Surround Sound Broken (5.1 tested extensively)

Sinxar shared this bug 5 years ago
Outdated

5.1 surround (and im guessing 7.1 but I cannot test this) is completely broken. I opened a tech support request about this thinking it was only me. However upon further investigation it is the game.


Some symptoms of this issue are, sound blocks only playing out of one speaker at full volume no matter your distance or orientation relative to the block. Sound from behind you being played in the front speakers. Very quiet environmental sounds being played in the rear speakers. Extremely loud sounds from some blocks such as the airtight hanger doors. Engine sounds being played from the incorrect speakers regardless of position relative to them.


I have tried multiple sound cards and 1 external receiver testing this to be absolutely sure. Verified the surround sound is working correctly by using different games testing positional sounds and volumes, specifically Minecraft and The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.


I tested the Creative Soundblaster Z:

"no encoder", Minecraft 5.1 surround working, The Witcher 5.1 surround working, Space Engineers broken.

"Dolby Digital Live", Both games working, Space Engineers broken.

"DTS Connect" and "DTS Neo:PC" modes, both games working, Space Engineers broken.


Next I tried an older Creative X-Fi Xtremegamer. Same results as the Soundblaster Z.


Next I tried onboard audio (Crystal Sound 2) which is a RealTek audio processor my on my motherboard. Same results as above (but sounds like trash in comparison to the Creative cards :P).


For the final test I connected the Soundblaster Z to a Pioneer receiver by the optical output and have exactly the same results.


I have also reinstalled Windows 10 and tried the Soundblaster Z again and still no change. I have made absolutely sure the sound drivers are up to date and even tried one version older to be sure.


When I contacted tech support about this, they assured me that it has been forwarded to the developers to look at but I have heard nothing.


This is easily testable in a creative world build noise making machines and turn your character around. The sound block is a bad one because of that I have to disable 5.1 whenever i want to play the game.


Please note that I am speaking of actual 6 channel surround sound. When I ask people, they assume I am talking about stereo headphones for some reason and claim it works.

Replies (7)

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Hello, Engineer!


Thank you for your feedback! Your topic has been added between considered issues.

Please keep voting for the issue as it will help us to identify the most serious bugs.


We really appreciate your patience.


Kind Regards

Keen Software House: QA Department

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Even after 3 years, this same thing is still broken and been reported multiple times, i hope you really look into this.


One of the setups that can be used to replicate the issue is as follows:


Razer Kraken usb Headset, with Synapse installed


Create a new world, place a sound block, play a sound and rotate the character, you notice that sound is not coming from the right "location" instead always from the right side (or left side) no matter which way the character is in relation to soundblock


These issues started years ago when there was a change in the mono/stereo requirement for soundblock sounds

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Pleeeease Keen, Pleeeeease is there anyway this can be fixed so the game works with surround sound?

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Oh my god this was reported five years and it still isn't fixed.


If you aren't going to fix it then at LEAST give us an option to reduce the game audio to stereo!


This has happened several times now: I find a bug, I search for it, I find an old forum post from years and years ago where it was already brought to your attention and it still isn't fixed. DON'T YOU CARE ANYMORE?

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I had this same issue and was able to get around it by making sure the source audio files were converted to stereo first.

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Still an issue. Creative Soundblaster X G6. Exactly as described above.

Sounds bare little relation to their location. Volumes are poorly balanced, and sound blocks play in mono out of one ear with zero relationship to location.

Turning off surround mode fixes much of it, but sounds claustrophobic and flat in headphones.

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Soundblaster Z-series user... experiencing the horrible 3d positional audio problems as well. Everything described in the OP, exactly the same hearing here, and noticed it pretty quick into the game.

This is 2020.... I've never *heard* this poor of audio quality in game since the 90s. Whats the deal? Why is this difficult to fix? Is it ever going to get fixed? It drags the game quality way down :(

Will have to disable the audio-system, as no sound is better than all these audio sources that are incorrect in all the wrong directions all the time at varying incorrect volumes.

Shame really... I hear so many great audio situations in so many other games, even low-budget indie games have out standing positional audio in them.

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Z Series here as well. Driver/Software ver 2.15.04. Windows 10 x64 (latest version). Using on-sound-card Dolby Digital output (5.1 configured) to LucidSound 7.1 surround gaming headset (via SPDIF). No weird filters or effects enabled on the sound device. Surround verified as working for any other game or 5.1 sound source.


Positional audio is completely broken. Tried enabling "Realistic sound" and that did not help. All sound in Space Engineers comes from what feels like the front right and doesn't change as I move around.


Sound blocks, jukebox, world effects, etc. all behave basically the same.


Willing to provide any logs or such to help troubleshoot, please contact directly.

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I'm playing Space Engineers since 2014 and I used my 5.1 audio since then, but recently I changed my motherboard, and noticed that 5.1 surround is completely broken, I assume the old motherboard had something to do with balancing direction of different sounds, sadly new and supposedly better "Asus ROG" motherboard with better SFX audio sounds like a trash on Space Engineers compared to my old Gigabyte Z97X that played direction of sounds almost perfectly.

Tested on different games and movies in 5.1 everything works fine besides that ONLY IN Space Engineers rear sounds and front sounds being inverted LUL

starting to think that this game is a curse to me, I always find something to drive me off the gameplay, now sound system...

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oh didnt notice the OUTDATED label

I guess simpletons dont care about sound quality

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