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What happened to the PS5 3D audio?

Artifice

Artifice

Member
Oct 30, 2017
458
So, I am still trying to get a next gen console, but I am wondering what is up with the advertised 3D audio for PS5. I see no mention of that in the reviews or even on era when I remember posts about binaural audio in the PS5 threads. Has 3D audio not yet launched for the PS5 or is it not the thing it was hyped up to be?

I really want to know where we stand on the 3D thing because I love surround sound and the binaural audio snippets on YouTube really blew my mind. So I am hoping it will be as awesome I want it to be when I finally manage to get my hands on a PS5.
 
dralla

dralla

Member
Oct 27, 2017
2,872
It's there, it's just not very good, which is probably why you don't see it mentioned very often. I think it's the weakest 3D audio solution of the bunch. There's too big a drop in audio quality. Drops in quality in favor of gaining position audio is not uncommon for 3D audio, but the drop in quality with the Tempest solution is drastic. I've been playing in stereo instead. It's a huge bummer because I had high hopes for it. I'm really hoping they can somehow improve it.

It's no where near as good as the binaural audio you hear on YouTube. If you're expecting that level of quality, you will be disappointed.
 
chainlinkspiral

chainlinkspiral

Member
Oct 25, 2017
11,579
Anecdotally, I've only really noticed it comparing the ps4/ps5 versions of Fortnite and Cold War. The directional audio of throwing items and hearing them at various spots land with transitory positional audio stands out. Hearing far off sounds in Cold War Zombies of teammates and zombies moving about tracks pretty well.
 
Kuro

Kuro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,660
There is HRTF virtualization through the OS and then the added tech/chip that is there for games to utilize although not many have gone to the trouble yet, like a lot of next-gen engine stuff that's still in the works.

I personally think the virtualization has sucked in the games that I've used it with but I don't like any virtualization software and I've used them all.

Demon's Souls has pretty impressive audio although its the only real next gen game I've played.

edit: I forgot to add Astro's Playroom as well which has fantastic audio
 
NightShift

NightShift

Member
Oct 25, 2017
9,026
Australia
As far as I know, it only works throught the jack on the controller. The sense of direction you hear is cool but the audio quality is so shit it may as well not exist. Once they update it to come out of other outputs, there may be more talk about it.
 

KyrieIvi14

Member
Mar 6, 2020
25
I've really enjoyed in games like Demon's Souls, Control or Resident Evil Village. For me, it's an incredible feature
 
VanWinkle

VanWinkle

Member
Oct 25, 2017
16,095
I mean, it's there, but it just doesn't jump out to me as being anything special at all when using it.
 
Einchy

Einchy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
42,659
I played all of Miles Morales with headphones on and never noticed a difference.
 
Mister_X

Mister_X

Member
Aug 22, 2020
1,494
NightShift said:
As far as I know, it only works throught the jack on the controller. The sense of direction you hear is cool but the audio quality is so shit it may as well not exist. Once they update it to come out of other outputs, there may be more talk about it.
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Oh hmm I just bought the pulse 3D headset yesterday and will be trying it out with demons soul. Didn't know it had to be wired to work tho.
 
Betelgeuse

Betelgeuse

Member
Nov 2, 2017
2,941
NightShift said:
As far as I know, it only works throught the jack on the controller. The sense of direction you hear is cool but the audio quality is so shit it may as well not exist. Once they update it to come out of other outputs, there may be more talk about it.
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You can get 3D audio via USB as well, if you have a supported DAC. That's how I do it.
 

Sprat

Member
Oct 27, 2017
4,684
England
Mister_X said:
Oh hmm I just bought the pulse 3D headset yesterday and will be trying it out with demons soul. Didn't know it had to be wired to work tho.
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It doesn't need to be wired.

Miles moralis is great in crowds with the old gold headset and just being around street level in general.

I haven't really checked into it much yet though as I can't stand wearing headphones
 
OP
OP
Artifice

Artifice

Member
Oct 30, 2017
458
Oh, that's a bummer. I had high hopes especially since Cerny talked about dedicated hardware and resources to make it happen.

Hopefully, we are still in early implementation and not really that many next gen games are out yet. I hope that it will improve in the near future.
 
Darknight

Darknight

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,842
It's pretty lackluster and so far I much prefer my surround sound setup which gives a better sound stage by comparison. I really do hope it gets better because if not, it's going to suck at the loss of using more standard methods due to them using a proprietary implementation.
 
overthewaves

overthewaves

Member
Sep 30, 2020
1,144
I actually turned it off on my PS5. The sound felt like I was underwater. I'm not much of an audiophile though. I was using an M40x if it makes a difference.
 
Team_Feisar

Team_Feisar

Member
Jan 16, 2018
5,354
Maybe a stupid question bhw how do I turn this on/off? I have the Sony gold headset plugged into the controller jack usually.
 
Darknight

Darknight

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,842
Flousn said:
Maybe a stupid question bhw how do I turn this on/off? I have the Sony gold headset plugged into the controller jack usually.
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Go to Settings and then go to the Audio section. Under headphones you should be able to turn on and off 3D audio.

Here's a tip for anyone who doesn't know, if the game doesn't support 3D audio, you want to disable it in the system settings. You have to toggle it there depending on what game you play and it's not automatic. Having 3D audio on in a game that doesn't use it will diminish the audio quality.
 

Bundy

Banned
Oct 27, 2017
20,931
ArtificialBeliever said:
So, I am still trying to get a next gen console, but I am wondering what is up with the advertised 3D audio for PS5. I see no mention of that in the reviews or even on era when I remember posts about binaural audio in the PS5 threads. Has 3D audio not yet launched for the PS5 or is it not the thing it was hyped up to be?

I really want to know where we stand on the 3D thing because I love surround sound and the binaural audio snippets on YouTube really blew my mind. So I am hoping it will be as awesome I want it to be when I finally manage to get my hands on a PS5.
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It's great. See Demon's Souls, Spider-Man, etc.
 
Mister_X

Mister_X

Member
Aug 22, 2020
1,494
No Depth

No Depth

Member
Oct 27, 2017
18,296
Reminds me that I need to get rid of my Pulse 3D headset. Never bother using it and the quality I found middling.

I do find the surround audio via my soundbar and rears is fine though. No complaints as it stands with that.
 
CloseTalker

CloseTalker

Member
Oct 25, 2017
30,658
Darknight said:
Go to Settings and then go to the Audio section. Under headphones you should be able to turn on and off 3D audio.

Here's a tip for anyone who doesn't know, if the game doesn't support 3D audio, you want to disable it in the system settings. You have to toggle it there depending on what game you play and it's not automatic. Having 3D audio on in a game that doesn't use it will diminish the audio quality.
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Ugh that's such a pain. Better off just leaving it off
 
takriel

takriel

Attempted to circumvent ban with alt account
Banned
Oct 25, 2017
10,221
Does 3D audio enhance a 5.1 surround speaker setup, as well? Or just headphones?
 
sionydus

sionydus

Member
Jan 2, 2021
1,938
West Coast, USA
It depends on the game. For some, it makes everything sound worse (e.g., Miles Morales with the exception of the "birds flapping" sound effect). For some others, it (mostly) sustains the audio quality while adding some notably cool effects but nothing game-changing (e.g., Demon's Souls and DiRT 5). CoD is kind of a middle one where some sounds like explosions lose their umph while gunshots gain good directionality.

The only game that really flaunts it the way the DualSense is shown off in Astro is the Maiden demo for RE8. The drop in quality is a little bit present still but the gain in atmosphere is huge and not to be missed.

My theory is that if audio effects aren't programmed/recorded in some secret sauce special way, Tempest tries to emulate the binaural effects instead, which just doesn't sound good. I'm thinking most third party teams aren't going the extra mile to do this (with the exception of Activision... and Capcom—who even did a bang-up job in the DMC5 release where it was not needed).

I'm hopeful more third party devs play ball like they are with the DualSense so far.
 
PuppetMinion

PuppetMinion

The Fallen
Nov 1, 2017
2,299
Darknight said:
Go to Settings and then go to the Audio section. Under headphones you should be able to turn on and off 3D audio.

Here's a tip for anyone who doesn't know, if the game doesn't support 3D audio, you want to disable it in the system settings. You have to toggle it there depending on what game you play and it's not automatic. Having 3D audio on in a game that doesn't use it will diminish the audio quality.
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Even if you don't use a headset through the controller?

*edit* sorry, stupid question. that would be just regular audio then.
 
Einchy

Einchy

Member
Oct 25, 2017
42,659
Darknight said:
Go to Settings and then go to the Audio section. Under headphones you should be able to turn on and off 3D audio.

Here's a tip for anyone who doesn't know, if the game doesn't support 3D audio, you want to disable it in the system settings. You have to toggle it there depending on what game you play and it's not automatic. Having 3D audio on in a game that doesn't use it will diminish the audio quality.
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I had to turn it off for Valhalla since it made the same sound like an iPhone in another room.
 

Deleted member 9330

User requested account closure
Banned
Oct 26, 2017
6,990
Darknight said:
Here's a tip for anyone who doesn't know, if the game doesn't support 3D audio, you want to disable it in the system settings. You have to toggle it there depending on what game you play and it's not automatic. Having 3D audio on in a game that doesn't use it will diminish the audio quality.
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Between this and the HDR setting I'm convinced Sony has no interest I automatically applying the best settings
 
Kuro

Kuro

Member
Oct 25, 2017
20,660
takriel said:
Does 3D audio enhance a 5.1 surround speaker setup, as well? Or just headphones?
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Its just virtual surround so it's for stereo only, specifically for headphones at the moment. People are mistaking Sony's new audio tech with their new virtualization software though.

The new audio tech is what improves surround setups but games have to be developed with it and its still early.
 
FriendlyNPC

FriendlyNPC

Member
Oct 27, 2017
1,601
The drop in audio quality is so steep I literally thought something was wrong with my audio setup the first time I switched it on, testing with Demon's Souls. Additionally, the 3d effect itself sounds pretty underwhelming to me as well.

Using this as a USB -> coaxial passthrough (to get 3d audio you need a UAC1 DAC) to what you would consider an audiophile headphone setup with a top end dac and great headphones.
 
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sionydus

sionydus

Member
Jan 2, 2021
1,938
West Coast, USA
henhowc said:
No vss has every blown me away. Dolby headphone, dtsx, whatever else is out there.
Tempest is no different.
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Have you tried Atmos/DTS:X for a game that actually implements the Spatial Sound API? Just like Tempest for select PS5 games, it shouldn't be "virtualized" anymore. It should use real binaural effects. I mean, you may still not like it but just curious if you're sure you tried the real thing.
 
Darknight

Darknight

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,842
sionydus said:
Have you tried Atmos/DTS:X for a game that actually implements the Spatial Audio API? Just like Tempest for those select PS5 games, it shouldn't be "virtualized" anymore. It should use real binaural effects. I mean, you may still not like it but just curious if you're sure you tried the real thing.
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I haven't tried a ton, but the one thing that has always bothered me was how dialog sounds. In a normal surround sound setup, dialog tends to come from the center speaker and in front of me. Every time I've used headphones, dialog tends to be in both ears and just there instead of in front of me. I can't get past that change in where the dialog sounds like it's coming from and it always bothers me.
 
sionydus

sionydus

Member
Jan 2, 2021
1,938
West Coast, USA
Darknight said:
I haven't tried a ton, but the one thing that has always bothered me was how dialog sounds. In a normal surround sound setup, dialog tends to come from the center speaker and in front of me. Every time I've used headphones, dialog tends to be in both ears and just there instead of in front of me. I can't get past that change in where the dialog sounds like it's coming from and it always bothers me.
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At the end of the day, it still falls on competent sound design to get those details right. Because the headphone equivalent of surround mixing is pretty new and unstandardized, we can expect some issues. I'm hoping that the public's taste in audio is getting more refined thanks to the work of industry leaders in sound (Naughty Dog, DICE, Capcom). Then maybe the powers that be will put higher quality standards on their AAA checklist. Ubisoft sound can go to hell...

Update: By the way, Dolby at least used to keep a list of games on their Dolby Atmos page that seems to function as a de facto Spatial Sound list here: https://www.dolby.com/gaming/

I don't see RE2 listed anymore (on mobile) but let me tell you, that's a good one to try with Atmos/DTS:X on.
 
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Darknight

Darknight

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,842
sionydus said:
At the end of the day, it still falls on competent sound design to get those details right. Because the headphone equivalent of surround mixing is pretty new and unstandardized, we can expect some issues. I'm hoping that the public's taste in audio is getting more refined thanks to the work of industry leaders in sound (Naughty Dog, DICE, Capcom). Then maybe the powers that be will put higher quality standards on their AAA checklist. Ubisoft sound can go to hell...
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The thing is, this happens in Naughty Dog games too as recently as The Last of Us 2. I agree it falls on competent sound design, but I don't think anyone is changing that aspect of it to mimic it to be more like a traditional surround sound setup.
 
sionydus

sionydus

Member
Jan 2, 2021
1,938
West Coast, USA
Darknight said:
The thing is, this happens in Naughty Dog games too as recently as The Last of Us 2. I agree it falls on competent sound design, but I don't think anyone is changing that aspect of it to mimic it to be more like a traditional surround sound setup.
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I'll have to relisten but I don't think I had that problem in TLOU2. Keep in mind your ear profile has a big effect on how effective binaural audio is for you. You may need to send Cerny a scan of your ears. :)
 
Smash-It Stan

Smash-It Stan

Member
Oct 25, 2017
5,275
It's awful and unless you're only playing Demons Souls, it makes everything sound terrible. My PS5 is just a PS4 machine and tempest tries to work there but it ruins the audio.

Apparently I read that it activates those sound profiles you would have had access to if you had those shitty playstation headphones? Like apparently Uncharted 4 and RDR2 have special 'mixes' just for those headphones , I'm really not too sure though as discussing audio online is like discussing astrology sometimes.
 
Loud Wrong

Loud Wrong

Member
Feb 24, 2020
14,072
When a game supports it, it's merely good at best. When a game doesn't support it, it sounds awful and rather than just disabling it when the game doesn't support it, the PS5 presents the audio in the worst possible way. So rather than turning it on and off depending upon the game I'm playing, I just leave it off. Really disappointing.
 
Feral Gingy

Feral Gingy

Member
Oct 30, 2017
378
Finland
Is there an easy way to check if a game supports 3D audio? I assume the physical copies have a logo but what about digital? I'll be getting my console next week so I'm asking around to prepare myself.
 
Darknight

Darknight

"I'd buy that for a dollar!"
Member
Oct 25, 2017
22,842
Feral Gingy said:
Is there an easy way to check if a game supports 3D audio? I assume the physical copies have a logo but what about digital? I'll be getting my console next week so I'm asking around to prepare myself.
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Nope, no easy way to tell on either physical or digital. I believe most people find out from developers publicly mentioning it and then word of mouth.
 
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