Midgard on 19/12/2023 at 19:25
I have a pair of new JBL 610 wireless headphones that supports both DTS and JBLQuantumSurround 3D positional sound and wanted to know if it's possible to get 3D positional sound working with Thief 1 or 2? Enabling OpenAL in the menu at least allows me to use stereo but wanted something a little more immersive. How about 5.1 with speakers?
Update: Well, using Nick's Guide (
https://nickdablin.wordpress.com/how-to-play-thief-fan-missions/how-to-play-thief-fan-missions-optional-extras/) here I was at least able to get 5.1 surround working very well with Thief Gold and The Black Parade FM, but only on my speaker setup. I'll experiment to see if I can get 3D positional audio on my headphones but I'm happy I at least get true surround sound now with Thief Gold and its FMs.
Marvin on 22/12/2023 at 11:09
I would recommend the headphone HRTF feature of OpenAL Soft, as detailed here: (
https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=8371.0)
HRTFs are used to map from true 3D positional audio to the stereo output of a headphone. As you can freely choose the HRTF model, you can select one that best suits you, as HRTFs depend on every part of the speaker setup, including the shape of your head and ear canal.
Midgard on 23/12/2023 at 15:41
Quote Posted by Marvin
I would recommend the headphone HRTF feature of OpenAL Soft, as detailed here: (
https://www.systemshock.org/index.php?topic=8371.0)
HRTFs are used to map from true 3D positional audio to the stereo output of a headphone. As you can freely choose the HRTF model, you can select one that best suits you, as HRTFs depend on every part of the speaker setup, including the shape of your head and ear canal.
Thanks, I'll check it out. I tried the DTS:X and JBL Quantum proprietary 3D audio in Thief with OpenAL and was less than impressed, but I may have unrealistic expectations of what "3D positional Audio" is or I may have misconfigured my headphones in Windows (you basically just select 7.1 in sound panel for that device, correct?). I have the Resident Evil 4 remake which was designed for DTS:X 3D sound so maybe I should use that as a "benchmark" to if I'm more impressed with its potential.
Marvin on 23/12/2023 at 16:32
Usually, these methods can only do so much, for example when they downmix from 5.1 or 7.1 sound to a more natural-sounding 3D-like stereo sound. The native OpenAL implementation provided by Thief's newdark patch has the advantage that the actual in-game position of each sound source is considered when mapping to stereo, which sounds a lot better.
PsymH on 25/12/2023 at 08:09
I just use the "Windows Sonic for headphones" setting. That's fine for me.
