positional audio is ....?

bpaul8 · Dec 11, 2003, 09:20 PM

I have the latest kx driver installed with sb live value. But in quake 3 for example I cannot distinguish a person jumping and making noises from high platform vs low platform. like its really hard to tell where the person is with sound.. I used to use the older creative drivers and they seem to work fine. Is there anything I'm missing? I can tell if the person is left or right of me with sounds but high/low is really difficult and it wasnt like this with the creative drivers. I realize kx is still evolving but any pointers to fix this?

My setup is this ->
sblive value card with just front output and rear output on the card. I just want only one output to work at a time (ie i have speakers hooked up on one and headsets hooked up on the other and switch between the two using SWAP rear/front in the mixer as needed)

The DSP is setup as default and im not quite sure which surrounder setting i should be using 2.0(no surround or surround?) or 4.0(no surround or surround?) Or do i have to rewire the dsp differently and use the downmix plugin or something because I only want to use one ouput and I dont have all the extra output like sub and such that are available in other recent soundcards?

Any help is appreciated. Thank you.

HunterZ · Dec 11, 2003, 11:03 PM

I played around with DirectSound3D Hardware mode in RightMark 3DSound 1.0 from audio.rightmark.org and hardware DS3D sound in kX is definitely quieter if the sound is positioned above or below the center. It may be that with the Creative drivers it also does some kind of other spatialization effect(s) like muffling the sound? There's nothing else that I can think of that can be done without having another speaker above and/or below the listener for vertical sound.

**Eugene Gavrilov** · Dec 12, 2003, 12:46 AM

kX Driver doesn't handle the elevation of the sound source properly
CL & Microsoft drivers add special filtering for elevated sounds -- while kX doesn't
so, if you really need this, disable hardware acceleration in your game

/E

bpaul8 · Dec 12, 2003, 05:18 AM

dang. That is pretty important in gaming especially in competitive multplayer

. Oh well i guess i have to go back to creative until kx is developed further. Keep up the good work on the drivers!

Thanks for the prompt replies guys.

kelesh · Jan 9, 2004, 07:05 PM

What happens when you disable hardware accelerations? Why does this help?

Soeren_B · Jan 11, 2004, 07:50 PM

Quote:

Originally posted by kelesh
What happens when you disable hardware accelerations? Why does this help?

When hardware acceleration is turned off your game will use Microsoft's software engine to render the 3D sound field rather than the soundcard hardware. (AFAIK)

/Soeren

HunterZ · Jan 12, 2004, 10:28 AM

But won't turning off acceleration make things sound worse instead of better if you have more than a simple stereo speaker setup?

HolyAvenger · Jan 12, 2004, 01:23 PM

Hehe, I wonder when the first speaker systems with an actual top speaker appear. Firm mounting is advisable, lest the speaker might land on your head

Soeren_B · Jan 13, 2004, 08:09 AM

ROFL

[COLOR=green]-sb[/COLOR]

Dec 11, 2003, 09:20 PM	#1
bpaul8 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	positional audio is ....? I have the latest kx driver installed with sb live value. But in quake 3 for example I cannot distinguish a person jumping and making noises from high platform vs low platform. like its really hard to tell where the person is with sound.. I used to use the older creative drivers and they seem to work fine. Is there anything I'm missing? I can tell if the person is left or right of me with sounds but high/low is really difficult and it wasnt like this with the creative drivers. I realize kx is still evolving but any pointers to fix this? My setup is this -> sblive value card with just front output and rear output on the card. I just want only one output to work at a time (ie i have speakers hooked up on one and headsets hooked up on the other and switch between the two using SWAP rear/front in the mixer as needed) The DSP is setup as default and im not quite sure which surrounder setting i should be using 2.0(no surround or surround?) or 4.0(no surround or surround?) Or do i have to rewire the dsp differently and use the downmix plugin or something because I only want to use one ouput and I dont have all the extra output like sub and such that are available in other recent soundcards? Any help is appreciated. Thank you. Last edited by bpaul8; Dec 11, 2003 at 09:42 PM.

Dec 11, 2003, 11:03 PM	#2
HunterZ DriverHeaven Addict Join Date: May 2003 Location: Seattle, USA Posts: 257 Rep Power: 0	I played around with DirectSound3D Hardware mode in RightMark 3DSound 1.0 from audio.rightmark.org and hardware DS3D sound in kX is definitely quieter if the sound is positioned above or below the center. It may be that with the Creative drivers it also does some kind of other spatialization effect(s) like muffling the sound? There's nothing else that I can think of that can be done without having another speaker above and/or below the listener for vertical sound. __________________ Athlon XP 3200+, Gigabyte GA7N-400Pro2 Rev 2.0 (nVidia nForce2 chipset), 1 GB DDR400 (CAS 2.0, dual-channel), ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB AGP 8x, WinXP Pro SP2, DX9.0c., Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers

Jan 12, 2004, 10:28 AM	#7
HunterZ DriverHeaven Addict Join Date: May 2003 Location: Seattle, USA Posts: 257 Rep Power: 0	But won't turning off acceleration make things sound worse instead of better if you have more than a simple stereo speaker setup? __________________ Athlon XP 3200+, Gigabyte GA7N-400Pro2 Rev 2.0 (nVidia nForce2 chipset), 1 GB DDR400 (CAS 2.0, dual-channel), ATI Radeon 9800 Pro 256MB AGP 8x, WinXP Pro SP2, DX9.0c., Logitech Z-5500 5.1 speakers

Dec 12, 2003, 12:46 AM	#3
Eugene Gavrilov kX Project Lead Programmer and Coordinator Join Date: Dec 2002 Posts: 3,106 Rep Power: 73	kX Driver doesn't handle the elevation of the sound source properly CL & Microsoft drivers add special filtering for elevated sounds -- while kX doesn't so, if you really need this, disable hardware acceleration in your game /E

Dec 12, 2003, 05:18 AM	Thread Starter #4
bpaul8 DriverHeaven Newbie Join Date: Oct 2003 Posts: 3 Rep Power: 0	dang. That is pretty important in gaming especially in competitive multplayer . Oh well i guess i have to go back to creative until kx is developed further. Keep up the good work on the drivers! Thanks for the prompt replies guys.

Jan 9, 2004, 07:05 PM	#5
kelesh DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 33 Rep Power: 0	What happens when you disable hardware accelerations? Why does this help?

Jan 12, 2004, 01:23 PM	#8
HolyAvenger DriverHeaven Junior Member Join Date: Dec 2003 Posts: 83 Rep Power: 0	Hehe, I wonder when the first speaker systems with an actual top speaker appear. Firm mounting is advisable, lest the speaker might land on your head

Jan 13, 2004, 08:09 AM	#9
Soeren_B kX Project DSP Engineer Join Date: Dec 2002 Location: Denmark Posts: 94 Rep Power: 0	ROFL [COLOR=green]-sb[/COLOR]