X3:AP - 5.1 sound distribution is off.

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Wolveras
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X3:AP - 5.1 sound distribution is off.

Post by Wolveras » Wed, 5. Aug 15, 20:30

After some fiddeling and setting up equipment, my 5.1 surround system is finally set up properly and ready to kick some ass.

However, I'm having some issues with X3 specifically.

All speakers and the sub work as they should, but the distribution of sound is off. Most of the sound, especially voices and sound effects, are played almost exclusively through the center speaker. Music, ambient, and directional sound work as intended though, as far as I can tell at least.

The system works fine in stereo mode, but that's not the reason I've set up a 5.1 installation.

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Wed, 5. Aug 15, 20:43

Yes a problem for most systems with OS of Vista or later. The DirectSound surroundsound and EAX in X3 was designed for XP and rarely works well in later OSs that went away from DirectSound to OpenAL as their sound standard. Some add-on sound card drivers can get round this though and you can sometimes make it work in later OSs using HDMI or some other digital outputs.

I find with a RealTek onboard sound chipset and Win7 that setting speaker layout to Quadraphonic with 'Fill Speakers' checked works best in X3 games. I use 5.1/7.1 layouts for everything else.

The issue is mentioned in this Sticky.
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Wolveras
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Post by Wolveras » Wed, 5. Aug 15, 21:11

Thanks for the quick reply Alan.

I'm trying the 3D Soundback option, but when I try to install and "complete" it, it says (translation) "Installshield Wizard has completed running maintenence on 3D Sound Back Beta0.1", and I can't find it installed anywhere on my PC.

Alan Phipps
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Post by Alan Phipps » Wed, 5. Aug 15, 21:47

I tried 3D Soundback once and it did strange things to my system (then Vista) and made it unstable (as did Creative's ALchemy). Hence my usual advice to stick to Quadraphonic for X3 and the warning about emulators in the Sticky I linked.

You should find your new install somewhere in 'Program Files (x86)' folder or else use the system search or recent changes tools to find it. Also if you click on the bottom left Windows symbol, any newly-installed exes should be highlighted within the 'All Programs' tab listing.

You might also find that you need to reboot before the program is shown available - not sure on that.
A dog has a master; a cat has domestic staff.

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