Sound Experience Test Cont.
We started a new game in order to get the full experience of Doom 3 in surround sound. When we first turned on our onboard audio and 5.1 speakers, we were hit by the wall of sound that is the Doom universe. To have the ambient sounds of Mars City active all around is a slightly disturbing (in a good way) experience. Our first real test of the sound card was in talking to some of the first few people we meet on Mars and spinning around. With a touch of satisfaction, we heard the voices pan around.More important than analyzing how well id Software could handle programming a rudimentary positional audio test is determining how effectively they put all the Mars City sounds together when evil is converging from every direction.
Taking our new audio arsenal into combat lived up to everything for which we could have hoped.
Hear a grunting noise behind you? About face and fire away! Navigating in the dark chambers of the Martian base with surround sound became much easier. With our two channel audio (either speakers or headphones) we can hear left and right, but determining front and back positioning without surround just didn't work as well as we needed it to.
For those out there with 4 speaker or 4.1 setups (or those who just want to hook two pairs of speakers up to their system to save a little on the cash flow, we tested audio with an old 4 channel system. We noticed that the center channel on our 5.1 system, in addition to playing noises that were directly in front of us, is used for radio communications, and audio played back via the PDA. But all is not lost for those without a center channel. Doom 3 seems to play all center channel data through the front left and right speakers as well. Not having a center channel doesn't impact our amazing surround sound gaming experience in any real way. Yes, the PDA, radio communication, and the like loose just a bit of distinction, but the real meat of the system is to be able to locate enemies via audio. This is just as amazing using 4 channel sound as it is with 6.
Discrete Audio Solution Testing and Performance
This is more of a foot note than anything else. We noticed absolutely no difference in audio quality when testing with the Sound Blaster Audigy 2. Of course, the Audigy offers more bells, whistles, and features, but as far as fulfilling its function as a 5.1 channel audio solution, it's no better or worse than our Realtek onboard hardware. Were we doing an in depth sound reproduction test, our results may or may not have been different, but from a subjective standpoint (simply taking gaming experience into account), we couldn't say one was better than the other.We have also attempted to test the performance impact of enabling surround audio in Doom 3, but had a very hard time doing so. When playing Doom 3, the frame rate is locked at 60 frames per second, whether vsync is enabled or not. Our original sound test system spent its time maxed out at 60fps, so we hooked up or Sempron 3100+ system and went to work. We still couldn't get the frame rate to drop sufficiently below 60fps without creating a graphics card bottleneck. We tested the cut scene right before the action starts in the decommissioned communications building, and noticed absolutely no difference in measured frame rate (with FRAPS) when playing with and without surround enabled. This test was performed at the default High Quality mode.
It is possible that on lower end processors a performance impact might be noticeable, but we don't believe it would be significant at this point.
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DerekWilson - Sunday, August 8, 2004 - link
ViRGE ... I suppose almost partially glad is alright ;-) And I agree that it should be a user's choice ... But I don't think using audio solution specific enhancements are the way to go. And I'm gonna have to disagree with any acceptance of software patent strong arming.Definitely an opinion, and, obviously, id Software's thoughts were on par with your own.
ViRGE - Saturday, August 7, 2004 - link
Considering the lackluster headphone performance, this is why I'm almost partially glad that Creative is strong-arming id in to working in EAX; while good 3D sound with a 2.1 system is still too difficult to be very useful, there's no good reason why such a feature shouldn't be included for headphones. Even EAX2 can do good positioning of 3D sound for headphones, and if it's an issue of lacking reverb or whatever, that should be a choice the user can make.Concillian - Saturday, August 7, 2004 - link
Did you guys do any performance comparisons?I would have liked to also see a SoundStorm included, as well as performance comparisons of no sound vs. software 3D onboard vs. Audigy2 vs. SoundStorm APU.
With the obvious CPU dependency seen in the CPU article, I imagine performance differences may be more with Doom3 than your average game.
DerekWilson - Saturday, August 7, 2004 - link
I should have mentioned that we also tested with headphones.While much more immersive than a simple 2 or 3 speaker setup, headphones (unless the headphones support "5.1" -- which we didn't test) just cannot represent sound the same way as a surround system.
If you absolutely can't get your hands on a front/back channel setup, go with headphones over 2 or 3 speakers.
And, Poser, if you set you speakers to headphones in the control panel you will not be able to enable surround in Doom 3.
SilverBack - Saturday, August 7, 2004 - link
The graphics are really great, the sound is great, unfortunatly the game is after a very small time boring.Go into room A be attacked by a spawned in fire thrower. Kill it, find health and ammo. Follow the linear game movement to the right door and go through it.
Go into Room B. Kill things that walk at out you from the dark. Kill them all. Find health and ammo. Follow the linear game movement to the right door and go through it.
Repeat as often as necessary to follow the linear game movement. Figure out some simple puzzles and follow the linear game movement.
Game of the year, so far, FarCry..
Poser - Saturday, August 7, 2004 - link
I've got much the same question as SKiller. If I understand how hearing works correctly, you can only tell that a sound is behind you or off to one side because of how the sound waves get distorted by your outer ear and by when the sound arrives at each ear. I was under the impression that a important piece of what a good gaming sound card could do is reproduce those distortions and timing shifts to accurately immitate surround sound with just a pair of headphones.I'm fairly sure I'm right about the hearing part. I'm not near so sure I'm right about a good gaming sound card being able to really trick the ear.
Anyone who can test it firsthand -- how good is the surround sound immitation when you use headphones + an audigy2 (set to headphones in the control panel) + Doom3?
Anemone - Saturday, August 7, 2004 - link
Surround is really great when its done well. There is nothing like being real enough to hear a critter coming from back and to your left, spinning and dealing with the situation based on what you 'heard'. TONS o fun and wish more dev houses had the means to do it this well. Let's hope this engine gets used in other places yes?As for your 2gb system, I'm assuming that's on an AMD64 system? Your graphics article used both sides and its not clear to me which this was testing on.
Thank you :)
SKiller - Saturday, August 7, 2004 - link
What about headphones? A good implementation can get you close to an actual surround system and has always been prefferable to a 2 speaker setup for me. Anyone try it with a good pair of cans? How does it compare?skiboysteve - Saturday, August 7, 2004 - link
my cambridge THX 550s were the best piece of hardware i had for this gamegibhunter - Saturday, August 7, 2004 - link
I have to agree with the reviewer. I've been playing the game at home on a laptop with headphones, then tried it today at a friend's house on his desktop with 4 channel expensive Cambridge Soundworks setup hooked up to Nvidia's Soundstorm. The sound from behind and the sides was amazing. Makes you forget where you are and immerses you totally into the game. Yes, it's definitely a more intense eperience.