Razer Surround turns stereo headsets into 7.1 surround sound; free till 2014 - Sensationalist Headlines

[QUOTE=Akasori;41223684]What does this mean?[/QUOTE] In vista+ Microsoft decided to fuck over (Really REALLY hard) HW soundcard devs by removing the ability to use their features (EAX, Acceleration, etc..) But Creative and Realtek created dll patches that intercept the calls from games (it's not a cheat) and send them to OpenAL which is HW accelerated and can be used with extended hw features. [editline]29th June 2013[/editline] [QUOTE=Axznma;41232290]I tried it with my Xonar Essence STX (both with and without Dolby Headphone activated, and also with the 7.1 Shifter on/off) and it worked fine, though it did cause some wonkiness with my mic and some programs output settings (which were easily fixed by configuring their sound settings accordingly). I did notice that the sound would pop/crackle every now and again seemingly at random -- whether that is because I was using their software on top of my dedicated hardware or something else I can't say. Regardless I uninstalled it as I don't need it.[/QUOTE] Yeah, don't downconvert really nice HW like the Xonar Essences have, [del]also make sure you're using a DirectAudio DLL patch on games you want to sound good (Source for example).[/del] Xonar Essence does it on it's own IIRC.

[QUOTE=glitchvid;41236719]In vista+ Microsoft decided to fuck over (Really REALLY hard) HW soundcard devs by removing the ability to use their features (EAX, Acceleration, etc..) But Creative and Realtek created dll patches that intercept the calls from games (it's not a cheat) and send them to OpenAL which is HW accelerated and can be used with extended hw features. [editline]29th June 2013[/editline] Yeah, don't downconvert really nice HW like the Xonar Essences have, also make sure you're using a DirectAudio DLL patch on games you want to sound good (Source for example).[/QUOTE] Just supplementing you here: They removed DirectSound/DirectSound3D, though left a crappy little fallback DirectSound API for older software. OpenAL can still access HW features of higher-end cards. Also, Source wouldn't benefit from any DirectSound DLL patches because it doesn't use DS3D, it uses its own software DSP engine.

[QUOTE=Lyoko774;41236749]Just supplementing you here: They removed DirectSound/DirectSound3D, though left a crappy little fallback DirectSound API for older software. OpenAL can still access HW features of higher-end cards. Also, Source wouldn't benefit from any DirectSound DLL patches because it doesn't use DS3D, it uses its own software DSP engine.[/QUOTE] You use a command that falls back to the "old" system that can use HW acceleration (snd_legacy_surround 1)

Ehhhhhhhhhhhhh It sorta works. I loaded up a round of Black Ops 2 and it makes everything sound more detailed but overall the sound quality sounds really bad like I'm using something even cheaper than what I currently have. Overall not worth it for me. Turned it off.

Oh my god this is terrible. Everything sounded really muddy and tinny, even after I put in my EQ settings. In TF2, sounds in higher frequencies had really terrible crackling and popping.

Well that was a let down

This thing fucked up my skype and made RO2 crash 3 times in about 30 mins.

[QUOTE=Akasori;41221198]I already have Dolby Headphone: [t]http://i.imgur.com/Sa1oXkg.png[/t][/QUOTE] I've found razer surround works slightly better though, at least it seems like it. Things such as footsteps and gun clicks/reloading sound like they are actually much closer and clearer in space than things in the environment, while dolby surround tended to just make such "first person" sound effects sound rather neutral in distance, as if I wasn't using surround at all on those sound effects (aka, basic stereo). Like, razer surround gets "close" sound effects working much better, but both dolby surround and razer surround do a good job of emulating directional stuff.

Mine was working fine a minute ago. Was fooling around with some settings, now it can't find any audio sources. [editline]29th June 2013[/editline] Yea fuck it it's not worth the effort

Apparently it works fine, with no issues for some. For others it breaks things.

This sounds bad on my sound card + Siberia V2s. I'll just go back to using my old setup.

Mine tells me to connect a razer synapse 2.0 device or some shit like that. What's up with that?

[QUOTE=Del91;41242243]Apparently it works fine, with no issues for some. For others it breaks things.[/QUOTE] Yeah I gave it a try and it sounded ridiculously bassy and even when no sound was on, the headphones were crackling every couple of seconds. Uninstalled.

it broke mumble 0/10 would not install

I found using with games like L4D2 the directions sounds came from were terribly messed up and my perception was extremely distorted, I couldn't tell which direction the sound came from. However this might be caused by other things (like a bad configuration) since it seems others aren't experiencing as many problems.