Which PC games support true 5.1?

Participant · 3 Sep 2006 at 13:54

I have some new Creative P5800 and so far no games seem to have genuine speech etc coming from behind, only filling through all speakers.

Is there a list?

Roduga · 3 Sep 2006 at 14:02

Are you sure it is set up correctly? I don't know which games use it, but I know it's lots.

DaveyD · 3 Sep 2006 at 14:08

I'd have thought most games have some reasonable surround stuff. Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 definately have proper sound for that. Have you had it working on any game at all? Test it on the Half-Life 2 demo, if it doesn't work, something's wrong with your setup.

danyjr · 3 Sep 2006 at 14:15

Guild Wars has an awesome 5.1 option.

Tute · 3 Sep 2006 at 14:23

DaveyD said:
I'd have thought most games have some reasonable surround stuff. Half-Life 2 and Doom 3 definately have proper sound for that. Have you had it working on any game at all? Test it on the Half-Life 2 demo, if it doesn't work, something's wrong with your setup.

I had it working on Doom 3, using an external amp connected via SPDIF.

Make sure it's all correctly set up in drivers, maybe test a film or two to make sure the surround itself is working.

For Doom 3, it was as simple as telling it to use surround in options, and the rest it did itself.

locutus12 · 3 Sep 2006 at 14:24

working here on battlefield 2, very useful for getting the direction of sniper fire

Participant · 3 Sep 2006 at 14:31

I know the surround sound is setup ok cause in the Creative Audio HQ the test puts the correct sound to the speakers. It's just that so far in games like KotOR, FS 2004, Live for Speed, and Saving Private Ryan, I'm not really getting the "surround" thing i.e. not noticing things coming from behind (oo err missus) etc.

DaveyD · 3 Sep 2006 at 14:57

Well those games listed sound as though they're prime examples where they wont have 5.1 sound, unless they have it specifically listed in their option.

As for saving private ryan, I'd have thought you need it to output to a 5.1 Dolby Digital decoder for that, or can the Soundblaster Live! do that? If it can, you've probably set up your dvd playback software wrong and it's not doing any surround decoding.

Participant · 3 Sep 2006 at 15:04

I don't know whether or not my SB Live! can do that, but it's the digital version if that makes any difference. Good point though, maybe I'd need a DVD player to decode the Dolby??

badgermonkey · 3 Sep 2006 at 15:10

danyjr said:
Guild Wars has an awesome 5.1 option.

Is that true? I've never noticed before! (seriously)

Im going to have to give that a whirl later.

hp7909 · 3 Sep 2006 at 15:34

Robbie G said:
I don't know whether or not my SB Live! can do that, but it's the digital version if that makes any difference. Good point though, maybe I'd need a DVD player to decode the Dolby??

No you don't need to. All Creative SB cards especially ones stated as 5.1 can decode Dolby Digital. Just make sure you have the latest drivers installed (here) & Windows speaker settings (Control Panel > Sounds & Audio Devices Properties > Advanced...) is setup correctly. On my system sometimes it rests back to 2/2.1 speakers making games like HL-2 grey out the surround/speaker option.

FishPolice · 3 Sep 2006 at 21:12

Wild stab in the dark: have you enabled cmss (think that's what it's called)?
On my last system I had to set it to 'on' using the creative jukebox thingy. I think...

luckypapyrussam · 3 Sep 2006 at 21:17

What games have you tried with the surround sound..?

Sam.