How can I improve 3D audio for DT 770s

[D1Wolfgang]

Tonight, I was playing CS:GO with some guys, and they were all making a callout for a guy right around a corner. I couldn't hear any of him and ended up dying. Apparently, his noise was super obvious, and them with their 7.1 blah blah blah headphones could hear him. He WAS right in front of me how I was looking at the corner, not left or right of me, so I assume it's because my headphones are stereo. I know CS:GO has a 3D audio setting, and my DAC (This) also has "Virtual Surround" in its enhancements tab. Which should I have enabled? Both? My DAC>CS:GO or CS:GO> my DAC? The CS:GO setting does say to disable other audio enhancements... But then my audio in other games wouldn't have virtual surround. 

I also have Equalizer APO turned on to a config I found on Reddit that someone made specifically for the 770's... Could this be a hindrance? I don't see how it could. I think I might just throw some money at "gaming" headphones and switch them out for games. I know that it's not real 7.1, and they're not BETTER, but it seems like they are for position.

Thanks a lot. Btw, after breaking these in the past two weeks, extreme comfort and sound quality. Beautiful. 

[rice guru]

Honestly man sound is only part of the game but you have to develop game sense along with the headphones you own and that takes time and gameplay. Im not saying your bad at the game but peripherals don't really make the gamer. If you bad at the game no peripheral can save you. If you die want to use software use HeSuvi whith works with equalizer APO  to get you virtual surround I don't use it. So I don't know but their are guides to help you

[D1Wolfgang]

3 hours ago, rice guru said:

Honestly man sound is only part of the game but you have to develop game sense along with the headphones you own and that takes time and gameplay. Im not saying your bad at the game but peripherals don't really make the gamer. If you bad at the game no peripheral can save you. If you die want to use software use HeSuvi whith works with equalizer APO  to get you virtual surround I don't use it. So I don't know but their are guides to help you

ill look into it. Don't worry about game sense. I literally just couldn't hear the footsteps.

[RejZoR]

I frankly still stand by Creative although it plays a lesser role now than before when we had actual HW accelerated audio. I've had ASUS Xonar STX, a very high end soundcard that had pretty bad audio positioning and that was already in post Vista era of software audio. Going to Creative made things so much better in terms of audio awareness in 3D space. I'm not sure why they removed 2 technologies later in Core3D chips that were present on X-Fi ones. MacroFX and Elevation Filter. First created much better visualization of sounds that were near a player and Elevation Filter helped define whether it was on same level as you, above or below you. These two settings made HUGE difference for me.

 

I think I'm gonna bug Creative about this for a bit in a hope they return them for AE-9...

[D1Wolfgang]

3 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

I frankly still stand by Creative although it plays a lesser role now than before when we had actual HW accelerated audio. I've had ASUS Xonar STX, a very high end soundcard that had pretty bad audio positioning and that was already in post Vista era of software audio. Going to Creative made things so much better in terms of audio awareness in 3D space. I'm not sure why they removed 2 technologies later in Core3D chips that were present on X-Fi ones. MacroFX and Elevation Filter. First created much better visualization of sounds that were near a player and Elevation Filter helped define whether it was on same level as you, above or below you. These two settings made HUGE difference for me.

 

I think I'm gonna bug Creative about this for a bit in a hope they return them for AE-9...

So are you recommending software or hardware? I googled Creative audio but tons of irrelevant stuff came up. You got a link to something? I'm not really looking to buy anything.

[Spuriae]

If you were unable to hear him at all, virtual surround likely had nothing to do with it. Virtual surround is just a position-based EQ. Raise the volume on the sounds you need to hear, lower the volume on the sounds you don't.

[RejZoR]

2 minutes ago, Nimrodor said:

If you were unable to hear him at all, virtual surround likely had nothing to do with it. Virtual surround is just a position-based EQ. Raise the volume on the sounds you need to hear, lower the volume on the sounds you don't.

Not necessarily. Virtual Surround can be a HRTF like algorithm which positions and processes audio in such a way that you perceive it more accurately. Game engine has to do that to a degree and soundcard can further process that. It's just harder these days since games and soundcards are not connected the way they used to be.

[D1Wolfgang]

This whole thread pretty much led to the conclusion that I could spend money for 7.1 audio, or download software and get muddy, muffled audio. I'll continue using Games' own audio settings and try to find an eq good for gaming that I can toggle to.

4 hours ago, rice guru said:

HeSuvi whith works with equalizer APO

For the record, I would not recommend HeSuvi after using it for a little bit. but I appreciate the help. 

[an actual squirrel]

So, the game has an hrtf setting, you can use that. If not, you could use hesuvi with the game set to 7.1 (most games will automatically set themselves to 7.1 if windows is set to 7.1, but in this case, you can manually set csgo to 7.1).

 

The issue with stereo audio is that front and back sounds will be ambiguous. You can of course still sweep left and right on the mouse to change the audio balance and determine front and back with that (and this will work also on 2.0 speakers, as well as 2.0 headphones), but to have spatial awareness not tied to your mouse movements, you will need to use hrtf/virtual surround sound. This has implications for gameplay since there are moments like pre-aiming down a hall with a sniper rifle, where you aren't moving the mouse, and front and back is ambiguous on traditional stereo headphones or stereo speakers, but wouldn't be with hrtf/virtual 7.1 on headphones or a real 7.1 speaker setup.

 

As said before though, it won't help you hear more sounds. It only helps you place existing sounds. The virtual surround enhancement also doesn't do what you think it does. It's not virtual 7.1 for headphones, but enabling a decoder that unpacks 5.1 surround sound that has been packed into 2.0 channels, which was done for example with Simpsons episode that were broadcast on analog television (analog tv broadcasts didn't support native surround sound). That's what the dolby logo at the start of these old television shows was trying to convey to people.

[an actual squirrel]

2 hours ago, RejZoR said:

I frankly still stand by Creative although it plays a lesser role now than before when we had actual HW accelerated audio. I've had ASUS Xonar STX, a very high end soundcard that had pretty bad audio positioning and that was already in post Vista era of software audio. Going to Creative made things so much better in terms of audio awareness in 3D space. I'm not sure why they removed 2 technologies later in Core3D chips that were present on X-Fi ones. MacroFX and Elevation Filter. First created much better visualization of sounds that were near a player and Elevation Filter helped define whether it was on same level as you, above or below you. These two settings made HUGE difference for me.

 

I think I'm gonna bug Creative about this for a bit in a hope they return them for AE-9...

csgo and minecraft are games that are built on technology so old that you can actually hardware accelerate their audio with creative sound cards. in csgo, setting the game audio to surround sound and putting snd_legacy_surround 1 into the console enables directsound3d. So then you can use Alchemy to hardware accelerate directsound3d on modern windows.

 

Now hardware accelerating the audio might actually let you hear more sounds, idk, i haven't checked. I am not even sure if the console command still works, or works with the in game hrtf, I haven't played the game in a while. I imagine you should get good results with sound card hrtf like cmss3d headphone on xfi cards.

 

For minecraft, replace the openal32.dll file that comes with the game with the openal32.dll that comes with the creative driver.

[D1Wolfgang]

 

 

0

 Advanced issues found

▲

 

 

1

9 hours ago, an actual squirrel said:

you could use hesuvi with the game set to 7.1 

for the short duration I used hesuvi, my sound was really muffled. It seems like a lot of people say it works well, though, so should I try again? maybe I had something wrong. Would it be worth a shot?

[an actual squirrel]

8 hours ago, D1Wolfgang said:

for the short duration I used hesuvi, my sound was really muffled. It seems like a lot of people say it works well, though, so should I try again? maybe I had something wrong. Would it be worth a shot?

If you really only play csgo, I would use the in game setting called "advanced 3d audio processing" which enables virtual surround sound in game.

 

If you are going to use hesuvi, turn advanced 3d audio processing off, and set the game to 7.1. If you set windows to 7.1, then you can use hesuvi in most other games. The more frequently you use it, the better it will sound and the better it will work since your mind adapts to it. There are also different settings within hesuvi you can use.