doom3 and hardware accelerated sound

[thomase]

I have heard that DOOM 3 does not use DirectSound3D. This means that the game does not use soundcard algorithms (in hardware or software) to place sounds in 3D space. Instead they use their own custom (or licensed) engine based on HRTF (Head Related Transfer Functions). If this is all true, the problem I have is that there only seem to be 2 sound settings available in DOOM 3, surround, and 2 speaker. There is no distinction made between headphones and 2 speakers. HRTF processing should be different if you are using headphones or 2 speakers; with headphones, each ear hears only what you send on the associated channel. With speakers, you have to have cross-talk cancellation because sound from each speaker goes to BOTH ears. Does anyone know anything about DOOM 3's 3D sound engine? The fact that the available settings don't let you choose between headphones or speakers suggests to me that it is not nearly as advanced as what most soundcards today do for 3D audio. I feel like I am missing out on the surround sound experience since I don't have (and don't plan to get) a 5.1 speaker system. Right now I'm using integrated SoundMax audio but I am getting an Audigy 2 ZS, which I have heard does pretty well (almost, if not as good as Aureal used to be) with 3D positional audio over headphones for DirectSound3D. What about Half-Life 2? Does that use DirectSound3D hardware acceleration?

 

[MasterBaiter]

Well from what I understand there is no hardware audio acceleration for Doom 3 (yet... ), so everything is done in software. That much I can at least tell you.

 

[CosmoKramer]

If you have an Audigy you can "fool" the Doom sound system and still get proper positioning for whatever setup you have.

1. Surround mixer --> Speaker Settings -->Headphones
2. Untick "Synchronize with control panel"
3 Make sure CMSS1 is on
3. Change your speaker setup in the windows native control panel to 5.1 surround
4. Select Surround in Doom3 and enjoy

 

[mito]

greetings cosmo kramer! ROFL!