Small gaming audio analysis I did.

[djoye]

I'm slightly critical when it comes to audio in games and although I can't say I'm well educated on the subject when it comes to the development side, I know what I'm doing when it comes to working with home audio equipment and PC audio cards. Ever since the early-90's I've played my games through at least a big stereo setup and then moved onto a proper surround setup about 6-7 years ago so I feel like I need a loud setup to enjoy a game and I get pissy when a PC game doesn't support at least 7-channel audio, especially big-name titles.

I currently have a 7.1 setup (in sig) for my PC games and have 5.1 at my TV since that room isn't long enough but I don't play my consoles anymore since they're dated so they're not included. All 360 games support 5.1 and I think most or all PS3 games support 5.1 with a few supporting 7.1.

Basically, I've made a list of PC games and the max number of speakers they support. While I do recognize that some games seem to have better audio quality than others, this wasn't gauged since I don't know how to do that other than by listening and giving my opinion.

Site link:
http://stuffiputupwith.net/audio.html

This site isn't really finished, I'm dragging along putting it together, there could be spelling errors because I entered all text in notepad++, there could be incorrect information although I've tried to make sure it's all correct, and the Street Fighter 2 logo at the top is there because I was screwing around with CSS and wanted a placeholder image.

Lemme know if I screwed up something.

 

[Ahriman4891]

Interesting stuff!

When you say "LFE mixing is done very well", what's your reference point? E.g. "very well" for a game = "average" for a movie, or also "very well"? I am asking because I have a feeling that audio suffers the most when it comes to resource allocation during game development, and thus is usually below par when compared to other media. (Understandable, since the majority of players use integrated sound and cheap speakers, but still ) Then again, I have not played AAA-level games in a long while, maybe things are good now...

 

[Sycraft]

So something to look in to, if you are a fan of a bigass hometheatre system and playing games on it is to get a soundcard with HDMI out. If you want an X-Fi to have Alchemy and all that then the Auzentech Home Theater HD is your only option. It's what I have. Finding it these days seems to be a little challenging unfortunately. There are other options, ASUS has one, GPUs can do HDMI audio, but it is the only X-Fi I know of.

The reason to do HDMI isn't so much for quality, but bass management. When you go all digital, the receiver will handle bass management for you. You then don't have to care about the games that are 7.0, because it'll handle all redirection.

Also, should you with to use Audyssey 2EQ to correct your speakers, that works on digital only (though if you like that you might want to look at a new receiver with MultEQ/MultEQ XT/MultEQ XT32 they are much enhanced).

Another option is to use DTS Connect, if you like, but that is only 5.1 of course.

 

[djoye]

Interesting stuff!

When you say "LFE mixing is done very well", what's your reference point? E.g. "very well" for a game = "average" for a movie, or also "very well"? I am asking because I have a feeling that audio suffers the most when it comes to resource allocation during game development, and thus is usually below par when compared to other media. (Understandable, since the majority of players use integrated sound and cheap speakers, but still ) Then again, I have not played AAA-level games in a long while, maybe things are good now...

Heh, apologies for not being specific enough because of lack of space for text. When I say that the LFE was done well, I mean that when the subwoofer was utilized, the subwoofer volume wasn't obnoxious and that it matched well with what was coming out of the speakers.

I know that subwoofer volume can vary depending on how you have the gain set on your subwoofer and volume levels for the subwoofer channel in your sound card software and receiver but I believe that I have my subwoofer set at a reasonable level because most content isn't overwhelmingly loud or too quiet although I'm sure that's subjective to my preferences.

One game that has some obnoxiously loud subwoofer usage is Serious Sam 3. All other games that use the subwoofer seem to be mostly reasonable and movies I play also have a reasonable volume in the subwoofer channel. So I try to gauge what I think is reasonable based on a sampling of multiple games or other audio content playing through the system.

I'll have to figure out how to do a mouse-over pop-up on the notes field to provide more info.

So something to look in to, if you are a fan of a bigass hometheatre system and playing games on it is to get a soundcard with HDMI out. If you want an X-Fi to have Alchemy and all that then the Auzentech Home Theater HD is your only option. It's what I have. Finding it these days seems to be a little challenging unfortunately. There are other options, ASUS has one, GPUs can do HDMI audio, but it is the only X-Fi I know of.

The reason to do HDMI isn't so much for quality, but bass management. When you go all digital, the receiver will handle bass management for you. You then don't have to care about the games that are 7.0, because it'll handle all redirection.

Also, should you with to use Audyssey 2EQ to correct your speakers, that works on digital only (though if you like that you might want to look at a new receiver with MultEQ/MultEQ XT/MultEQ XT32 they are much enhanced).

Another option is to use DTS Connect, if you like, but that is only 5.1 of course.

I noticed that when I connected to HDMI with my video card that it was doing bass redirection at the receiver, which is nice. That card seems difficult to find but I'm going to have to look for them. The HDMI on my receiver took a dump (common problem on some Onkyos) a while back so I'll have to fix that.

 

[Sycraft]

I noticed that when I connected to HDMI with my video card that it was doing bass redirection at the receiver, which is nice. That card seems difficult to find but I'm going to have to look for them. The HDMI on my receiver took a dump (common problem on some Onkyos) a while back so I'll have to fix that.

You could also sniff around for a new receiver. Onkyo has some quite economical newer ones with a lot of features on them. If you are looking for something with a bit better reliability record, and that runs a bit cooler, you can look at Denon. They cost more but are well done. If you do buy a Denon make sure to get it from an authorized dealer like Onecall or J&R but don't do it online, call them and ask for a better price. Denon enforces agency pricing meaning they set retail price, but the sale people can give you a better non-written price.