On how GPKGPK cost me £230, but otherwise a discussion on Audio

Fatshark Lounge
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Thought I’d start a topic on Audio in FatShark games, and wider, since this has really piqued my interest!

Origins
Darktide is known for some Audio … “oddities”. e.g. missing audio cues, sound cut outs, the like. For a while I’d been thinking about… (cut scene)

Real Origins
A long time ago, in a county far far away, I once bought a top of the range Dell PC with Audio Lansing surround sound speakers. In a tiny one-bed room place, without the real room for them. They were ace, at the time. Fast forward maybe 4 years, and my next graphics card caused SO much interference that they were no longer usable from a non-earthed or digital source… which I didn’t have. Retired to the attic, I then made do with sh1tty usb speakers and a pair of DT231 headphone. For many years I’d dreamed of an external soundcard…

Fast forward 20 years…
Now owning an “OrbitSound” soundbar (2nd hand-off) and some Sony WH1000-XM5s I got in to a conversation with @gpkgpk. He recommended the Sennheiser GSX 1000 r2 DAC. They get great reviews. Then I got sucked in to the whole HiFi thing, and ended up with an iFi Zen3 DAC. I have quite a bit of Cambridge Audio stuff, and I’d had a good dac on my agenda for a long time.

It’s great. It really is (genuinely!). I’m getting more of the audio sound cues. And for music: I don’t have audiophile headphones, but they’re pretty damn close, and music sounds brill. But it’s a Stereo DAC. And I couldn’t help but wonder if I was missing out on the positional sound.

So on his recommendation (just < 14 days ago and £230 down :wink: ) I downloaded a trial of DTS:X (and Headphone:X within that).

I dunno if it’s better!? The base cranks up, but is the positional audio better? I really can’t decide. I just can’t tell: the standard headphones stereo was okay, minus the cut outs and missed cues, and the DAC has helped with that. My ears aren’t really that good.

Windows Sonic sounds a bit bleh. Next trial is ofc Dolby.

But the purpose of this post was just to ask what people are trying, and their experiences with Audio across music and games, obviously wrt games where a named surround sound tech brand isn’t included in the base game, such as those by FS.

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Should add; this is admittedly an old farts conversation starter. :wink:
Also. Listening to hi bit rate audio through the DTS modifier is definitely detrimental. It muddies the whole thing. Which is a pain as you’ve got to keep switching the effects on and off in windows sound controls.

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LOL can’t blame me, I was trying to steer you towards GSX 1000 r2 as you said. It also lets you switch to music mode at the touch of a button and has the comm device for voice chat as I said, and for 2 cans best results with open-back headphones (repeating for new readers).

After that, DO check out HeSuVi for equalizer APO, you can choose:

This tool imitates the 7.1 to binaural sound effect of many surround virtualizations by making use of Equalizer APO’s convolution filter. Available are impulse response that were recorded with activated…

– Dolby Atmos Headphone
– CMSS-3D
– SBX Pro Studio Surround (also found in BlasterX Acoustic Engine & THX TruStudio Pro)
– Dolby Headphone
– Sennheiser GSX Binaural 7.1
– DTS Headphone:X
– Windows Sonic Headphone
– Dolby Home Theater v4 Headphone Surround Virtualizer
– Razer Surround
– Out Of Your Head
– Flux HEar V3
– OpenAL and DirectSound3D HRTFs
– Waves Nx
– and many more!

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I started with HeSuVi as it happens!

Installation was easier than made out, but the interface itself… I couldn’t work out if it was active and doing anything!?

Not gonna lie, it’s the same for me for DTS

I think I general with audio it’s easier to get used to something for a period of time, then change a single thing and work out if it’s better or worse. Like seasoning in food, if something tastes good was it due to more salt?

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At the risk of this proposed thread just becoming a me-monologue… :wink:

DTS trial ran out. I’m not convinced by it. It’s not worth £15 for me.

Now trying Dolby Atmos. First impressions are better. It’s less in your face, and my first game with it I actually almost jumped at a character dialogue line that felt really close. I found the positioning of enemies above a bit hard to pin down, but I get another 7 days so will edit this post after then. *Edit - final day - I preferred Dolby Atmos, but for now I couldn’t say that it was definitely better than standard positional audio. I mean, maybe a bit? But £11 better? And I dislike the licensing model (one time install on one pc) so I’ll likely pass on it.

Question if I may - and I’m going to @FatsharkJulia as I saw you peek in here :wink: - the audio setting in game “Stereo - Headphones” ; are you using any branded spatial codecs (? think that’s the right word) in that? Obviously it’s distinct from just stereo, so just wondered. After all, the vanilla headphone setting in game isn’t that bad at all.

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Last stab, Windows Sonic.
Hmm.