PsymH on 24/2/2017 at 09:17
Or a HDMI connection to a good 5.1 A/V receiver
baeuchlein on 24/2/2017 at 12:50
In theory, yes. In reality, though, things are not always so simple. The one game which I really wanted to play with 3D sound didn't work reliably with most software and hardware setups I had, despite other games that did it well. Unfortunately, "Thief II" was the one that did not do things well, and after several long testing and tweaking sessions, I gave it up. Software stereo sound is all that remains for thieving now.:nono:
heywood on 25/2/2017 at 13:15
5.1 is 2D sound, not 3D. Sound sources are mostly confined to the plane of the speakers. With processing tricks, you can sometimes make it sound like something is above your head, especially when panning front to rear or side to side e.g. a flyover sound effect. But that's not 3D sound.
With a full blown Dolby Atmos processor, an array of 4 speakers above you and 4 speaker below you, you could have 3D sound. But in practical implementations of Atmos you really only have speakers above you. So that's 2.5D sound.
If you have a good pair of headphones, try this demo:
(
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3eOuqAmLAA) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s3eOuqAmLAA
That's the best example I can find to illustrate what games sounded like with my Monster Sound 3D card circa 2000. The demo has convincing vertical placement for me, but everyone's HRTF is different so YMMV.
Regarding Thief 2, in terms of positional audio it was a step backwards compared to Thief 1 and a lot of people complained about it at the time.
Zerker on 26/2/2017 at 11:56
I never found one I liked. If anyone here is really interested in getting quality midi, you can still use external hardware synths with a USB midi device.
Here are (
http://www.zerker.ca/misc/synth/) some random samples from my Roland SC-88VL and the classic MT32 if anyone is curious. I added some comparisons with the AWE64 as well.
... though I'm pretty sure I posted those here before in another thread sometime.
On the modern soundcard front, I found the onboard soundcard for my machine had too much noise on the microphone line, so I installed an Asus Xonar DS. Been pretty happy with this little guy.
baeuchlein on 26/2/2017 at 12:32
Quote Posted by heywood
5.1 is 2D sound, not 3D. Sound sources are mostly confined to the plane of the speakers.
That's right, but about 15 years ago, everything which was more than just stereo sound had a lot of marketing buzzwords swarming around like moths around a flame. Some called it "3D sound", some rather "positional audio", others spoke of "5.1 sound", and "surround" could be heard every now and then as well. I even had a sound card which was sold as having "4.1 sound", when in reality, it only did 4.0 sound. You could perhaps have 4.1 if your other sound equipment was able to filter frequencies somehow and send some of them to a subwoofer or unidirectional bass speaker, but that was not the sound card's work, then.
Somehow, this "3D sound" babbling has stayed in my head for far too long. Just like "3D graphics" of that time, which really meant that the graphics card would do all the processing required to "simulate" the third dimension by perspective on a 2D screen, instead of the CPU doing all the work. "Real" 3D was the hype of a few years before now, at least concerning TV sets, but that has waned considerably by now and seems to become little more than a footnote in history.
Quote:
Regarding Thief 2, in terms of positional audio it was a step backwards compared to Thief 1 and a lot of people complained about it at the time.
I didn't even get that far. Whenever I tried positional audio, I ran into technical problems. One card had very different volume levels on the forward and rear speakers which could not be corrected. Other sound chips didn't have that problem, but instead some sounds became distorted. Or sounds from diagonally in front of Garrett were suddenly almost inaudible at a certain angle. Sometimes, one or two of the speakers seemed not to give out any sound. And so on, and so on. Rebooting could help, at least for a few minutes, but I never got anything that worked reliably in Thief 1 and 2. Thief 3 worked well in that regard even on one sound chip where the first two games had problems, and one sound card with a certain driver could do positional audio in "TES IV: Oblivion" well, yet wouldn't work reliably with Thief 2 instead.
Most of the problems were already present when I used "Hardware sound" and EAX, but stereo sound instead of more sound channels, so it may not have anything to do with (2D) positional audio. I guess it was some kind of problem partially caused by the sound card and/or its drivers on the one hand and the Dark Engine on the other hand. But after having tried two sound cards as well as two Windows OS' for several days once, I decided not to waste more time on it.
Since then, it's stereo only here, and I have adapted to it. Especially since even with stereo only, Thief is able to give you an indication of whether the sound originates behind or in front of you. If it's behind you, the sound seems to be a bit muffled. I think I read once that this is like our ears perceive sounds behind us in real life, thus the game simulates it. I'm not certain whether it really works for me or not; when I play the game, I can do without knowing instantly whether something can be heard behind or in front of me. If the sound source is quite distant, it does not matter much, for I have to look around in the game world and try to see the sound source in order to determine what I should do anyway. If the sound source is very close, on the other hand, such as a guard in melee combat range, I can usually determine whether he is directly in front of me or behind me by looking at the screen.
And in order to get back to the original topic: I am mainly using onboard sound chips by now just because they're there, and because I usually don't need more than the chips can give to me. About fifteen years ago, there were some sound chips and sound cards which didn't sound satisfactory for me and/or didn't record audio well enough for me, but that time apparently has passed. Today, only one of my remaining sound cards doesn't record audio well, and one sound chip can only be used for mono recordings (most likely not the chip's fault, but some decision by the manufacturer of the laptop using that chip), but apart from that, everything's well. I can handle these disadvantages well enough, so I don't need a new sound card nowadays. There's just no demand from me for that anymore. Things are not perfect, but good enough for my personal taste. I have other things to worry about.;)
heywood on 26/2/2017 at 13:17
Quote Posted by Zerker
I never found one I liked. If anyone here is really interested in getting quality midi, you can still use external hardware synths with a USB midi device.
Here are (
http://www.zerker.ca/misc/synth/) some random samples from my Roland SC-88VL and the classic MT32 if anyone is curious. I added some comparisons with the AWE64 as well.
... though I'm pretty sure I posted those here before in another thread sometime.
On the modern soundcard front, I found the onboard soundcard for my machine had too much noise on the microphone line, so I installed an Asus Xonar DS. Been pretty happy with this little guy.
Thank you. I was quite shocked to hear the difference between the Roland synths and AWE64. I had an AWE32 or AWE64 card back in the day (can't remember which) and remember being impressed with the MIDI. I didn't realize what I was missing.
Nameless Voice on 26/2/2017 at 18:35
That Roland does sound good, though I don't think it sounds particularly better than the Soundfonts I have (just different, and therefore dependant on taste.)
Zerker on 27/2/2017 at 21:48
The main thing about a lot of fancy soundfonts is they can sound good, but not necessarily sound appropriate for the song in question. Especially if a song is composed around a particular interpretation of an instrument. Consider, for example, the percussion at the beginning of the Security Level music from System Shock. I downloaded one of the samples you linked and it just sounded... wrong. The notes were too pronounced for what the song was trying to do, etc.
The Roland devices were often what the composer originally used, so they will often sound most appropriate for the song in question. Many other synths from the era had similar emphasis etc, so sound fairly good too.
I've also had bad luck with some soft-synths (Timidity especially) sounding off-tune sometimes. It's kinda weird. I even remember this sort of issue with later Creative Cards that still supported, but de-emphasised the midi support, like the SB Audigy.
