use anything, connect it with all the right cables, and set windows to 5.1. IDK what the big deal is?