I've found a way to enable surround sound in DDO

[Kritty]

DDO uses OpenAL for its sound which is nice in theory as it is an open standard, but sadly in practice what it means is you get full surround sound, up to as many speakers as you have, plus cool effects on Creative Labs soundcards and just simple stereo on anything else. Of course not everyone has to wants a Creative Soundcard. Well, there is a solution it turns out, one Turbine could integrate in to the game if they wanted, called OpenAL Soft. It is an open source (LGPL licensed) implementation of OpenAL, that's been updated to do various surround speaker configs and the like. To use it all you need to do is:

1) Go download it from http://kcat.strangesoft.net/openal-binaries/openal-soft-1.17.1-bin.zip.
2) Open up the zip file and go to\openal-soft-1.17.1-bin\bin\Win32\ and extract the soft_oal.dll file. Place it in the same directory as the dndclient.exe on your computer (so probably C:\Program Files (x86)\Turbine\Dungeons & Dragons Online\ on most systems).
3) Start DDO and open the options menu. Choose the Audio button, scroll all the way down and find the "Sound Playback" option. Change it from "Generic Software on Your Soundcard" to "OpenAL soft on Your Soundcard".

That's it! You should now have surround sound (if you have surround speakers) in DDO.

Do note that since this is all software processing, it can put a heavier load on your processor to do surround and the like. Should be a big deal on today's systems, nearly all games out that do software surround sound, but just be aware if you have a very low-end system it could slow things down. Also it is capable of doing surround virtualization on headphones (HRTF) though it takes a bit more work to set up. Read the included readme.txt file for more information on that.

[UurlockYgmeov]

nice tip!

if I every use something other than headphones I will be sure to use!

[Cordovan]

Neat!

[Bolo_Grubb]

cool

[Ghwyn]

I'd like to know if this works with proper location of noises. Can you hear something coming up from behind on only the rear speakers?

[firemedium_jt]

I'd like to know if this works with proper location of noises. Can you hear something coming up from behind on only the rear speakers?


I use surround with Logitech 5.1. Problem is that your senses are related, so if you zoom out it is probably hard to realize it. If you zoom in more it helps the perception. I zoom in almost all the way. Max zoom I find unrealistic cause there is not peripheral vision, so I zoom in to over the shoulder. I run in nvidia video surround also at 5920x1080 with three 27" monitors.

If you go next to the fires in Eveningstar village or water falls you can test your surround when you turn your facing near them.

I also use the Newegg Rosewill vibration headsets. These are awesome. They have FL,RL,FR,RR speakers along with a subwoofer in each for base along with a vibration mechanism. Vibration in hand pieces for recoil and force feel airplane trim is nice, but explosion vibrations on your head is a wonderful experience in games especially combat games, and even DDO.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826193069


http://www.thinkgeek.com/images/products/additional/large/f39e_rosewill_5-1_channel_gaming_headset_flat.jpg






Here is a link to my thread on video surround. If you click on the picture below it will pull up the resolution and my zoom angle I use for 5920x1080. If your monitors are not this rez or bigger you will just have to adjust the picture to center it.

https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/444627-DDO-3-monitors-is-nifty



http://s26.postimg.org/exrl70fx5/Screen_Shot00026a.jpg (http://postimg.org/image/c3oftkdqt/full/)
photo sharing (http://postimage.org/)

[firemedium_jt]

Also speaker setup is important for the effects.

Cheaper speakers might not be as noticeable, but with Windows 7 and above I know that you can throw the sound in each speaker with a volume setting. My soundcard has fancy software settings, but I don't use them. If it had a mic setup like my home theater for phase measurement I would use it, but it is just distance and decibel.

I have all my 5.1 Logitech speakers against the wall in front of me. I have my rears about 4 to 6 feet to the side of me. I actually point the rears straight behind me and have the volumes for RL and RR about 20% higher. I don't angle the rears towards me. The sound bounces off the wall behind me I think. It helps exaggerate the rear and side sounds and makes me wanna turn toward it or run the other way, lol. In DDO and First Person Shooters it is awesome.


Now the Newegg Rosewill headset I describe above does a great job. Many on Youtube rave it is better than any $100 to $200 headset. I would have to agree. It is an amazing price too.

[Ghwyn]

Sounds like you have a great setup. However, my question was not answered: are sounds correctly sent to the speakers? Can you hear someone coming up from behind you from only the rear speakers?

[Kritty]

Yes, you can hear things coming behind you. The sound localization is pretty good in DDO meaning if something is behind you, it plays from the rear speakers. This does assume that you have your speakers set up correctly, that that the setup you have told Windows matches the actual setup, of course.

Also it can do surround with headphones to a degree using HRTF. That is a bit more advanced to set up, but there is information on their page and readme as to what you do and a configuration tool to help.

[Blivit]

2) Open up the zip file and go to\openal-soft-1.17.1-bin\bin\Win32\ and extract the soft_oal.dll file. Place it in the same directory as the dndclient.exe on your computer (so probably C:\Program Files (x86)\Turbine\Dungeons & Dragons Online on most systems).

Just wanted to clarify that there are two soft_oal.dll files in the linked zip file. One is for Win64, and the other Win32. Task Manager tells me that DDO is a 32-bit binary, so I used the Win32 DLL. I dropped it in, and it seems to work.

Even better, though, is that selecting OpenAL Soft appears to have solved my lock-up / stutter problems on the character and character creation screens. I used to have to disable sound entirely before TR'ing, as once the music got through a loop or so, it would stutter, make horrible fraction of a second repeat noises, temporarily freeze the game during this, then often lock up entirely. While I haven't TR'd yet, I did start rolling up a character and let it sit there for a while. No sound stutter, no lockup. The music did die after a single loop, but silence is WAY better than lockup and re-doing all the character creation and skill allocation. It did not stutter or lock up on the character creation screen, either (again, just silence after one loop). Bravo!!

[Robai]

Sounds like you have a great setup. However, my question was not answered: are sounds correctly sent to the speakers? Can you hear someone coming up from behind you from only the rear speakers?

If you have just headphones or just 2 speakers and you choose surround then you might not hear some sounds at all (happened to me when I installed a new sound card and wanted to take full advantage of its features).
I think you need headphones that supports the virtual surround (virtual surround (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Virtual_surround) systems use knowledge of psychoacoustics to "trick" the listener).