Hardware & Technical PSA: HDMI audio is amazing

szopin

S
Recently had to use a HDMI->VGA+Audio adapter due to monitor change and whoa, even with standard 2 speaker setup, the audio is just so much... better. Can't really describe it properly but all sounds got extra depth. If you have a choice between standard spdif output and hdmi, give it a go, again, even on 2 standard speakers setup the difference is huge

(originally posted on ed subreddit, but the mods there are hotpocket infused as to claim this has nothing with ED, so judge for yourself, the only other post about hdmi out being much better than spdif is one post from year ago quoting someone from livestream, this should be general knowledge, if you have an audio out from your monitor give it a try, spdif sucks balls)
 

Mole HD

Mole HD
szopin said:
Recently had to use a HDMI->VGA+Audio adapter due to monitor change and whoa, even with standard 2 speaker setup, the audio is just so much... better. Can't really describe it properly but all sounds got extra depth. If you have a choice between standard spdif output and hdmi, give it a go, again, even on 2 standard speakers setup the difference is huge

(originally posted on ed subreddit, but the mods there are hotpocket infused as to claim this has nothing with ED, so judge for yourself, the only other post about hdmi out being much better than spdif is one post from year ago quoting someone from livestream, this should be general knowledge, if you have an audio out from your monitor give it a try, spdif sucks balls)
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You should try the audio wearing a decent headset [yesnod]
 

Mole HD

Mole HD
szopin said:
Have oculus now, but not sure if it is actually as good as standard stereo speakers through hdmi
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A 'decent' headset doesn't include the clip on things hanging from a rift headset in that description. The sound design in E-D is overall pretty astounding. I use a pair of Hyper-X cloud 2's...not the most expensive or the best by any stretch of imagination...but in comparison to speaker output, even through my HDMi monitors pales in comparison.
 

szopin

S
Yeah, I'm kinda tempted to go 5.1 or 7.1, but even with 2 standard speakers, going hdmi from spdif made everything so much clearer/deeper? Even just sitting in a station is new, not to mention things like boosting or hyperspace jumps. Not sure why this isn't general knowledge, but when I experienced it at first thought I'm just high/drunk, googling turned pretty much nothing except that one thread where someone on stream said hdmi is the only output that gives full audio quality. Again, not sure if oculus has it (in theory it should as uses hdmi, but it has its own audio out if run from oculus home), just thought would let people know as myself would never bother to use hdmi-out of my monitor so far, assumed spdif is 'the sound my pc generates', not true, at least in ED case
 

iFred

I
Running it on a 5.1 Canton-Setup with a Yamaha-Receiver since premium beta. Just one word: Awesome. The sound department deserves an Oscar for Elite. No question.
(Exception: Soundtrack. Its boring.)
 

szopin

S
iFred said:
Running it on a 5.1 Canton-Setup with a Yamaha-Receiver since premium beta. Just one word: Awesome. The sound department deserves an Oscar for Elite. No question.
(Exception: Soundtrack. Its boring.)
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That's the thing, the only post I could find was about 5.1/7.1 being sent through hdmi, but even on two speakers (you know basic setup all pc gamers have) the difference is night and day, you can hear all kinds of little things over hdmi, while through spdif it's just very good audio, over hdmi it's just crazy good, give it a try
 

Mole HD

Mole HD
babelfisch said:
Could someone explain why using HDMI should make a difference on a stereo setup?
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It only has reference if you're using monitor speakers...otherwise, no influence at all :)

It gives better display quality and higher resolutions when compared to DVi...Sound, not so much since the sound quality is measurably improved using 5.1/7.1 Dolby using hardware that reflects that.
 

szopin

S
Mole HD said:
It only has reference if you're using monitor speakers...otherwise, no influence at all :)

It gives better display quality and higher resolutions when compared to DVi...Sound, not so much since the sound quality is measurably improved using 5.1/7.1 Dolby using hardware that reflects that.
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Not true, I was using separate speaker setup, but always connected to spdif, after monitor change had an hdmi to VGA+sound adapter and then plugged them into hdmi and the difference is huge, really. The only reason I found is they cannot push proper 5.1 7.1 through spdif (something about putting pcm format thtough one but not the other), so in theory it should only apply to those using that (5.1/7.1), but again, 2 speaker setup and the difference is absurd. Abandon spdif if you have a choice
 

szopin

S
babelfisch said:
Could someone explain why using HDMI should make a difference on a stereo setup?
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As to why it would make a difference, no idea, hope some audio wizard can chime in, but difference is night and day, if you're already on hdmi, plug your speakers into spdif out from your pc, everything will get flattened. This is definitely not a fluke as could reliably reproduce plugging to one and the other with the hdmi splitter(for audio) adapter
 

IndigoWyrd

IndigoWyrd
I use a Logitech headset when I headset.
I use an ancient Monsoon speaker system when I PC.
And when I want something strapped to my head, I use an Avegant Glyph.

The sounds are great, except the SRV wave scanner, which is so soft it is virtually inaudiable.
 

szopin

S
IndigoWyrd said:
I use a Logitech headset when I headset.
I use an ancient Monsoon speaker system when I PC.
And when I want something strapped to my head, I use an Avegant Glyph.

The sounds are great, except the SRV wave scanner, which is so soft it is virtually inaudiable.
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What do you plug your speakers to? If spdif, really try hdmi (if you have audio out from your hdmi monitor use this to test as most will use standard PC out, which is spdif)

edit: and just to be clear, even basic audio is great, it just gets SUPER GREAT when through hdmi, I thought ED audio was great before, after accidentally hearing it through hdmi out, it's g SUPER GREAT
 
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GG7

G
The game audio totally ROCKS in 7.1. That is the only way I have ever run ED since even on my gaming PC, I am running through my high end home theater gear.

Can't imagine playing this game any other way considering how much the 7.1 surround adds to the experience. :)
 

szopin

S
babelfisch said:
Could someone explain why using HDMI should make a difference on a stereo setup?
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This is the only source I can find about why spdif sucks:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...rround-sound?p=6245521&viewfull=1#post6245521

S/PDIF sadly isn't supported by the ED client, since it outputs 5.1 uncompressed in PCM format which doesn't provide surround through optical natively. 5.1 via HDMI inputs will work, though.

CMDR Sticks

How this results in hdmi getting much better sound overall, no idea
 

babelfisch

babelfisch
szopin said:
This is the only source I can find about why spdif sucks:
https://forums.frontier.co.uk/showt...rround-sound?p=6245521&viewfull=1#post6245521

S/PDIF sadly isn't supported by the ED client, since it outputs 5.1 uncompressed in PCM format which doesn't provide surround through optical natively. 5.1 via HDMI inputs will work, though.

CMDR Sticks

How this results in hdmi getting much better sound overall, no idea
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We are talking about stereo though?
I guess the difference comes from people using crappy soundcards while HDMI audio gets handled by the graphics card.
 

szopin

S
Possibly, realtek here, is it crappy? Most likely, I still would assume that all that gores through it is just .wav or similar and it only is responsible for making it sound on the output, but apparently there is much more to it (and yeah, hdmi is handled by nvidia, so skipping realtek)
 

Lightspeed

Lightspeed
babelfisch said:
We are talking about stereo though?
I guess the difference comes from people using crappy soundcards while HDMI audio gets handled by the graphics card.
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Yes, I suspect there is a phase effect here ..... better sound discrimination with stronger phase differences for signals to each ear, or each speaker ..... an improved stereo separation and hence a perception of improved depth to the sound.

It's a bit like having stereo speakers connected the wrong way round, so that they are in anti-phase, then they are connected correctly and the difference in sound depth, richness and stereo separation is amazing.
 

szopin

S
Stereo speakers connected the other way around will just make left sounds seem to sound from right and vice versa, it's really not an explanation why the sounds from spdif sound flat vs hdmi having extra 100 degrees of depth, just try it on your setup, plug your speakers into spdif and compare, it really is much more than left-right switch

Edit: hypotherical: maybe spdif is basic 16bit 44khz while hdmi goes with 192 so allows more sounds from the end of the ranges to sound? Maybe the whole 5.1 even on stereo setup has impact (dolby etc?), there could be thousands of possible solutions, would love to hear from actual frontier devs
 
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