List of games with discrete 7.1 support.

Need For Speed: Most Wanted (2012) has 7.1 support

This is one area where consoles have a slight advantage. Shiz... The PS3 had lossless 7.1 back in 2006.

The consoles also claim to support 1080p. How many games are actually made with 7.1 for the consoles?

I thought all PC games had 7.1 support (and more) as long as they had DirectSound support? (pretty much all modern PC games) They support as many speakers as you have.

Nearly ALL games on PC have support for 7.1 as long as DirectSound is used and it is most of the time. I could play a game from pre-2000 and have it in 7.1 surround.

Consoles.... heh.

I thought I said that?

You did but you didn't say it pushy enough.

Yeah and when Scott says it you know it's true.

Ugly1, in Windows 7 (and probably newer & previous versions) Directsound, which is a function of DirectX, is enabled by default. (Correct me if I'm wrong guys)

As long as you have multiple speakers configured properly in the Playback Devices and the game supports DirectSound you will get multi-speaker output.

DS no longer exists and has been replaced by XAudio2. DS games and apps still work with XAudio2 though, because it emulates DS. Dave pretty much summed it up but some older stuff doesn't work as well under XAudio2 as it did with DirectSound.

Lol!


Pretty much, yes.


This. The OP needs to double-check the standard Windows audio settings and make sure 7.1 speaker layout is selected. It should just default to 2ch but maybe 5.1 when HDMI is plugged in. I have no idea cuz I set it to 7.1 right away.

I know I'm coming into this kinda late but...
PS3 is capable of supporting 7.1 surround but it is entirely up to the game developer to support it. If you are always getting 7.1 surround from games, then you probably have virtual surround or matrixing enabled on your receiver. Some games support discrete 7.1 and many are just 5.1; it depends on how thorough the programmers are at implementing the audio engine in their game and also depends on the audio engine used in the game; for example, Batman Arkham Asylum on PS3 and PC supported 7.1 because it used FMOD for its audio engine but Arkham City only supported 5.1 because it used Wwise. Wwise only supports up to 5.1 channels.

You don't enable DirectSound, it's a component built into older games.. As has been said, DirectSound is an outdated audio engine from the Windows XP era used in many older games; it's a component embedded into the game. Most games now days don't use DirectSound but use a number of audio engines such as FMOD, Wwise, XAudio2, and OpenAL. Dishonored only supports up to 5.1 because it uses Wwise and Wwise only supports up to 6 channels. Far Cry 3 and Skyrim use XAudio2 which supports 7.1 output but the programmers were perhaps incompetent and failed to implement the necessary programming to get those games to see an 8 channel speaker configuration. The Witcher 2 uses FMOD and I'm certain that this game supports 7.1 so I'm not sure why that's not working for you. Make sure that your speaker configuration in Windows is set to 7.1. I use analog output from my X-Fi card so I haven't tested these games through HDMI; maybe HDMI audio does something with Witcher 2 that prevents it from detecting 7.1 channels.

I'm slightly enthusiastic about PC gaming audio so I created a page with my findings of what audio API the game uses and what channel output it supports:
http://stuffiputupwith.net/audio.html

That stuff is mostly about gaming with direct analog connections from a sound card to a receiver. I think using HDMI automatically mixes bass to the subwoofer and I'm guessing you guys are probably using HDMI. When using analog connections, if the game isn't specifically programmed to route audio to LFE then you get no subwoofer usage unless you tell the sound card software to do bass redirection.

Wow! Thanks for this list. Seriously.

Yes, thanks for the list djoye. And your page also answered some questions I had about the audio in games.

You are our game audio hero right now.

I just recently hooked up my soundcard to my receiver. Analog, 5.1, small room, not enough space for 7.1. So that's a nice list to see. I've set my sound card to handle the crossover, but I have yet to actually play anything but Dishonored and Rocksmith since hooking it up. Seeing which ones have actual LFE channels is a nice little bonus.

Lemme know if anything on the page needs to be clarified. It's just something I kinda threw together.

Seemed pretty accurate from my recent experiences with my new computer in my HT room which is 7.1 capable. I have mine hooked up with HDMI though. Really, it's the same thing. Your AVR might not be able to use bass management using the analog in but my old (pre-HDMI) Harmon Kardon could. It would allow you to run the analog pure or digitize it for use with bass management. But anyway... the poor use of audio in general with gaming keeps me annoyed thru the years.