G6 SBX vs Dolby Atmos for headphones

michty_me · 18 Aug 2020 at 10:02

Any idea on which one is more accurate for gaming?
I believe not too many games utilise Dolby Atmos but for games that do, Is it worth having for using in those games?

I'm currently playing Modern Warfare MP/Warzone and struggle to differentiate between sounds coming above and below. The general sound from direction seems mostly fine.

My settings on the G6 at the minute are virtual 7.1 but perhaps that should be removed and revert to stereo. The setup I have is optical out from motherboard to the G6 which feeds my K702 with a V-Moda boompro mic. I've been advised to do away with optical and just use USB for PC.

If I were to use Dolby Atmos, Would it just be as simple as switching off SBX and running atmos for headphones? I can't really put the G6 into direct mode as I will lose the mic input.

I thought it would be best to ask the more knowledgeable of you on here.

EsaT · 19 Aug 2020 at 18:24

Can't say which HRTF model is closer to your head shape.
That's the biggest factor in proper directionality after headphones.
Though if game itself support Dolby Atmos properly, then it can do HRTF processing from 3D sound data including vertical data.
(which was lost in Microsoft killing Direct Sound)

But unless motherboard has Dolby Digital encoder you're anyway killing HRTF's potential by feeding SBX G6 stereo.
Without proper spatial information containing source, no processing can create any binaural sound.
And anyway that DD encoding would add at least some lag and isn't good idea.

Surround setting in Acoustic Engine controls HRTF and crossfeed/upscaling (for stereo) and disabling that gives stereo sound without processing applied.

Minstadave · 19 Aug 2020 at 18:48

Why connect the G6 via optical and not USB? With USB you can supply 7.1 directly cant you?

michty_me · 19 Aug 2020 at 19:36

EsaT said:
Can't say which HRTF model is closer to your head shape.
That's the biggest factor in proper directionality after headphones.
Though if game itself support Dolby Atmos properly, then it can do HRTF processing from 3D sound data including vertical data.
(which was lost in Microsoft killing Direct Sound)

But unless motherboard has Dolby Digital encoder you're anyway killing HRTF's potential by feeding SBX G6 stereo.
Without proper spatial information containing source, no processing can create any binaural sound.
And anyway that DD encoding would add at least some lag and isn't good idea.

Surround setting in Acoustic Engine controls HRTF and crossfeed/upscaling (for stereo) and disabling that gives stereo sound without processing applied.

Yeah I see what you are saying, I guess it's just a case of trying different things to see what works for my head.

I believe a couple of games I've been playing lately do have Atmos (modern warfare & battlefield 1)

Minstadave said:
Why connect the G6 via optical and not USB? With USB you can supply 7.1 directly cant you?

When I first connected it via optical, I was in the understanding it was superior. I've since realised this was wrong and will rectify that part once I get home.

adrichardson81 · 19 Aug 2020 at 20:58

Personally I find I get better positional audio in standard stereo mode. I know it's not a fair comparison, but I'm using the G6 with my Switch and DX3 Pro with my gaming rig - I get more accurate positioning from the DX3 Pro (same headphones with both).

michty_me · 19 Aug 2020 at 21:25

I'll just try all settings from now along with Atmos and whatever else I can find. Be as well play about with it if I can I guessm

C64 · 20 Aug 2020 at 13:50

Warzone sound is the issue not the card it's just not coded that well certainly not for big map map 360 degree battle royale

michty_me · 20 Aug 2020 at 14:53

C64 said:
Warzone sound is the issue not the card it's just not coded that well certainly not for big map map 360 degree battle royale

Yeah you are probably right in saying that. It's very hot and miss at the best of times. Sometimes really good, others you wonder how you never picked up on the person.

Uriel · 27 Aug 2020 at 00:15

Virtual 7.1 usually has little in the way of elevation information. If Dolby Atmos Headphone mode suits you it has decent 3d positional information. 5.1 or 7.1 are essentially on a flat plane with virtual speakers oriented around the listener's ears - so 2d sound. Atmos is genuinely 3d and I can attest to it working well.

You could fudge 3D audio with an old X-Fi. CMSS-3D used to have an virtual elevation filter but it only worked up to 4 channel sound. It would work in headphone mode. Back in the day I would feed 4 channel sound from X-Fi with CMSS-3D for speaker setups to a receiver using Dolby Headphone (which for me gave more convincing directional audio and spatial qualities than CMSS-3D headphone). It was audio heaven.

Now I game in Atmos for Headphone. It virtualises 5.1 or 7.1 if that's all the game will do. If games have 3d Audio it will include elevation but they're still relatively rare. With some games it may be worth checking if the native headphone mode supports some kind of HRTF positioning - if so they may function better than 5.1 or 7.1 virtualised.

It's all a bit irritating really. It's taken until now to get PC gaming audio back to where it was in 2005 with DirectSound3D. Microsoft set everything back hugely with the loss of the Hardware Abstraction Layer with Windows Vista.

michty_me · 27 Aug 2020 at 21:19

Uriel said:
Virtual 7.1 usually has little in the way of elevation information. If Dolby Atmos Headphone mode suits you it has decent 3d positional information. 5.1 or 7.1 are essentially on a flat plane with virtual speakers oriented around the listener's ears - so 2d sound. Atmos is genuinely 3d and I can attest to it working well.

You could fudge 3D audio with an old X-Fi. CMSS-3D used to have an virtual elevation filter but it only worked up to 4 channel sound. It would work in headphone mode. Back in the day I would feed 4 channel sound from X-Fi with CMSS-3D for speaker setups to a receiver using Dolby Headphone (which for me gave more convincing directional audio and spatial qualities than CMSS-3D headphone). It was audio heaven.

Now I game in Atmos for Headphone. It virtualises 5.1 or 7.1 if that's all the game will do. If games have 3d Audio it will include elevation but they're still relatively rare. With some games it may be worth checking if the native headphone mode supports some kind of HRTF positioning - if so they may function better than 5.1 or 7.1 virtualised.

It's all a bit irritating really. It's taken until now to get PC gaming audio back to where it was in 2005 with DirectSound3D. Microsoft set everything back hugely with the loss of the Hardware Abstraction Layer with Windows Vista.

I've been using the Atmos free trial for nearly a week now and fairly happy with it.
I may purchase it as it has 20% off for the next few days.
For some reason, I can't switch Atmos on in battlefield 1, I believe it requires a Dolby Atmos receiver after just looking into it.
I hope more games use it in the future as it would be great to have.