Doom3 - Quadraphonic sound support???

[ryandinan]

Hello -
I have a SB Live! that has a set of Altec Lansing 401's attached to it (4 speakers plus a huge sub). However, Doom 3 says this is not a "Surround-Sound" system. Apparently, it wants a 5.1 system. Please tell me Doom 3 can make use of 'only' 4 speakers! All Im getting now is stereo sound... Geez, Far Cry even had an option for quadraphonic setups...

Anyone know of a way to "trick" doom 3 into using 4 speakers?

Thanks!

-Ryan

[corny]

Try setting your sound in windows control panel as a 5.1 system, should then in game set as surround

[molton]

I don't have doom yet and this is already pissing me off! This raises another question for me, when you have a center speaker enabled that isn't there do the speakers that are there get affected or does it process it just like 4.1 and mix the front channels for the center channel?

[Regnad]

Ryan,

I use Klipsch 4-channel speakers with a SB Audigy2. If I set the WinXP Control Panel to "5.1 surround", the center channel info is not there. If I set it to "Surround" (not 5.1), then Doom3 sees the surround option and I get positional info.

Rebooting, however, resets the Control Panel back to "Quadrophonic" and I have to tell it "Surround" each time...

Anyone with better suggestions?

I sure wish I could get the actual Dolby Digital out the motherboard or Audigy!

[molton]

It's the creative software, change the setting from 4.1 to 5.1 in the soundblaster mixer, it will automatically update the windows setting and it will keep it from resetting... Creative's software is the best isn't it, I love how now that I have an audigy I cna't choose to shut autoplay off, what's the deal with that.

Originally Posted by Regnad

I sure wish I could get the actual Dolby Digital out the motherboard or Audigy!

Is this a cry for help or an expression of anger? Don't get me started about the 5.1 digital output I bought my audigy for only to find out it doesn't exist, technology and marketing don't mix

[Regnad]

Hey Molton,

Why can't the game contain the encoded digital signal? Is it just marketing, as you suggest?

My understanding is that the Nvidia nforce chipset can do this.

It would be nice just to hook up a receiver and speakers.

[breez]

Originally Posted by Regnad

Why can't the game contain the encoded digital signal?

Because it needs to be encoded realtime (which I presume would take some notable CPU power and cost licensing fees from Dolby). You know a DVD soundtrack is always the same, but games (or anything else interactive) are different story.

[molton]

The soundblaster should encode the signal, but it just outputs 3 pcm signals instead of one ac3 signal, I think I'm gonna buy an m-audio revolution, it doesn't support eax 4 but it does output a digital surround signal at least.

[emphy]

Setting the system to 'surround mode' you lose the center channel if you have a quadraphonic speaker setup. This is very annoying, as sound from the front is very diminished compared to sound from the sides.


[\whine mode]
This is mildly annoying; I expected id to take the same care with sound support as they did with video. Apparently even spreading the center channel to the front speakers is too much to ask for.

[treefingers1]

I have mine set to 5.1 surround speakers in the control panel (even though I have quadrophic speakers) and it works perfectly. The center channel info simply gets redistributed to the front left and front right speakers.

I have to say, however, that I am really impressed with the sound in Doom 3. Whenever I have EAX enabled in a game, my framerate takes a huge nosedive, but using the surround option in Doom 3 has very little effect on performance. It really is amazing to think about.

P.S. Carmack originally wanted to support Sound Blaster directly for Dolby 5.1 output, but he discovered that Creative's drivers didn't work. When he contacted them about it, they told him that they knew about it but no one had every tried to use them before.

[molton]

I hate creative, not only do they not encode a digital signal, they won't accomidate someone trying to utilize their ******** AC3 pass-through feature, although that probably would've taken some major overhead to realtime encode a 6 channel digital signal with software.

[SumB]

Try opening up the DoomConfig.cfg file and change the line:

seta s_numberOfSpeakers "2" -> seta s_numberOfSpeakers "4"

[molton]

That worked for me in the beta, but I haven't tried it with doom 3, does it work or is it just 4 speaker stereo sound? It didn't work exactly right in the beta, but what did?

[SumB]

I'm unable to test it, I'm using a 2.1 system for the time being.

[H-Alien]

For some reason the term "quadraphonic" always reminds me of the british trip hop band Moloko. In the booklet of their first cd "do you like my tight sweater?" they rave about their new super-duper sound system, let me quote:

"Enjoy time and again modern B.A.M. Virtual Quadraphonia in a domestic environment. Using any two conventional stereo systems with each of the four speakers placed facing centre somewehere in the room simultaneously insert two of the special 36 Khz Moloko compact discs and synchronise play. It's as simple as that. The incredible sounds you will hear are Virtual Quadraphonic* - and you'll want to hear them again. Should you experience any "flange-ing" or noise "distortion" you've obviously done it wrong.

* Scientists and young people studying hi-fidelity recording and reproduction techniques note Virtual Quadraphonia should not be confused with standard quadraphonic sound.

"try smelling Moloko CD's before and after use for a fuller sensual experience."