VR and 5.1 surround sound. Does it work?

Lovely Feyd

Lovely Feyd
I was debating setting up my 5.1 surround sound for VR. I know you can choose Oculus (Headphones) and Oculus (Speakers) in the graphic settings.
If I use surround sound will it just come through in stereo? Has anyone used 5.1 with Oculus that can chime in?

Thanks.
 

Beavis Tingleball

Beavis Tingleball
5.1 > headphones.. I use my yamaha RX-v377 with a set of polk tsi330x's and a 500w 12" subwoofer. being able to feel the sound enhances the immersion by leaps and bounds. I also added 2 butt kicker mini-lfe's to my sim pit seat driven by a 600w amplifier. Audio is 50% of the experience. if you have a 5.1 setup and you havent used it yet, you're in for a real treat...and yes, it's in full 5.1. I use the Pro Logic cinema setting;)
 
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CODKill

C
I don't have the source for it, but I believe that when you use the Oculus (Headphones) options, it takes into account your head position from the HMD and changes the audio output based on that. When you use Oculus (Speakers) it outputs the audio normally. If you are using a 5.1 loudspeaker system, you should just use the Oculus (Speakers) settings, since you will be moving your head to hear the correct directional audio anyways.
 
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xondk

X
CODKill said:
I don't have the source for it, but I believe that when you use the Oculus (Headphones) options, it takes into account your head position from the HMD and changes the audio output based on that. When you use Oculus (Speakers) it outputs the audio normally. If you are using a 5.1 loudspeaker system, you should just use the Oculus (Speakers) settings, since you will be moving your head to hear the correct directional audio anyways.
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I was wondering about this recently, since I wouldn't want to change away from my 5.1 setup to headphones, so very nice to know.
 

Lovely Feyd

Lovely Feyd
Beavis Tingleball said:
5.1 > headphones.. I use my yamaha RX-v377 with a set of polk tsi330x's and a 500w 12" subwoofer. being able to feel the sound enhances the immersion by leaps and bounds. I also added 2 butt kicker mini-lfe's to my sim pit seat driven by a 600w amplifier. Audio is 50% of the experience. if you have a 5.1 setup and you havent used it yet, you're in for a real treat...and yes, it's in full 5.1. I use the Pro Logic cinema setting;)
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Are you using an HDMI as the input? I've been trying to get 5.1 to work and I realized i have an outdated receiver with no HDMI in/out and Optical Toslink will only do 2 channels. I've found a Yamaha RX-V375 used that i hope would work but I'm hesitant to buy it if i'm in the same boat.
 

Beavis Tingleball

Beavis Tingleball
Lovely Feyd said:
Are you using an HDMI as the input? I've been trying to get 5.1 to work and I realized i have an outdated receiver with no HDMI in/out and Optical Toslink will only do 2 channels. I've found a Yamaha RX-V375 used that i hope would work but I'm hesitant to buy it if i'm in the same boat.
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the RX-v375 is an excellent receiver. it will do 5.1 without issues. You must be aware of your motherboard/ soundcard capabilities though. my mobo (MSI bb2 x79) has an onboard 7.1 X-fi chip. if your mobo cant output 5.1 then you'll never get true surround sound from it. I just light-pipe the audio from my mobo to my receiver and set the receiver to the prologic II setting. any of the prologic or Neo6 cinema settings will work as well as a straight 5.1 pass. hope this clears things up for you. pm me for further info if needed.
 

Beavis Tingleball

Beavis Tingleball
Btw, Just finished a new custom 500w, 12' ht sub tuned @27hz(f322) and O M G !!! the scanner blasts can be felt for a good 10 seconds..without my lfe shakers on lmao.
 

Lovely Feyd

Lovely Feyd
Beavis Tingleball said:
the RX-v375 is an excellent receiver. it will do 5.1 without issues. You must be aware of your motherboard/ soundcard capabilities though. my mobo (MSI bb2 x79) has an onboard 7.1 X-fi chip. if your mobo cant output 5.1 then you'll never get true surround sound from it. I just light-pipe the audio from my mobo to my receiver and set the receiver to the prologic II setting. any of the prologic or Neo6 cinema settings will work as well as a straight 5.1 pass. hope this clears things up for you. pm me for further info if needed.
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I decided to go super cheap. I have an old 7.1/5.1 receiver (Sony STR-DE698) from back in the day. It seems my soundcard has 7.1 capabilities using multi-line input, I can not use any digital sound. Optical is restricted to 2.1 and I have no HDMI input on the receiver, so i have to use analog outputs to my multiline input. The reason I wanted the RX-v375 is to use the Nvidia High Definition Audio via a receiver with an HDMI. Unfortunately it will have to wait. I passed up a good one on ebay too. $125 for the unit and 5 speakers and a sub. If the HTC Vive wasnt just around the corner I would have snagged it.

Figuring out how get 5.1 was a little confusing. Once I figured out that I had to ditch any attempt at using the optical input it got easier.
 
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Beavis Tingleball

Beavis Tingleball
your opti is stereo only ? hmm..thats a new one to me. glad you got it though.. I had my first ss setup wired that way. 3x 3.5 to stereo rca's. but im still curious as to why your opti is stereo only...and yeah, $125 for the entire setup? the speakers are crap but i'd give $125 for that receiver all day long lol.
 
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Beavis Tingleball

Beavis Tingleball
wait, i think i got it figured.. your pc/soundcard only shows 2 channel audio when using the opti? so does mine:D but I assure you if your receiver is set to dd prologic or any 5.1 setting you are getting true 5.1 out of it..just play a movie with 5-7.1 audio or better yet search youtube for a 5.1 dolby test. A good codec pack like CCCP is also a good thing.
 
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Lovely Feyd

Lovely Feyd
Beavis Tingleball said:
wait, i think i got it figured.. your pc/soundcard only shows 2 channel audio when using the opti? so does mine:D but I assure you if your receiver is set to dd prologic or any 5.1 setting you are getting true 5.1 out of it..just play a movie with 5-7.1 audio or better yet search youtube for a 5.1 dolby test. A good codec pack like CCCP is also a good thing.
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Yeah I was referring to games only. A dvd would play because it's encoded with Dolby (or when I tested the dolby settings.. However it's my understanding that ED is not a Dolby encoded game as most publishers don't use it in their engine due to licencing cost. Can't really blame them. Can you confirm this? DVD's yes, Games No, Correct?
 

tinimark

tinimark
Games can't output true 5.1 through the optical output unless you run some software like dtsconnect. That then converts the multi channel output from the game to a dts stream which the amp can then decode but to be truthful, it won't sound as good as running discrete analogue cables from each channel to your amp's analogue inputs and there can be a slight audio delay using this software.

You can indeed use optical 2 channel and then use the amp's pro logic or neo6 modes but this is just your amp simulating surround from a 2ch source ...ie. Not true multi channel surround.

I've done a lot of experimenting with audio setups and PCs over the years. A good quality sound card with decent quality phono to jack cables running directly to an a/v amp with 5 speakers and big sub is the best I've heard, and elite sounds awesome through it. Bass shakers like the butt kicker or auro shakers connected to a separate amp add another level of immersion too.
 

Lovely Feyd

Lovely Feyd
I am just baffled now.
I've got ED hooked up to my 5.1 via stereo jacks>RCA in a multi-channel setting in my amp. Now for some reason the bass channel does not play through ED but it does through other games? I play War Thunder and I get booming bass when a tank fires. ED nothing. The only thing I've managed to do is split R/L stereo output and put it through the sub with high ranges disabled on the sub. Unfortunately though it's not mono and it's only getting a left or right channel. Does ED not support 5.1 analog?
I'm just confused.
 

Beavis Tingleball

Beavis Tingleball
perhaps I do not have true 5.1 while in Elite but I swear I hear ships fly by to my rear left to right and so on(on the prologic setting or straight). The shakers are where it's at when it comes to immersion. I mounted two of the butt kicker LFE mini's to my gaming throne, powered by a 300w rms amp and wow..just wow.
 
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Beavis Tingleball

Beavis Tingleball
From what I can find yes, ED does support 5.1.. but I keep seeing the word 'soundcard' attached. As I said, I have an X-Fi and maybe that's why it works for me. I had the analog setup for a long time and the only reason I switched to light piping is the superior quality. I've had the issue of the sub not responding per app/game but that was analog. It has not happened once since I went opti. try the opti again and play with it. you might find what you're lookin' for:)

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found this.. http://www.pcgamesn.com/elite-dangerous/david-braben-prefers-playing-elite-dangerous-oculus-rift

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Again, I cannot stress enough the importance of a good codec pack..It will give the option to change the output decoding and in theory should make just about any suitable setup work just fine.
 
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