Personal computing discussed

Moderators: renee, Captain Ned

 
npore
Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 32
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:00 am
Location: Aotearoa

Virtual surround sound for gaming

Tue Mar 17, 2015 2:37 am

Any of you tried Razer Surround? I've given it a go after years using Dolby Headphone on my Xonar STX and for me its miles better for positioning. Slight deterioration in quality but nothing significant for gaming. DH does a good job of simulating a 5.1 speaker system in a room, but that's the problem - you are always stuck in a room with 5 speakers around you, which is weird when playing something like BF4. RS sounds more natural and clear to me. Had a big grin on my face when I first tried it out - even just being able to position where your squad mates are when you running to an objective is so much easier.

Everyone's different when it comes to HRTFs, but that's one advantage of RS - there is a degree of tuning possible. Just started to play with the TB Isone VST - routing my GPMAA streaming into it. It's very tunable. I'll see if I can get a good virtualisation of a studio monitor setup without molesting the overall sound; I've heard it can be pretty good when tuned. DH was good at getting the sound 'out-of-head' but just messed with the overall tone and balance too much.

Another advantage of RS is it's not tied to hardware, so I can run it with my ODAC + O2 amp. Got no more reason to use my STX.

Never tried CMSS or the others. Heard pre-Vista CMSS + EAX was pretty good. What happened to AMD TrueAudio? Anyone tired it out? To bad Creative murdered A3D... Pretty sad that we're still stuck with just virtualising in 2D, and very poor environmental simulation. Hopefully all the VR stuff will lead to a bit of progress.

(if you are trying out RS, you should turn of 'bass boost' and 'stereo enhancement' which I think are stupidly enabled by default. As well as the other rubbish on that page. I think they might even be enabled in the demo version, which you can't customise :roll: I just bought it because having a soundcard agnostic solution sounded really good)
 
VincentHanna
Gerbil
Posts: 63
Joined: Mon Dec 22, 2014 10:40 am

Re: Virtual surround sound for gaming

Tue Mar 17, 2015 4:03 am

I'm going to plead the 5th because I haven't had the opportunity to test it yet, BUT, I would like to note that the pro version of the software is free to download for anyone who has a razer ID attached to a valid email. I downloaded the program and it insinuated itself seamlessly into Razer synapse, which makes it rather handy, and sent me a free upgrade to pro via e-mail, all within about 5 mins.

I would not recommend the free version though, I can tell you that right now.
 
Pville_Piper
Gerbil XP
Posts: 347
Joined: Tue Dec 25, 2012 2:36 pm
Location: Pville...

Re: Virtual surround sound for gaming

Tue Mar 17, 2015 8:08 am

I tried it in the Beta form and it was good, but had issues with crashing and resetting the parameters. I use the ones that come with my Corsair headphones and that works well too. Might play around with it some to see how it has progressed.
Windows10, EVGA G2 750w Power Supply, Acer XB270H G-synch monitor, MSI Krait Gaming 3X, I7 6700K, 16 gigs of CORSAIR Vengeance LPX DDR4 3200 MHz ram, Crucial 500 gig SSD, EVGA GTX1080 FTW
 
rahulahl
Gerbil Team Leader
Posts: 256
Joined: Thu Aug 16, 2012 8:57 am
Location: Australia

Re: Virtual surround sound for gaming

Mon Apr 06, 2015 4:46 am

Just tried the little audio clip they have on their website to show the difference, and while I can tell where the sounds are coming from in the normal clip, the razor surround clip has high base, and its impossible to tell which direction is the sounds coming from. I might still give it a try later on and see if it feels any better.
Intel i7 4790K
MAXIMUS VII RANGER motherboard
EVGA GTX 1080
16GB Ram
550Watt Seasonic PSU
Asus Rog Swift PG278Q
Windows 10
 
npore
Gerbil
Topic Author
Posts: 32
Joined: Tue Jul 09, 2013 12:00 am
Location: Aotearoa

Re: Virtual surround sound for gaming

Tue Apr 07, 2015 6:14 am

Yeah that demo is perhaps aimed at kids or peeps with weak headphones who hear the over-done bass and think it's amazing because of that... Sounds nothing like that when you have it set up properly and in game. Sadly I think they have some bass boost that you can't switch off in the demo version available for download; you also can't tune the surround sound, which is a important feature. I found those demo restrictions unacceptable for actually trying out the tech so I provided myself with a proper full version 'demo'; I then ended up buying it.
 
rahulahl
Gerbil Team Leader
Posts: 256
Joined: Thu Aug 16, 2012 8:57 am
Location: Australia

Re: Virtual surround sound for gaming

Tue Apr 07, 2015 8:19 pm

Just tried the demo version.
Its decent I suppose. But I prefer the Virtual Surround that comes with my motherboard. Maybe its because I can configure it, and I cannot configure Razer in the demo, but I see no reason to spend money on this when I cant see any benefit.
Intel i7 4790K
MAXIMUS VII RANGER motherboard
EVGA GTX 1080
16GB Ram
550Watt Seasonic PSU
Asus Rog Swift PG278Q
Windows 10

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 1 guest
GZIP: On