Guild Wars 2

Hi,

I play with either a USB 7.1 Digital headset or 4.1 surround sound speakers off of a Creative X-Fi sound card. I have absolutely no problems with this arrangement with any other application whether it be music, movie or another game.

With GW2 though I am thouroughly disappointed by the lack of rear channel sound and I cannot tell if it is default or if something is wrong. Most notable it happens with shouts and other dialogues. If I am moving forward I will hear one of those sounds playing fine in front of me, but when I move through a certain position, I can hear that sound move directly to the sides, but then all but vanish behind me. It’s very noticeable in mid sentence. I can have the same affect with other ambient sounds. I can put a waterfall directly infront of me and then move my position with my back to the waterfall and hear sound cut out. I have put my ear directly to rear speakers and can hear the sounds, but they are very faint. So, I’ve increased my settings so my rear speakers are turned all the way up, and it’s more noticeable but still something is wrong. If I play something else tho, I have to turn them way down back to normal.

I also have a USB headset and it has the same issues. I can hear more positional sound if I tell the headset program that the source is 2.1 then it will output to 7.1, but it’s of course artificial and not true 7.1.

Anyone know if these are normal issues or if there is a fix?? Thanks!

Whether a game supports surround or not has nothing to do with the game itself, as it is an inherint feature of DirectSound3D when your audio is properly configured from the Windows control panel, or whatever app is provided with your card.

Keep in mind that Creative cards are OpenAL, not DSound3D based. This means that you may not get all features of the card when running DirectX games.

Also, there is no such thing as “artificial” surround on a headset, headphones always fully replicate the illusion of 3D sound when in “Headphones” mode. In fact, buying a surround headset is completely pointless because Human hearing is stereo and you have basically wasted money on a cheap marketing gimmick.

See: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head-related_transfer_function