This was something I never really thought about before yesterday, when my headphones came in. My system normally runs on ye olde stereo speakers that I've had since time out of mind, and I just got a pair of 5.1 headphones.
While my computer sees everything the way it should, it seems that games don't... they just use whatever the system default is, with zero choice to select which audio output you want to use. Before now, I never really thought about how useless it is when audio options only have two or three volume sliders and that's it. Most games don't even have a stereo/5.1 switch.
This wouldn't be so surprising if no one did it, but that's not true... Blizzard games all support in-game audio source selection. It's as easy as going into the sound options and selecting the headphones from a drop-down menu, and bam.. the game just automatically plays through the headphones in 5.1, while the rest of the system runs through the stereo speakers.
So far, these are the only games I've seen that actually support it.
So why don't all games include that? Is the programming behind it really that complicated? There's only certain games (FPS, mainly, or those with chat) that I'd use the headphones on, and it just seems like a bit of a hassle to have to switch my entire system's audio output to the headphones before the games will use it.
While my computer sees everything the way it should, it seems that games don't... they just use whatever the system default is, with zero choice to select which audio output you want to use. Before now, I never really thought about how useless it is when audio options only have two or three volume sliders and that's it. Most games don't even have a stereo/5.1 switch.
This wouldn't be so surprising if no one did it, but that's not true... Blizzard games all support in-game audio source selection. It's as easy as going into the sound options and selecting the headphones from a drop-down menu, and bam.. the game just automatically plays through the headphones in 5.1, while the rest of the system runs through the stereo speakers.
So far, these are the only games I've seen that actually support it.
So why don't all games include that? Is the programming behind it really that complicated? There's only certain games (FPS, mainly, or those with chat) that I'd use the headphones on, and it just seems like a bit of a hassle to have to switch my entire system's audio output to the headphones before the games will use it.