3D sound/vision features?
kow
Join Date: 2003-06-19 Member: 17524Members, Constellation
Join Date: 2003-06-19 Member: 17524Members, Constellation
I was wondering if anyone has tried to get 3d sound working on this game? I want to pick up a new sound card for 3d positional audio and wanted to get one that is confirmed to work. There doesn't appear to be any options in the menus for surround sound so I assume that means options like Dolby Headphones will not work which rules out most sound cards, but I was hoping someone with a Creative X-Fi could see if the CMSS-3D feature works? Since NS2 uses fmod there's a chance that something like CMSS-3D could be used through fmods OpenAL support.
Also, can we expect some developer support for 3d vision? right now it works almost perfectly except for the gun showing up twice on-screen.
Also, can we expect some developer support for 3d vision? right now it works almost perfectly except for the gun showing up twice on-screen.
Comments
NS2 appears to automatically output audio to whatever number of speaker channels are available according to the setting in Windows.
To get it working is pretty simple. Simply open the Xonar Audio Center program and set the "<b>Audio Channel</b>" setting to "<b>8</b>" (which corresponds to a 7.1 system). This will automatically set Windows to 7.1 channel audio. Then set the "<b>Analog Out</b>" setting to "<b>Headphone</b>" and check the "<b>Dolby Headphone</b>" box. This makes the sound card remix the 7.1 channel audio down to a 2 channel stereo feed and, while doing so, applies the Dolby Headphone filters.
Personally, I'm not that fond of Dolby Headphone because I don't find its HRTF implementation particularly convincing and I dislike the way it tries to "externalise" the audio by simulating room reverberation. I also find it quite regrettable that a pre-mixed 7.1 or 5.1 channel feed has to be used as the source for the HRTF filters. That's just not high enough resolution for my tastes. For most people, it's probably great but I've been spoiled by having used much better 3D positional audio solutions.
The best 3D positional audio solution I've used is Rapture3D. It takes the form of an OpenAL device, which means it only works with games that use OpenAL. Man, It would be so awesome if NS2 had the option to use OpenAL as the audio renderer/mixer.