Is DCS Quadraphonic (4 channels sound)?

[Frag]

Hi guys,

 

ironically, I was not really able to find any thread talking about it so here it is.

 

Is DCS Quadraphonic (4 sounds channel)? I am asking since I am starting to build a basic cockpit and always thought that sound is 50% of the output sent from the game to your brain, so i always considered it as important as the visual.

 

Is it worth having a 4 speakers set + sub in the DCS environment? Big difference from stereo? I am asking since some game are awesome in quadraphonic and exploit it at 100% .... but what about DCS? What is your experience with it on the subject?

[Svsmokey]

Wow . Haven't heard that term since the early 70's .

[javelina1]

Indeed, I think I had that with my 69 Dodge Coronet and an 8 track player... :-)

 

 

I have a 5.1 A/V receiver setup, and have used that with a decent sound card. DCS sounds great, especially if you're using a sound mod such as Skullz for a Huey. The first time I flew that with the sound at "11", Wifey came in and thought a chopper was going to land on the house! :-)

[Svsmokey]

Yeah , still resonates today (pun intended) . I got burned big time by buying high-end gear that was never supported by the record companies . Don't think i'll be jumping on ray-tracing anytime soon .

[Frag]

Wow . Haven't heard that term since the early 70's .

 

LOLLL I guess I just said out loud that I am mid 40 LOL

 

Briefly would sound coming from the rear are from the rear?

[feefifofum]

Yes, positional audio is fully supported in DCS. I'd recommend a 5.1 system (Left, Center, Right, Rear Left, Rear Right, Subwoofer)

A seat-mounted speaker such as the Buttkicker operating on subwoofer channel is also a great addition to the immersion factor. Things that go bump will really bump you. :)

[Frag]

Yes, positional audio is fully supported in DCS. I'd recommend a 5.1 system (Left, Center, Right, Rear Left, Rear Right, Subwoofer)

A seat-mounted speaker such as the Buttkicker operating on subwoofer channel is also a great addition to the immersion factor. Things that go bump will really bump you. :)

 

I really need to try the butt kicker. I tried a homemade cockpit done by some guy few years ago at a local air show and he had a 12 inches amplified sub-woofer box bolted right under the seat. I can tell you that when you were rolling on an airstrip in the IL2 sim, you FELT like you were rolling believe me.

 

Also when anti aircraft round were exploding near you, you would get the shiver. WAY more immersive than I thought.

[Alphamale]

Wow . Haven't heard that term since the early 70's .

 

Yep, I sold audio systems back in the late 70's and eighties...the word he's looking for is now Multi-channel

[javelina1]

Yep, I sold audio systems back in the late 70's and eighties...the word he's looking for is now Multi-channel

 

 

did you sell a lot? ;)

[Alphamale]

I really need to try the butt kicker. I tried a homemade cockpit done by some guy few years ago at a local air show and he had a 12 inches amplified sub-woofer box bolted right under the seat. I can tell you that when you were rolling on an airstrip in the IL2 sim, you FELT like you were rolling believe me.

 

Also when anti aircraft round were exploding near you, you would get the shiver. WAY more immersive than I thought.

 

I had the same seat...it was called Thunderseat...look it up....it was heaven when you fired the A10C 30mm chaingun

[Alphamale]

did you sell a lot? ;)

 

Absolutely, it was a boutique....Nakamichi, Infinity, Polk, Harman Kardon, Bang&Ollufsen....all the high end stuff...systems would go for 10k average

[javelina1]

Absolutely, it was a boutique....Nakamichi, Infinity, Polk, Harman Kardon, Bang&Ollufsen....all the high end stuff...systems would go for 10k average

 

 

Nice work my man! and I bet 99.9% were the testosterone types... ;)

[Frag]

I had the same seat...it was called Thunderseat...look it up....it was heaven when you fired the A10C 30mm chaingun

 

I could imagine! Or a P-51 as well !!!

[Alphamale]

Nice work my man! and I bet 99.9% were the testosterone types... ;)

 

Why, is that the kind that buys expensive sound systems? :lol:

[Eldur]

Wow . Haven't heard that term since the early 70's .

 

I'm amazed...

 

 

Dunno how it's called in the English version though

 

First heard it when having a SoundBlaster Live! with FPS 1600 connected to them (4.1) ~20 years ago. That was better than adding a 3dfx card actually.

[David OC]

Never heard of it before....:D

 

Real old school.....

 

Panasonic 2-4 Channel Quadraphonic Headphones

 

wow, four speakers lol

 

[F900EX]

I'm using ONYKO receiver with Dolby ATOMS with DTS:X connected to a GTX1080ti card using 5.1 speakers and I can hear in 360 lol ... its really amazing, especially when jets fly overhead.

[Frag]

What I noticed and do not like in 5.1 (at least with movie) is that too much emphasis is put on the front center speaker.

 

I have a home theater and most of the people that hears it prefer it in stereo over 5.1. Stereo mostly play everything thru all speakers when 5.1 play from the front center speaker 50% of the time.

 

I am not sound expert by the way, just reporting what I noticed.

 

As far as this thread goes, wanted to know if indeed the sound in DCS is 360 and it seems it is. I will test it out for sure.

 

I am planning to build a basic home made cockpit with hotas/rudder support with a 50 inches 4k screen and TrackIR. I play multiple aircraft so I will not replicate specific cockpits. But one of the thing I absolutely want in a 12 inches subs right under the seat to feel the base and now 2 fronts/rears speaker to hear the 360 effect. As I said earlier, this is something I felt few years ago at an air show and it made a HUGE difference on the immersion.

[Svsmokey]

I'm amazed...

 

 

Dunno how it's called in the English version though

 

First heard it when having a SoundBlaster Live! with FPS 1600 connected to them (4.1) ~20 years ago. That was better than adding a 3dfx card actually.

 

Over here , quad sound lasted maybe two years . There was never much media to play on such a system , and almost none after a small initial effort . I know this story too well !

[FragBum]

What I noticed and do not like in 5.1 (at least with movie) is that too much emphasis is put on the front center speaker.

 

I have a home theater and most of the people that hears it prefer it in stereo over 5.1. Stereo mostly play everything thru all speakers when 5.1 play from the front center speaker 50% of the time.

 

I am not sound expert by the way, just reporting what I noticed.

 

Yep I'm generally disappointed with the surround mix of movies, there are some very well mixed titles. But I do find the THX sampler right at the end has a great mix. Just a hunch but I think the mix is usually done to cater for the greater uneducated audience with $99 systems which is a shame really audio is an important part of the over all movie/game experience.

 

 

 

As far as this thread goes, wanted to know if indeed the sound in DCS is 360 and it seems it is. I will test it out for sure.

 

I am planning to build a basic home made cockpit with hotas/rudder support with a 50 inches 4k screen and TrackIR. I play multiple aircraft so I will not replicate specific cockpits. But one of the thing I absolutely want in a 12 inches subs right under the seat to feel the base and now 2 fronts/rears speaker to hear the 360 effect. As I said earlier, this is something I felt few years ago at an air show and it made a HUGE difference on the immersion.

 

I get this with Xbox, :thumbup::D

[MTFDarkEagle]

I use quadraphonic audio :)

Works perfectly.

 

Simply put, I've got two 2.1 audio sets. One for front, one for rear.

So 4.2 effectively :pilotfly: :D

[98abaile]

The way I understand it, most modern 3D games have positional audio based on the audio source in 3D space. Literally games have sound emitters the same way they have light sources, an invisible point in space from where the emissions come from, the game then tells the audio hardware and the hardware outputs accordingly. In theory you can have a 360 speaker setup and as long as your computer can handle that many channels, you could have pinpoint audio accuracy.

At least that's how I understand it, I could be wrong.

[FragBum]

The way I understand it, most modern 3D games have positional audio based on the audio source in 3D space. Literally games have sound emitters the same way they have light sources, an invisible point in space from where the emissions come from, the game then tells the audio hardware and the hardware outputs accordingly. In theory you can have a 360 speaker setup and as long as your computer can handle that many channels, you could have pinpoint audio accuracy.

At least that's how I understand it, I could be wrong.

 

More than 360 the audio emitters need to be able to approximate at least a sphere around the player 360 on x and 360 on y. :D :thumbup:

 

Think elevator door horizontal plane and traveling up/down vertical plane. Practical example I was flying Gazelle on a server at about 150mtr and had an aircraft fly under me I got the fly past in the horizontal plane but the sound should have arrived from below. ;)

Edited December 1, 2018 by FragBum

[Sadist_Cain]

The way I understand it, most modern 3D games have positional audio based on the audio source in 3D space. Literally games have sound emitters the same way they have light sources, an invisible point in space from where the emissions come from, the game then tells the audio hardware and the hardware outputs accordingly. In theory you can have a 360 speaker setup and as long as your computer can handle that many channels, you could have pinpoint audio accuracy.

At least that's how I understand it, I could be wrong.

 

Alas, it used to work that way but afaik the Hardware Abstraction Layer for audio devices was removed with windows vista, thus killing the sound cards ability to interact with the audio in a game in any meaningful way.

 

These days all the audio is handled in software, thus by the CPU, it's then sent to the soundcard which is a glorified Digital to Analogue Converter with mayhaps a headphone amp in it and some bitchin' RGB control. Sound now goes there to be switched from blocky bits to wiggly bits for your ears and not much else except for some eq jazz.

 

In times of yore sound cards absolutely worked as you described, drivers could be a nightmare but the soundcard knew what the audio sources were and where, what materials were involved their properties of reverberations, reflections etc.

Exactly as a graphics card but for audio, sound was truly 3d and not "5.1".

 

More often than not todays audio is split between 4/6 different channels around the player plus one in your skull for the voices (centre channel) and the bass.

The volume of audio sources around you corresponds with the distance of each audio source from each channel, creating the illusion of "surround sound" there's no verticality unless it's specifically written in the audio engine or applied to the sounds by design.

Whereas in the beforeforetime positions of emitters and listeners were known by the card, along with the materials that could effect the sound in whatever way, the card would process the audio for you along with calculating an average HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) to the audio based on it's position, 3d positional audio, it would also free up your (often) single core cpu to do more important things.

 

HRTF dawhat? The HRTF is unique to each person, it is the delay and change in sound as audio travels from one ear to the other which our brain figures out to provide us with distance and directional information, it's instinctive and based on your head size and to an extent the shape of ones ears.

Most folk who aren't from Chernobyl or Fukushima only have 2 ears, so the sound card would do an average HRTF giving each ear a high quality accurate representation of the sound it should receive based on where it's coming from and the situation you're in, so you actually hear the sound synamically created as close to it happens in reality, true to life accurate 3d audio.

 

Twas a glorious time but sadly many console peasants and folks buying cheap virtual 27.1 headsets for l33t gaming needz no one really noticed the death of decent audio, anyone who did was branded a snotty audiophile and reprimanded.

5.1 headsets are stupid, very stupid. Virtual 5.1 now that deserves a special place in hell...

 

I mean christ alive, people compliment the reboot of 'Prey' for having great sound :doh: but at least we have rgb headsets... yaaay

 

Grumble Grumble:mad:

 

... Who let me out, how'd I get here? Someone better take me home...

Edited December 1, 2018 by Sadist_Cain

[Sadist_Cain]

The way I understand it, most modern 3D games have positional audio based on the audio source in 3D space. Literally games have sound emitters the same way they have light sources, an invisible point in space from where the emissions come from, the game then tells the audio hardware and the hardware outputs accordingly. In theory you can have a 360 speaker setup and as long as your computer can handle that many channels, you could have pinpoint audio accuracy.

At least that's how I understand it, I could be wrong.

 

Alas, it used to work that way but afaik the Hardware Abstraction Layer for audio devices was removed with windows vista, thus killing the sound cards ability to interact with the audio in a game in any meaningful way.

 

These days all the audio is handled in software, thus by the CPU, it's then sent to the soundcard which is a glorified Digital to Analogue Converter with mayhaps a headphone amp in it and some bitchin' RGB control. Sound now goes there to be switched from blocky bits to wiggly bits for your ears.

 

In times of yore sound cards absolutely worked as you described, drivers could be a nightmare but the soundcard knew what the audio sources were and where, what materials were involved their properties of reverberations, reflections etc.

Exactly as a graphics card but for audio, sound was truly 3d and not "5.1".

 

More often than not todays audio is split between 4/6 different channels around the player plus one in your skull for the voices (centre channel) and the bass.

The volume of audio sources around you corresponds with the distance of each audio source from each channel, creating the illusion of "surround sound" there's no verticality unless it's specifically written in the audio engine or applied to the sounds by design.

Whereas in the beforeforetime positions of emitters and listeners were known by the card, along with the materials that could effect the sound in whatever way, the card would process the audio for you along with calculating an average HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) to the audio based on it's position, 3d positional audio, it would also free up your (often) single core cpu to do more important things.

 

HRTF dawhat? The HRTF is unique to each person, it is the delay and change in sound as audio travels from one ear to the other which our brain figures out to provide us with distance and directional information, it's instinctive and based on your head size and to an extent the shape of ones ears.

Most folk who aren't from Chernobyl or Fukushima only have 2 ears, so the sound card would do an average HRTF giving each ear a high quality accurate representation of the sound it should receive based on where it's coming from and the situation you're in, true to life accurate 3d audio.

 

Twas a glorious time but sadly many console peasants and folks buying cheap virtual 27.1 headsets for l33t gaming needz no one really noticed the death of decent audio, anyone who did was branded a snotty audiophile and reprimanded.

5.1 headsets are stupid, very stupid. Virtual 5.1 now that deserves a special place in hell...

 

I mean christ alive, people compliment the reboot of 'Prey' for having great sound :doh: but at least we have rgb headsets... yaaay

 

Grumble Grumble:mad:

 

... Who let me out, how'd I get here? Someone better take me home...