PC Gamers At A Audio Disadvantage Against Console: Surround Sound vs Positional Audio

I understood everything you've said and shouldn't need to specifically state that you were talking about headphones, that should be a given. The issue is that your intial claim is utterly wrong and so everything else you've said after that is also wrong since it's all built on that. You don't even appear to have a basic understanding, so I can and will attack what you said, not you personally, you might be a great guy for all I know, so please don't take this personally, but everything you're saying is incorrect, right from the start. For example, you don't even seem to know/realise that spatial/positional and directional audio are all one in the same, the three names can be and are used interchangebly. Please read this. A quote:

As I said, different implementations use different methods, but they are all software and while some are better than others, they all try and reproduce the same effect. Some are just more successful at it than others. Which one you prefer is solely down to your own preference. The fact you feel like you needed those new headphones to get better positional audio is likely down to one thing, better headphones in general, because I can guarantee that those headphones are simply better, to your ears, than the ones you were using previously. You can even buy Dolby Atmos for Headphones through the Windows store and yes it is exactly the same as using a decoder that would support it natively, it's just decoded on the CPU instead. There is ZERO difference.

Modern Warfare and Cold War are simple to setup for 3D Audio, if you follow the instructions I said earlier for an SBZ for example: Set windows output to 5.1, switch to headphones in the SBZ Control Panel and turn on the Surround feature, then switch to surround/5.1 ingame too. And you have full spatial/positional/3D audio. The only gimmick here is that you've been brainwashed into thinking headphones that support "true" 7.1 or Dolby Atmos or anything else are actually necessary. They aren't, they're a con, they may be of good quality and offer good sound reproduction, but that's were the improvement comes from, nowhere else.

You are wrong. It's not about agreeing or disagreeing, it's about the fact that everything you've claimed about the PC not having "proper" positional audio on headphones is simply wrong. You might prefer how the PS5 sounds, you might prefer the new headphones you bought along with Atmos, but that is just down to your own preference and nothing to do with what you are claiming.

 

Again, that is incorrect. All you have to do is tell Windows 10 to use the 7.1/5.1/Surround signal coming from the application. You simply set Windows output to 5.1/7.1 and then switch to headphones inside the software that you're using for your soundcard or onboard sound. Link: https://technastic.com/3d-surround-sound-headphones-windows-10/ What the hardware tells Windows via it's hardware ID is irrelevant, the headphones could tell Windows it was a banana and windows would report it as so.

The PS5 does all this automatically, that is the only difference, it automatically uses the surround sound signal anyway and if you have headphones connected and the 3D Audio option enabled it then uses the onboard software to mix that for your heaphones. It is doing nothing special, just as with most things console orientated, it does it all in the background, with minimal user input. PC's are more configurable, you have to set things up yourself, which is all part of owning a PC. I've never had an issue telling when someone is behind me, above me, off to the side, not in CoD, Battlefield or any other fps going back many many years and I've been a gamer for over 30yrs.

 

You still don't understand how headphones are used in gaming as it relates to this conversation. Their two types of headphones. The first kind is just stereo. They offer no audio processing of any kind. And often used to listen to music. And are more often than not interfaced with a device through a 3.5mm or 1/4 jack.

The 2nd kind offer audio processing of their own, e. g. Audio engine built in the headphones, dongle, etc. They interface with a device differently usually through USB (depending on the setup). There are toggles or adjustments that can be made within the headphones, dongle, etc itself or through proprietary software specfic for those headphones. And most importantly win10 typically recognizes them as more then just stereo.

I am referencing the 2nd type. Wow you seem to refer to the first type. Then imply speakers are better. You lack the experience and understanding of the second type. Furthermore you do not seem to make a distinction between virtual 7.1 and jusr 7.1. There is a difference.

I am referring to Virtual 7.1. That uses 3d audio for headphones. This is the Crux of the conversation that you and I are having. And it makes your assumptions inaccurate. Therefore, having clarified the premise of this conversation it is quite clear that I am referring to headphones, virtual 7.1, 3D audio.

You cannot use the definition of spatial audio as a substitution for personal experience. In particular in the use of 3d virtual surround sound in headphones when attempting to hear enemy footsteps direction and positioning without seeing the enemy in Modern Warfare/Cold War. That alone rebukes your response.

To further elaborate, you need headphones that are capable of 3D audio. In order to hear enemy footsteps positioning and direction. And this case the games mentioned are using DA audio as a means to offer 3d audio so you can hear/track footsteps, etc without seeing your opponent. What your post tells us is that you are not factoring this, at all. You are only arguing surround sound. I am talking about audio gaming. In which positional and directional audio creates a level of audio fidelity in which you can hear enemies as if you are using echolocation. Where you can actually track enemies from behind a wall and can tell if they are moving left/right or approaching/departing without seeing them. Based on my experience using the headphones your suggestion does not work. And no definition that you may infer changes that.

Your personal feelings and ideology of what you understand does not factor into my personal experience and what I have already tried. And, what I know works.

 

My ae7 does not process Dolby digital through headphones for modern warfare and Cold war. Only through a dd speaker using spdif. I can tell instantly when switching between 3 5mm and spdif.

We are talking apples and oranges here. I am specifically targeting specific games that use Dolby Atmos. In which certain audio is not present unless you have the applicable Hardware as mentioned throughout this thread.

 

Wtf. Pseudo audio fake surround isn't for elite pc master race. You aren't a kid. You should know better than all those pages.

 

Yes, however I was referencing the options that ae7 offer in command suite. Even though there is no Dolby Atmos specifically I do hear a notice difference when using spdif for my da speakers. So it does work.

However, the whole point is that while on PS5, for example, 3D Audio for headphones is offered there is no such option in win10. In which you have to find creative ways, pun intended, to find a similiar solution on your own.

 

I understand this whole thing much better than you seem to. You have been deceived by marketing. As I said earlier, it's merely a gimmick. Everything related to the Surround/3D effect is still processed in software, the "hardware" does nothing special in terms of improving the processing. It merely shifts where the decoding takes places and takes a little load off the cpu, which is meaningless these days with multicore CPUs anyway, the overhead from sound processing is negilgible. Whether the decoding/processing is done on the headphones or the PC itself is irrelevant. This is what you can't accept, you've been deceived.

I have probably owned more headphones than you have ever seen, whether usb or analogue. USB simply bypasses your soundcard altogether and still uses the CPU for processsing. There is no such thing as "true" 7.1 headphones. That is a marketing gimmick, for true 7.1 headphones you'd need 8 speakers actually built into the headphones. The only difference is where the processing takes place and that is irrelevant with regards to the output. 7.1 Headphones are a myth. A gimmick. All 7.1 headphones are virtual 7.1. All stereo headphones that use Atmos, Creatives spatial audio, realteks positional audio are "virtual 7.1" There is no difference.

Nothing to do with personal experience and everything to with simple facts and technical knowledge. You don't understand how processing and decoding works. You've been misled by marketing.

All headphones are capable of 3D audio. ALL OF THEM. Why do you think you can use any headphones on the PS5. That's because spatial/3D/positional on headphones all mean the same thing, but you've become so confused that you think they're different. They are not. This is not debateable or alterable by your opinion, this is a fact. This shows that you didn't even bother educating yourself with the links i provided earlier that tell you exactly that, different companies just call it different things, but they are all the same.

I will say once again, whether the Atmos signal is processed on your headphones, on the console or on the PC is irrelevant. The end product is the same. The difference you hear comes solely from the headphones, all headphones have different acoustic qualities and that's what you're hearing.

My knowledge of the facts and how the hardware actually works trumps your personal experience, your experience doesn't change the facts, it just highlights your preferences. Also, you do realise that USB or spdif is not as authentic as analogue right? You don't appear to. You seem concerned with how devs want you to experience the audio, but the method you use introduces more processing and alters the signal more than an analogue connection does.

EDIT: One final thing, you can use Atmos, DD etc with analogue you know. It's not restricted to digital output.

 

I thank you for your honesty. I figured as much based on your responses to me but it's good for everyone to see that you don't know what you are talking about. Therefore, you don't have a valid opinion to give. From what I can tell you never even validated if you play MW2019 and/or Cold War in your replies.


All this time you've been responding to someone who investigated getting positional/directional audio in dolby atmos games like MW2019/Cold War through:
-different speaker setups both traditional 7.1 and dolby atmos
-different headphones types (stereo, 7.1, 3D Audio)
-different Audio cards (AE7/Zx/Realtek/Nu/etc)
-different audio apps

Based on this experience I've created this thread. In which in order to sound whore, competitively, the Audeze headphones, the HyperX headphones and the JBL headphones (mentioned in the OP) actually did the job at varying degrees.

As you dance around this subject grandstanding your replies in long winded bouts of logical fallacies it becomes clear, to me, that your responses are deflated easily. As they are windbaged of nuisances that stem from some personal blight that consoles have better audio engines that developers program for in the games we play today.

That, however, is not the nature nor spirit of this thread. It's to be able to do on PC what I can easily do on console. Be that as it may I will continue to enjoy my headphones as I get audio positional/direction of enemies I don't see which has increased my overall k/d by what now???? Hmm, at a guess 0.40 or so. Which is a pretty significant amount when I play more domination/kill confirm/hard point/control then I do team deathmatch. DM directly effects your over k/d from what I've observed.

 

A soundcard with a functioning DICE encoder for DDL is also hardware for true positional audio. CPU is not used.

 

Real Atmos piggybacks off of DD+ so they actually arent that different.

 

Thanks for showing that have no way to refute or rebuke anything I'd said, you're unable to address a single point with any factual information, and that all you have is your own skewed, misinformed opinions. What you prefer is just that, your preference, nothing more. There are no logical fallacies in what I've said, everything can be backed up with facts. Your opinions on the other hand....

I'm speaking from a position of both experience and technical knowledge, but the facts always supercede personal experience and so your experience, or mine, doesn't change the facts. Your lack of understanding in how sound proccessing works is obvious throughout your posts. You can play around with the headphones and software as much as you like, that does not change that fact you were technically and factually incorrect. All you are stating is your preference. I have no biases for console or PC, the only bias i have is for facts. Perhaps the PS5s implementation of 3D Audio is technically better than anything else you can get on PC, I don't know, it makes no difference to me, but it also doesn't change the way it works and doesn't change the fact that it will be received differently depending on the headphones you use and the person listening to it.

 

Are there any soundcards with DICE these days? The last one I heard about was on Nforce 2 back in the day?

 

ehhhh not really, atmos is dolby digital at the core, with height and depth positional tuning added.
every atmos enhanced video can fall back to dolby digital with minimal loss to sound placements.

 

You speak in bot to me. I am the thread creator here that put forth information on how to get better positional/directional audio in certain games. In which you disagreed with. It is you who admited that you have no personal audio experience. You do not posses the audio hardware to form an opinion on. Nor, have tried to use said audio hardware in the aforementioned games. Nor posted that you actually play those games for crying out loud, LOL. All of your replies have either focused on surround sound, disdain that consoles have better audio engines and lack of judgement trying to show yourself professional regarding a topic that's clearly out of your league. Then, inadvertently admit that you don't need to know anything about the subject in order to claim "someone is wrong...".

This sums ups all your replies and it's not only a rebuke on you for correcting you. But a self rebuke on yourself for trying to refute a topic in which you can not draw a valid opinion from. It is you who is trying to refute the information I put forth. However, in your attempts you tripped up and admitted you don't know what you are talking about. Derp

I created this thread because for several months I wanted the ability to hear footsteps and know the position of enemies without seeing them. It would have never been "a thing" if I didn't experience this on console 1st. It was an anomaly that the audio on PC was so bad that I couldn't determine where the enemy footsteps, etc. was coming from. While I could pinpoint it on console. During my adventure I found solutions that came close but wasn't as good. The Hyperx Cloud Alpha S is an example of this. It's a good starting point for me on PC. And, it was a good starting point on where to concentrate my efforts on: headphones.

Now, lets be transparent about this. Not everyone who plays games on PC play competitively in FPS games like warzone, modern warefare, blackout, cold war, battlefield, etc. Some like the single player action in games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Division, Assassins Creed, Borderlands, etc. I would gladly let players like this know that the investment in such headphones are too costly for that wee bit of added immersion they do bring. I am talking from a pure competitive point of view.

It's a real shame that the expense for such an endeavor is that high on PC. Win10 doesn't have a option that enables 3D Audio For Headphones in the Sounds Option. Like it does on PS5, for example. That clearly identifies the headphones in 3D Audio with virtual 7.1. That, IMO, is my grip of the situation. I already understand the hurdle in attempting to unify different audio devices on PC. However, that number has greatly dwindled from days past, iMO. And I cannot, under a good conscience, ignore the resources MS have that could make that happen even if it's on limited audio hardware, IMO.

 

That was on board. There were a few high end cards in the mid 2000s that all merged into Auzentech. The first one was called HiTec Digital-X Mystique 7.1. I imported it day one for 400 bucks and still use it to this day. All these cards have officially licensed for life DICE encoders for DDL. *It even has multiple digital passthrough ports both coax and toslink with a second "card" it came with!

There are new cards with DDL\DTS-X like the Soundblaster USB card that was just on the front page too, I just dont think they call it DICE or require a license anymore (though Im not sure on this).

 

It uses the DD+ backend for bandwidth. For the most part its just Dolby Digital with more speakers. I have a properly calibrated nice system with side studio monitors l\r, highs, sides, center and sub. Dolby Digital and Atmos sound extremely similar (in part because DD is using PLIIz). *This is my TV system not pc

DTS-HD beats them all tho, even proper "real" Atmos.

 

You're wrong on all accounts and you are making assumptions with no basis, you are just interpreting what I've said incorrectly, just as you've interpreted just about everything you've read about positional audio incorrectly. I don't have to confirm what games I play, that is irrelevant, how the technology works is what matters and it's the same regardless of the application. It's this simple, what you initially said was wrong. Let me remind you of what you said:

This is objectively wrong and I have shown that. Plain and simple so deal with it. You see, you're just getting salty now, so all you've done for the last two/three posts is launch personal attacks on me because you can offer nothing to disprove what I've shown. When you attack the person instead of their argument, you've instantly lost the debate.

You're still wrong. About everything, from your first paragraph in your first post, right up until now. And because you made yourself look clueless, you now go on a rant about me personally instead of addressing anything I've said. I have nothing to prove, you made the claim, the onus is on you to prove it. You failed.

Again, stop making claims that are just complete nonsense. If you want to use the built-in Windows 10 option for 3D Audio, it's there, it's called Windows Sonic for headphones. They call it spatial, but it is still 3D Audio as I've already proven the two words are interchangeable, it's the same 3D Audio that is used on XBox. If you want to stay it's poor, then fine, I will might agree with that, if you want to say you don't like it, also fine, that's your prerogative, but don't say it doesn't exist, because that is wrong.

There are many options for positional audio on Windows 10. You may not like them, but that doesn't mean they don't exist. Stop thinking 3D Audio, positional audio and spatial are different things, they aren't. That is the crux of the argument, your initial assumption was wrong and if that was wrong then how can anyone take anything else you've said as accurate.

Here's a list of options: https://windowsreport.com/virtual-surround-sound-software/ < Refute that. Show me how that is not positional audio support on Win10. Please.