Hard Light Productions Forums
General FreeSpace => FreeSpace Discussion => Topic started by: spartan_0214 on August 07, 2007, 11:51:50 am
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Not to brag, but I just got the Logitech X-540 5.1 Surround Sound Speaker System. After taking the half-hour to figure out where all the satellite speakers and the subwoofer goes, unwiring my old system, and finally plugging in the new system, I have had an epiphany. Those of you who do not have a subwoofer to play Freespace on need to get one. Those of you who have a subwoofer but no 5.1 Surround Sound system need to get one. Let me explain.
Subwoofer:
Without my subwoofer, I didn't quite realize how powerful a subspace disruption was. After listening to incoming ships with my subwoofer ..... erm, well.... I had trouble concentrating on defending my objective. Subwoofers, IMHO, offer so much more to the game; I didn't realize how much bass the subspace disruption required. Subwoofers make up for about half of the subspace sound. Guys, if you have the money, go buy yourself a subwoofer, at the least.
Surround Sound:
Well, not much to explain here. I could hear ships warping in behind me, off to port, starboard, whatever. It was much easier figuring out where hostiles were warping in; I killed most of them when they reverted to realspace and were still acquiring targets. Kills nearly doubled after I got my Surround Sound system.
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Kills nearly doubled after I got my Surround Sound system.
I'm glad my gaming skill isn't dependant on my speaker system. :p
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I doubt the speaker system was the reason for your getting more kills, unless your old speakers completely sucked. :p FS2's positional sound support is pretty poor right now and has a lot of odd behavior in how things sound at different distances. The sound code is supposed to be revamped in 3.7, I think.
I prefer headphones to speakers anyway.
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I agree at least with the subwoofer part.
Back in the old days I only had the shoebox speakers that came with my computer. I never really paid attention to the sound quality since I didn't know of anything better. For example in Mafia shooting with a Colt 1911 resulted in a "bam bam bam" sound. I thought "ok, at lest it makes a sound".
Then, few years ago my uncle bought me some Logitech 2.1 speakers. I decided to test how they handle. So, once again I played Mafia and shot with the Colt. The result was a "BOOM!" from the speakers, nearly throwing me off my chair.
I came familiar with FS way later and haven't even played it without a subwoofer, so I can't really compare them, but I'm sure that its better with the woofer, since it worked that way with Mafia too.
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I only have 2 little speakers and my headphones. I'd rather buy a new video card and RAM then get a sound card, no offense, but as long as I can hear it clear and it sounds alright, its fine with me.
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whats a subwoofer?
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whats a subwoofer?
It's a dog that barks really low notes.
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No, no. You got it all wrong. It's an energetic dog that exists exclusively in subspace. That's why it is a key factor in FS.
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I've had my 5.1 system for a while, and I'd never go back by choice. What's really awesome is the floor in this house causes the thing to sound deeper. I guess it's because of the hardwood floors and basement below.
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I feel so deprived... :(
No HDRish, no subwoofer... Surround sound... Nothing... :sigh:
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I feel so deprived... :(
No HDRish, no subwoofer... Surround sound... Nothing... :sigh:
Same, all I have is two cheap generic brand speakers. :(
But ya, subwoofers add alot to any game, I remember playing Counterstrike for the first time at a friends house with his high end sound system, first time I heard a grenade go off I nearly jumped out of my chair.
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i have 5.1 with woofer, but my piece of crap sound card doesnt support full 5.1. i have to set the damn things to stereo mode :(
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All of you who just have the two cheapo speakers that come with pretty much any PC these days is doing themselves a disservice. You don't have to have the 5.1 surround sound setup...sometimes thats not practical...but most people can afford to find a spot for a set of high quality 2.1 speakers which can fill the room decently well anyways. Its not as good but its very close. The subwoofer and a pair of good speakers is definitely worth it. It makes sound much more important...you hear allot more...the experience is much more immersive and can increase your ability to play a game depending on how well the games audio was done.
FreeSpace's audio work in terms of sound effects is great but the audio system is not so good. Something like Battlefield 2 on the other hand seems to generally sport a fantastic audio system where you hear so much more when you have the proper equipment and settings. Just simple things like a grenade landing next to you or artillery off in the distance or bullets hitting the wall next to you...all good when you have the right speakers. Hopefully we can make the current FreeSpace 2 sound system a bit better and more positional...that'd be great.
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Yea, a .50 cal on BF2 with a subwoofer.....
Hearing aides at 30 years.
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Yea, a .50 cal on BF2 with a subwoofer.....
Hearing aides at 30 years.
It be worth it.
<3 Battlefield
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...it doesn't have to be loud to enjoy the music/audio. I prefer not to turn it up.
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I have a subwoofer, but i turn it waaaay down because its easy to bug everyone else in the house with it.
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Fully Sick SubWoofa Maaate!
Nobody at all gets that, do they? :(
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All of you who just have the two cheapo speakers that come with pretty much any PC these days is doing themselves a disservice. You don't have to have the 5.1 surround sound setup...sometimes thats not practical...but most people can afford to find a spot for a set of high quality 2.1 speakers which can fill the room decently well anyways. Its not as good but its very close. The subwoofer and a pair of good speakers is definitely worth it. It makes sound much more important...you hear allot more...the experience is much more immersive and can increase your ability to play a game depending on how well the games audio was done.
FreeSpace's audio work in terms of sound effects is great but the audio system is not so good. Something like Battlefield 2 on the other hand seems to generally sport a fantastic audio system where you hear so much more when you have the proper equipment and settings. Just simple things like a grenade landing next to you or artillery off in the distance or bullets hitting the wall next to you...all good when you have the right speakers. Hopefully we can make the current FreeSpace 2 sound system a bit better and more positional...that'd be great.
I agree, a good audio subsystem makes a huge difference in a game's immersion factor and is often not given the attention it deserves. Once the audio code is fixed, FS2 has the potential to shine here with its wide variety of sound effects, along with the high quality music we now have.
However, I don't think I could go back to any kind of speakers after using closed headphones exclusively for several years. They won't quite provide the ground-shaking bass of a similarly priced speaker setup, but I find their overall clarity (allowing you to make out finer details in the audio) and positional staging to be incomparably superior.
Yea, a .50 cal on BF2 with a subwoofer.....
Hearing aides at 30 years.
Fly near an active flak turret in PI to get the same effect. :D
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Yea, a .50 cal on BF2 with a subwoofer.....
Hearing aides at 30 years.
Sry bud, that's from having your volume up too loud. Subwoofers are, by definition, supposed to play only notes that are beyond the range of average human hearing (20 Hz and lower). Of course, some subwoofers are crappy ones, like mine, and go all the way up to 100 Hz, and make using the Afterburners INCREDIBLY annoying. I need a new sound system.
Anyway, yeah. Bass notes generally don't cause as much hearing dmg as high notes. Even really loud ones.
Oh, and what CP said about headphones. :yes:
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Not to brag, but I just got the Logitech X-540 5.1 Surround Sound Speaker System. After taking the half-hour to figure out where all the satellite speakers and the subwoofer goes, unwiring my old system, and finally plugging in the new system, I have had an epiphany. Those of you who do not have a subwoofer to play Freespace on need to get one. Those of you who have a subwoofer but no 5.1 Surround Sound system need to get one. Let me explain.
Subwoofer:
Without my subwoofer, I didn't quite realize how powerful a subspace disruption was. After listening to incoming ships with my subwoofer ..... erm, well.... I had trouble concentrating on defending my objective. Subwoofers, IMHO, offer so much more to the game; I didn't realize how much bass the subspace disruption required. Subwoofers make up for about half of the subspace sound. Guys, if you have the money, go buy yourself a subwoofer, at the least.
Surround Sound:
Well, not much to explain here. I could hear ships warping in behind me, off to port, starboard, whatever. It was much easier figuring out where hostiles were warping in; I killed most of them when they reverted to realspace and were still acquiring targets. Kills nearly doubled after I got my Surround Sound system.
I'll stick with my Sennheiser headphones. Besides, my headphones will completely destroy any computer speaker system for music. You need to spend a lotof money on speakers to match a $350 worth of headphones and amp (one thing to remember with headphone amps is that they're not really to make the music louder but to improve frequency response and bass reproduction by allowing the headphones to draw more power during peaks. It can be loud enough to blow your ears out if you turn a headphone amp all the way up, but turning headphones way up is very, very bad for your hearing).
You can use your radar and targeting brackets to immediately track incoming hostiles anyway.
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Ah, but you cannot feel computer the table (wordmix typo bolded for great justice), floor and your pants shaking while using headphones, like you can with a subwoofer? ;)
Obviously, as far as sound quality is concerned it's easier to get right with headphones as opposed to speaker system (especially as I can set two channels to work at 96kHz@24bits, versus having six channels only at 48kHz@24bits), but there's just something about being able to listen not only with your ears but also to feel the sound around you. And I'm not talking about setting the volume to the south-east quadrant... it's just different than headphones to be in the middle of the sound and not just making your ears hear it. I prefer speakers over headphones at daytime... assuming the speakers are of at least some quality.
I've got a rather interesting set-up as far as speakers go... one Creative Inspire P5800 5.1 system and older, Creative Inspire P380 2.1 system with satellites replaced with speakers from my Sony stereo set. Works pretty good for a room of this size. :pimp:
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I had a subwoofer, and It was awesome... now my father has it.
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Lol, i first got my subwoofer system with fs2 back in the day. It had 4.1, it was better than nothing. My sound card had a kickass rear output, and front output, so i used my last crappy pair of speakers to be the rear output. But man, the shockwaves, warping in and out, the explosions, the weapons, but most of all the flak stood out as the best experience in fs2 with subwoofers. Then the cheapo speakers for the subwoofer broke, but the subwoofer was fine, so i bought another pair of the same speakers, and got a headphone jack splitter and hooked up both subwoofers now. For 20$ speakers, they are very nice and so are the subwoofers, just that the speakers shouldn't be dropped on the floor. And i bought another same set of subwoofer speaker system because my old one went to it, i had an extra woofer that did work, and i had that great epiphany to having better bass by hooking them both up at the same side by side with a headphone jack splitter (these woofers have headphone jacks connectors). The woofers in the speaker system i bought are pretty much what the money pays for, the fragile speakers themselves do pump out great sound also, but yes very fragile. Subwoofers on the other hand, strong, great sounding for the price, and you can combine them very easily :D
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I use Altec Lansing; I have a 5.1 system, a 2.1 system, a 2.0 system, and a headset. If you have a set of headphones that is good quality, you shouldn't notice any difference in sound quality (in fact, it will be better... esp with noise-cancelling headphones!). However, you will miss the throaty rumble in your chest, which feels so good. :drevil: To fix this problem, get a 2.1 or 5.1 system from Altec Lansing, or another reputable manufacturer, get a 1x mini stereo out > 2x mini stereo out Y-splitter, connect that to your sound card, run the headphones off of one end and your speakers off of the other. XD
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I feel so deprived... :(
No HDRish, no subwoofer... Surround sound... Nothing... :sigh:
I've got generic speakers, but mine must be good, because even though they are at least six years old, they are still on the market. (http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=495615&CatId=2892)
Then again, so are these pieces of **** (http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1164882&CatId=2892)
And I've got HDRish!...and a whole load of other cool shaders!
EDIT: I like my headphones, well worth the money getting for christmas. :nervous:
Ah, but you cannot feel computer the table, floor and your pants shaking while using headphones, like you can with a subwoofer? ;)
:lol:
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In the honor of Computer the Table the Fifth!
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That's one of the most awesomest the typoes I've ever written in the life of me.
I still win because in Finnish language we don't need no articles, though. :p
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I feel so deprived... :(
No HDRish, no subwoofer... Surround sound... Nothing... :sigh:
I've got generic speakers, but mine must be good, because even though they are at least six years old, they are still on the market. (http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=495615&CatId=2892)
Then again, so are these pieces of **** (http://www.tigerdirect.ca/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=1164882&CatId=2892)
And I've got HDRish!...and a whole load of other cool shaders!
EDIT: I like my headphones, well worth the money getting for christmas. :nervous:
Ah, but you cannot feel computer the table, floor and your pants shaking while using headphones, like you can with a subwoofer? ;)
:lol:
I've got a piar of white D-zone speakers that look like that. Soooooo crap!
I (used) to use these but the amp has blown at the moment.