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Good god..

Spent three hours going through driver sets and tweaking my xfi fatality in win7 trying to figure out why 5.1 didn't work only to find out......

My rear wireless speakers were not plugged in.

;)

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Good god..

Spent three hours going through driver sets and tweaking my xfi fatality in win7 trying to figure out why 5.1 didn't work only to find out......

My rear wireless speakers were not plugged in.

;)

Always, always, always check the physical wiring first! You poor bugger.

FYI - running X-Fi ExtremeMusic after upgrading from onboard Realtek. X-Fi = sweet sweet 5.1, onboard = terrible stereo (but I was using Optical)

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If you have an XFI/Audigy2 type and want the same bloated package of soundblaster crap with a few tiny gems like cmss,7.1,eax,and interface goodies install off your install cd as administrator and in vista mode by right clickin it.. then update over the main driver with the beta one on the creative website. Everything works on my end with win7rc64. Although crackling bug is still present at times. I do have 5.1 again at least.

I had the first Soundblaster card developed back in the day and the parrot and even Dr.Sbaitso never crackled at me. Well.. no I guess the parrot did.

Goodluck

X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series

qx6700/8gigram/9800gx2scc/win7rc64/680i nforce

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except Arma2 where, for example, an enemy at 11 o'clock sounds like he's at 9 o'clock. It's literally doing my head in.

I have the same setup XFI and Fatal1ty headphones and get the same problems.

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So I bought the Tritton ax pro headset and it works, the positioning is not as exact in this game as in some others I tried thou but it's decent. Like some people mentioned, the sound is not exact and I can confirm that, it's a bit off but at least it's not totally bad since it seams to at least be consistently wrong in the same way all the time.

Edited by IceDread

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I hava a Sigmatel Dolby-HT Certified-SoundChip with 5.1 analog speakers atteched and only get 2.1, no matter what i do. He´s not even able to upmix via PLIIx. Windows XP is set to 5.1 and all other 5.1 application do work, so does diagnosis.

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I dont have any 5.1 sound either.

I have a basic system with a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 card, and Logitech X540 speakers.

Every game I have works in 5.1 without problems, ARMA2 does not!

It seems to be stuck on 2.1 which is very annoying in a game where you need directional awareness!

Yapa

Exact same situation here. I can only hear things to the left and right of me and this is my setup. I don't know what to do.

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Exact same situation here. I can only hear things to the left and right of me and this is my setup. I don't know what to do.

Try the app I compiled in this thread http://forums.bistudio.com/showpost.php?p=1399212&postcount=6

It may help you diagnose your sound issues without having to launch the game every time. It uses the same audio engine as the game.

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WinXP Pro 64bit, 5.1 via coax to AV amp.

Set speakers in XP control panel to NONE.

Then try the program from Oktane. Works for me, ingame too.

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I am getting a Medusa 5.1 headset this Xmas. How is the 5.1 quality in ARMA 2? Thx.

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Is this audio issue still persistent?

I was having problems with sound effects like tanks and helicopters that are miles away sounding like they're right on top of me. There's no doppler effect, no distance effects or anything when using 5.1 on my X-Fi platinum. I can't play when I can't hear anything because the tank that is 10km away is unaware I exist and yet still sounds like it's right on my arse.

When using headphones the 3d surround effect seemed to work, but the above issue still rang rang true. I have un-installed and haven't touched Arma 2 for about a month because of this.

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Is this audio issue still persistent?

I was having problems with sound effects like tanks and helicopters that are miles away sounding like they're right on top of me. There's no doppler effect, no distance effects or anything when using 5.1 on my X-Fi platinum. I can't play when I can't hear anything because the tank that is 10km away is unaware I exist and yet still sounds like it's right on my arse.

When using headphones the 3d surround effect seemed to work, but the above issue still rang rang true. I have un-installed and haven't touched Arma 2 for about a month because of this.

turn your xfi effects down, -28 or so is good. It is the Creative Console, under GAME mode in MIXER.EAX effects, has a slider and a chk box.

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Exact same situation here. I can only hear things to the left and right of me and this is my setup. I don't know what to do.

Yeh it sux but part of the problem is that Creative no longer support our cards, the drivers date back to 2004/2005.....

My Friend with a Audigy 2 ZS is getting ok sound... so I'm gonna buy a cheap Audigy 2 or 4 on ebay and try that.

Yapa

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X-Fi no longer being supported? They already have Windows 7 Drivers on the Creative Site...?

turn your xfi effects down, -28 or so is good. It is the Creative Console, under GAME mode in MIXER.EAX effects, has a slider and a chk box.

By X-Fi Effects, are you talking about EAX? That's pretty much the only thing turned on... I'll give that a whirl.

Man... BIS really needs to unscrew themselves. I don't have to do this in any other game (and I have several that use the Windows/Creative settings and not their own in-game settings) and I haven't modified my X-Fi settings from the defaults.

Thanks for the advice though.

Edited by Sniperdoc

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The sound dosent seem to work well for me. (X-Fi Titanium, Z5500 5.1 using analogue). If there is a helicopter above me, it will only be audible in certain positions :/

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Those with old Creative cards: Onboard sound works great guys. No need for creative stuff really, unless your onboard is really bad. Been this way for quite a while, realtek is pretty good nowadays.

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Onboard takes cycles away from CPU. Running SLI, I'd rather dedicate that to CPU/GPU cycles.

Onboard to me also has lesser quality and options than dedicated sound cards.

But that is not what we're discussing here. It is evident that BIS still has to un-fudge themselves in the Audio dept.

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X-Fi no longer being supported? They already have Windows 7 Drivers on the Creative Site...?

By X-Fi Effects, are you talking about EAX? That's pretty much the only thing turned on... I'll give that a whirl.

Man... BIS really needs to unscrew themselves. I don't have to do this in any other game (and I have several that use the Windows/Creative settings and not their own in-game settings) and I haven't modified my X-Fi settings from the defaults.

Thanks for the advice though.

I have an X-Fi ExtremeGamer and did as kklownboy suggested.

Worked a treat.

Sound was very uneven before adjusting the EAX Effects slider, but since then sound is more even, though it still has slight issues.

By uneven I mean, when firing a weapon the sound was very muted but now is now more realistic and louder.

Worked with CoD World at War as well. Before adjusting sound had a slight echo about it, but now it is much clearer and the echo has gone.

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DirectSound is dead for gaming since Vista came out unless your soundcard has a program like Alchemy(for Creative cards) but pretty much no new games are made using Directsound3D anymore because MS gutted it to keep people from copying music...

Anyways, I have a Fatality XF-I with the Doldby Digital Live pack. I set it for external decoding Dolby digital/DTS out. I have the Encoder set to use DTS connect and send it to a reciever that decodes it via a optical output. 3D sound is excellent and it "moves" with my TrackIR. I'm using Vista 64.

Edited by Slain

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DirectSound is dead for gaming since Vista came out unless your soundcard has a program like Alchemy(for Creative cards) but pretty much no new games are made using Directsound3D anymore because MS gutted it to keep people from copying music...

Anyways, I have a Fatality XF-I with the Doldby Digital Live pack. I set it for external decoding Dolby digital/DTS out. I have the Encoder set to use DTS connect and send it to a receiver that decodes it via a optical output. 3D sound is excellent and it "moves" with my TrackIR. I'm using Vista 64.

This is what I was getting at too, he is right that DirectSound and any form of 'hardware acceleration' is dead. So wasting precious CPU cycles is not really an issue because you have multicore etc. Sound cards eating cpu was an issue in the late 90's, not so much today.

Alchemy and 3dSoundBack(for realtek) both use the cpu to act as a gobetween, to convert old directsound calls to modern audio api. So your point about the cpu usage is moot imo. I realize you already have the card, but you could give it a shot if you are having problems until the next patch comes out. (They have stated they have fixed the issue)

Or you could give up on BIS. Honestly I am willing to bend around any issues they throw at me just to play this game because I understand small game developers. They have very limited resources including hardware testing and QA.

I am totally happy they redesigned the audio engine to a modern API. If they hadn't we'd still have shitty OFP sound that crackled with audigy cards and we'd have to run lame stuff like Alchemy and 3dsound back for anyone with a modern operating system. (these apps are hacky and buggy, they use DLL hooks to operate) They were also forced to redesign the sound so that it was supported on console systems, XAudio2 is cross platform Windows/360.

I have a realtek onboard ALC889A, 7.1 analog out and it sounds phenomenal, no popping and total surround sound bliss. (after I fixed my one issue) I could care less if it costs a few cpu cycles, it is the way of the future flexibility, hardware acceleration is dead. (and that's a good thing) Why do you think creative was so pissed when Vista came out and stalled and stalled on the first drivers. It made all their gimmicks worthless. On top of that, they are a horrible company, many have been burned by them (myself included) but they are the biggest 'enthusiast' sound manuf in town unfortunately.

Also that DDLive/DTS encoder is software too. :D It compresses the 6 audio streams (5.1) so it can be carried over SPDIF PCM. My realtek supports it but I don't use it since DD/DTS do not support 7.1 over SPDIF. (the protocol isn't meant or capable of it, HDMI or Analog cables are required)

DRM is not why they dumped it imo, but that is off topic. I think it had more to do with that it was very freaking old and janky. Now things sound the same no matter what card you have, and thats the way it should be. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_features_new_to_Windows_Vista#Audio

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Here also it seems impossible to have a real 5.1 like in hundreds of other games.

Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI-E

With latest drivers and speaker set to 5.1

It's STEREO with ANALOG connexion and STEREO with DIGITAL connexion. No way...

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DirectSound and any form of 'hardware acceleration' is dead.

Not true. This is what OpenAL is for and it is used in many games including Arma, although I think I read somewhere that Arma2 does not use it.

Regardless 5.1, or 7.1 for that matter, does not require hardware acceleration as it can be handled by the Windows sound system.

Also, I hear that Windows 7 will come complete with Dolby Digital Live Plus so even those with "crappy" on board sound will be able to get surround out of their recievers through the spif.

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After hearing what seemed to be better sound on a demo machine in a local PC store I have recently been looking to swap my 4 year old Audigy 2 ZS and Speedlink Medusa 5.1 headphones for (maybe) a Steelseries headset with the 7.1 USB card. Since there is nothing wrong with the current setup, is it worth the update ? My mobo (965P-DS3) has onboard Realtek 7.1and I have to use headphones, so wonder if anyone has any experience of them ? Oh, and I am an XP user.

cjph

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