What SIM allows 5.1?

[Cote Dazur]

I usually drive with headphones but recently I set a 5.1 system around my rig.
What SIM allows 5.1? If a car is behind your car can you hear it behind you? If you drive a rear engine car is the sound of the engine comes from behind you?
So far my testing is not conclusive and I find that the sound is more informative with stereo earphones.

 

[GEO147]

You need to have a sound card that has Dolby Digital Live capability. If you research that you will find out what I mean. It's not as simple as plugging in 5 speakers. Realtec sound cards on motherboards rarely have it.
Some ASUS or Creative Sound Blaster cards have the capability.

 

[Cote Dazur]

You need to have a sound card that has Dolby Digital Live capability. If you research that you will find out what I mean. It's not as simple as plugging in 5 speakers. Realtec sound cards on motherboards rarely have it.
Some ASUS or Creative Sound Blaster cards have the capability.

What SIM are you driving in 5.1? If a car is behind your car can you hear it behind you? If you drive a rear engine car is the sound of the engine comes from behind you?

 

[cfischer9009]

Pcars2 7.1 surround through hdmi into a 45 dollar craigslist avr.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Pcars2 7.1 surround through hdmi into a 45 dollar craigslist avr.

So when driving in PCars2 If a car is behind your car can you hear it behind you? If you drive a rear engine car is the sound of the engine comes from behind you?

 

[Mr Latte]

I usually drive with headphones but recently I set a 5.1 system around my rig.
What SIM allows 5.1? If a car is behind your car can you hear it behind you? If you drive a rear engine car is the sound of the engine comes from behind you?
So far my testing is not conclusive and I find that the sound is more informative with stereo earphones.

The easy way to determine what effects are active on the rear channels is to plug in only the speakers for the rear channels or plug in your headphones to the rear channel output.

It may surprise you what you discover when comparing front to rear channels.
I dont think many sims apply engine in a front/rear basis within the mix. Lots of effects in the front channels will be in the rear also. Some however like exhaust or approaching cars behind (in some titles) are included.

Not specifically conducted in-depth tests but interested in what you or other mays find.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Not specifically conducted in-depth tests but interested in what you or other may find.

My test tell me it is not working, neither engine sound or approaching cars, once they are next to you, yes, but behind, no. So overall it is not really working and it is particularly evident in VR. But maybe I am not using the right sim or I am not doing it properly, hence my thread and questions.

 

[GEO147]

What hardware are you using?

 

[cfischer9009]

So when driving in PCars2 If a car is behind your car can you hear it behind you? If you drive a rear engine car is the sound of the engine comes from behind you?

Yes in pcars2 I can hear cars approach from the left or right rear. The effect is subtle though to be honest but most apparent on open top cars like the bac mono. I can also hear the engine sound from the rear on rear engine cars like the bac mono. Love that car. I have spent some time adjusting the levels for each of the 6 speakers around me and it made a difference for sure. I'm not super impressed with it though like I expected to be.

This is how I drive in vr and on screen. Works both ways. I prefer it to headphones. Especially when people are over and I want to talk to them when they are driving.

I get a readout on the front of the avr when it's decoding surround or not. This is super helpful because the game never says anything about surround working or not. It works only if everything is setup in Windows prior to launching the game.

 

[Cote Dazur]

I'm not super impressed with it though like I expected to be.

Thank you, this the kind of feedback I am looking for. I am perfectly happy with how audio is in headphones in stereo, I can hear car approaching from rear left or right. I was hoping 5.1 with speakers around me would be a lot more. In movies when something is behind, I hear it behind, not sort off kind off behind, in game it is confusing at best. Less immersive to me than headphones. I can forget the headphones and immerse in the driving, in 5.1 it is more distracting than immersive.

 

[cfischer9009]

Funny as even though my expectations were not met from my playing with surround I still prefer it.

It's amazing how different we all are.

 

[Mr Latte]

Funny as even though my expectations were not met from my playing with surround I still prefer it.

It's amazing how different we all are.

That also might depend on the headphones being used...
I have several headphones but they are not all the same or as enjoyable or comfortable to use as each other.

For speakers I was not impressed with 5.1 but I preferred to use a front/rear stereo configuration.

 

[michael conger]

rFactor2 has a setting under sounds 5.1 7.1 stereo

 

[Emery]

I usually drive with headphones but recently I set a 5.1 system around my rig.
What SIM allows 5.1? If a car is behind your car can you hear it behind you? If you drive a rear engine car is the sound of the engine comes from behind you?
So far my testing is not conclusive and I find that the sound is more informative with stereo earphones.

Annoyingly, rF2 is the only sim that does not support surround sound. It only outputs stereo even though it lets you pick 5.1 and 7.1.

AC, ACC, AMS, pCARS 2, and Wreckfest all support surround sound, though some are better than others at doing so. Wreckfest is the only one that actually uses the LFE channel. If you're getting sound out of the LFE channel with the other sims, it's only because your speakers and crossover are set to do so.

In practice, due to the small circle for our speakers around the racing rig, quadraphonic (4.1 or 4.0) provides the best channel separation. 7.1 is huge overkill and muddies the sound direction unless you've got the speakers in something like a 20' diameter circle, such as we'd use in a living room or home theater.

 

[Cote Dazur]

Funny as even though my expectations were not met from my playing with surround I still prefer it.

It's amazing how different we all are.

So true, apparently we are all driving the same few SIM but what we are expecting and getting varies widely.

VR is different from playing on a screen and it goes well with headphones. I very exceptionally play using screen but when I do I am fine with 5.1, because the perspective is so different.

 

[GEO147]

Thank you, this the kind of feedback I am looking for. I am perfectly happy with how audio is in headphones in stereo, I can hear car approaching from rear left or right. I was hoping 5.1 with speakers around me would be a lot more. In movies when something is behind, I hear it behind, not sort off kind off behind, in game it is confusing at best. Less immersive to me than headphones. I can forget the headphones and immerse in the driving, in 5.1 it is more distracting than immersive.

The reason you hear 5.1 in movies is because it is recorded in and is the same for everyone Everytime the movie is played.

For gaming there is no such pre-recorded track as what you or I might do in a game are very different. That means the 5.1 soundtrack has to be created on the fly. That is where Dolby Digital live comes in. You need a sound card with DDL built in or you will never get 5.1 to your speakers. Not very many people know this as most gamers use headsets which have decoding tech built into them, either via software (Logitech) or a stand alone decoder like Tritton.

 

[Mr Latte]

The reason you hear 5.1 in movies is because it is recorded in and is the same for everyone Everytime the movie is played.

For gaming there is no such pre-recorded track as what you or I might do in a game are very different. That means the 5.1 soundtrack has to be created on the fly. That is where Dolby Digital live comes in. You need a sound card with DDL built in or you will never get 5.1 to your speakers. Not very many people know this as most gamers use headsets which have decoding tech built into them, either via software (Logitech) or a stand alone decoder like Tritton.

Can you tell me what the differences or benefits are with using DD Live to using 2 channel stereo but upmixing this to 4.0 or 5.1 or 7.1 via Dolby Prologic II. It only requires an analog stereo signal to generate a surround mix. I dont think either will be much different or superior sounding or will they?

DD Live is similar, other than it can use a single digital cable of the encoded real-time multichannel audio and it may place some effects to specific channels for the Dolby Digital format. The question is how many games really used it or used it well.

I remember way back Nvidia was one of the first to have Dolby Realtime Audio encoding (N-Force) on some motherboards which used a chip like the original Xbox console.

Dolby ProLogic II
Dolby Digital Live
Dolby Digital Plus

Headphones Windows 10 Dolby Atmos

 

[lukester1975]

Confused . If you have an amp that has discrete analogue 5/7.1 inputs, why worry about having to encode to AC3? Just wire up the various soundcard outputs... Unless the OP really wants digital all the way to the amp for some reason (or fewer cables ).

 

[Alex Townsend]

Confused . If you have an amp that has discrete analogue 5/7.1 inputs, why worry about having to encode to AC3? Just wire up the various soundcard outputs... Unless the OP really wants digital all the way to the amp for some reason (or fewer cables ).

What cables would you use for that sort of set up?
I have a motherboard with 5.1 capabilities but they're all 3.5mm sockets, whereas my amp has phono plugs.
Must admit I've always used a Soundcard to process my audio as all games output in stereo or 2.1 unless you enable Dolby digital live

 

[lukester1975]

What cables would you use for that sort of set up?
I have a motherboard with 5.1 capabilities but they're all 3.5mm sockets, whereas my amp has phono plugs.
Must admit I've always used a Soundcard to process my audio as all games output in stereo or 2.1 unless you enable Dolby digital live

Well if the 3.5mm outputs are two channel, then a stereo to dual phono cable is OK (e.g. like this). Years ago ISTR having a Creative card that had 4 channels on one 3.5 jack, so if that's still a thing then a stereo cable might not work (depending on what two channels you'd miss out on...) but I'd guess someone makes one My current mobo outputs are 3 * two channel 3.5mm jacks (and requires setting in the driver to output the subwoofer channel rather than think it's a microphone input).