How to improve stereo in headphones?

[Menigmand]

I'm playing with headphones, but the positional audio isn't very good - It doesn't give me a clear idea about where a sound is coming from.

Is there any setting I can tweak or select to improve the sense of direction of sounds?

I'm using the "hardware" sound option..

(It is in stereo, the stereo effect is just very weak)

[Sgt. Mahi]

Do you actually use a "harware" soundcard or just an on-board??

[Gracler]

just an on-board??

Many on-board sound cards these days does a damn good job rendering sound for movies and games. You only really have to "upgrade" if your planning on running a Radio station.

Of course there is still crappy on-board sound cards out there that cant render anything without messing up the sound completely.

....Have you setup your sound-card properly in windows settings? The headphones are plugged in the right phone-jack, and it is showing headphones...not SUB or Center...or what have you.

[Menigmand]

Do you actually use a "harware" soundcard or just an on-board??

It's an onboard sound card, but that's a piece of hardware too .. and I think the game would have rejected the choice if it wasn't valid ?

[Menigmand]

Many on-board sound cards these days does a damn good job rendering sound for movies and games. You only really have to "upgrade" if your planning on running a Radio station.

Of course there is still crappy on-board sound cards out there that cant render anything without messing up the sound completely.

....Have you setup your sound-card properly in windows settings? The headphones are plugged in the right phone-jack, and it is showing headphones...not SUB or Center...or what have you.

It's a new computer, I assume it's set up correctly in windows, as sound works fine, but will check it.

Headphones are in the right jacks though, that's for sure.

[Gracler]

hmm...

and your headphones work well in other games? ...

maybe try with a different set of headphones.... I dunno..

btw are you running mumble at the same time?

Mumble will by default supress other sounds like BF2 so that it can be more difficult to tell where the sound is coming from.

[Menigmand]

hmm...

and your headphones work well in other games? ...

maybe try with a different set of headphones.... I dunno..

btw are you running mumble at the same time?

Mumble will by default supress other sounds like BF2 so that it can be more difficult to tell where the sound is coming from.

Other games? Are there other games than PR?

Actually I haven't played other FPS for a long time, so I dont know how they would work there. It's just basic headphones with a microphone. And as said, they have some stereo effect, its just not very precise, so I thought maybe there was some option to let the game know to optimise the sound for headphones, or to enable some setting .. maybe the positional audio in this game is just not very good?

Mumble not running btw

[Rollonio]

I'm guessing you have Windows 7 on your new computer and used to have Windows XP on your old.
Unfortunately, hardware supported sound was dropped from windows Vista/7, which makes positional audio much worse.

I used to be able to pin-point foot steps even with on-board audio on Windows XP, now if I'm lucky i can guess if its N or W correctly.

From Creative's post explaining OpenAL and Windows Vista (and subsequently Windows 7):

With Microsoft's decision to remove the audio hardware layer in Windows Vista, legacy DirectSound 3D games will no longer use hardware 3D algorithms for audio spatialization. Instead they will have to rely upon the new Microsoft software mixer that is built into Windows Vista. This new software mixer will give the users basic audio support for their old Direct Sound games but since it has no hardware layer, all EAX? effects will be lost, and no individual per-voice processing can be performed using dedicated hardware processing.

[Menigmand]

I'm guessing you have Windows 7 on your new computer and used to have Windows XP on your old.
Unfortunately, hardware supported sound was dropped from windows Vista/7, which makes positional audio much worse.

(explanation snipped)

Thanks a lot for that info! I'm indeed using windows 7, but before that, I used Vista. Is there any setting I can enable to improve the situation? Like disabling hardware sound and going with the software option? Would that bypass the crappy windows problems?

[Sneak Attack]

I have the same type deal. I have a creative chip on my laptop mobo so it allows me to select high quality hardware and EAX and everything but for some reason my left and right audio is reversed so if something is on my left side it sounds like its coming from my right and vice versa. Only happens in PR, other wise sound comes out of the correct side. very strange and annoying.

[Mora]

I'm using win7 and SRS Audio Sandbox. I have a soundcard Xonar DG from Ausus, but really i could do without it because it sounds pretty much the same as my on board audio if not the same. But the audio sandbox makes everything sooo much better. More crisp and clear and the bass is much better too. It also has options for 3D sound i think thats what you are looking for.

PM me if you like to try.

[Menigmand]

I'm using win7 and SRS Audio Sandbox. I have a soundcard Xonar DG from Ausus, but really i could do without it because it sounds pretty much the same as my on board audio if not the same. But the audio sandbox makes everything sooo much better. More crisp and clear and the bass is much better too. It also has options for 3D sound i think thats what you are looking for.

PM me if you like to try.

Thanks for the suggestion, but does that software work together with the BF2 engine to improve the positional audio, or does it "only" filter the sound to improve the clarity and bass ?

[Mora]

Uhm, the software works with everything, if you think in sound layers this one is at the top meaning it goes over everything. From my experience it seems to be able to make the distance between stereo sound bigger. But i just use it because it improves my audio a lot.

[Sneak Attack]

so its the same as creative control panel, that too has the 3d sound option which works fine outside of PR but doesnt seem to help in PR.

[Mora]

I wouldn't know because i have no creative control panel. SRS works however everywhere.