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Grinchy · Nov 17, 2017

I noticed it right away and then found some other people talking about it. These Bethesda games have always had notoriously horrible audio without any real semblance of direction. I was hoping that the VR version would at least take proper advantage of the 3D audio.

If you don't know what 3D audio is in VR games, imagine holding a speaker in VR. If you hold it in front of you, you hear it in both ears. If you raise it to your right ear, you only hear it in your right ear. This makes dialog and other action sounds really pop and feel like they are taking place where they are supposed to be in the virtual space.

In Skyrim, it appears to just be regular stereo audio. If you turn your head to a character who is talking to you, the audio doesn't shift at all.

Dahaka · Nov 17, 2017

What the hell, Bethesda. Damn. Disappointing (currently downloading it)

Gray-Fox · Nov 17, 2017

hopefully they can patch that in. Will wait till then

Bramble · Nov 17, 2017

Grinchy said:
I noticed it right away and then found some other people talking about it. These Bethesda games have always had notoriously horrible audio without any real semblance of direction. I was hoping that the VR version would at least take proper advantage of the 3D audio.

If you don't know what 3D audio is in VR games, imagine holding a speaker in VR. If you hold it in front of you, you hear it in both ears. If you raise it to your right ear, you only hear it in your right ear. This makes dialog and other action sounds really pop and feel like they are taking place where they are supposed to be in the virtual space.

In Skyrim, it appears to just be regular stereo audio. If you turn your head to a character who is talking to you, the audio doesn't shift at all.

Why is this called 3D audio all of a sudden? It's just surround sound. Had this on my PS3 back in the days.

So did you plugged in a random headset in the HMD? Or are you actually using surround headphones?

Grinchy · Nov 17, 2017

Bramble said:
Why is this called 3D audio all of a sudden? It's just surround sound. Had this on my PS3 back in the days.

So did you plugged in a random headset in the HMD? Or are you actually using surround headphones?

Surround sound and 3D audio are not the same thing. You do not want to connect surround headphones to your PS4 while playing VR games. You want to connect directly to the 3.5mm jack in the headset because the breakout box has a processor in it that handles the 3D audio itself.

Taliban Stan · Nov 17, 2017

Is it at least surround sound?

Bramble · Nov 17, 2017

Grinchy said:
Surround sound and 3D audio are not the same thing. You do not want to connect surround headphones to your PS4 while playing VR games. You want to connect directly to the 3.5mm jack in the headset because the breakout box has a processor in it that handles the 3D audio itself.

I don't hear anything sounding better. In fact, my Tritton Katana gives way better audio then plugging in a headset. In or out of VR, if I turn around in a game, I hear voices etc. just around me depending on my position. Works just fine.

I think it's just marketing that fooled you.

Grinchy · Nov 17, 2017

Bramble said:
I don't hear anything sounding better. In fact, my Tritton Katana gives way better audio then plugging in a headset. In or out of VR, if I turn around in a game, I hear voices etc. just around me depending on my position. Works just fine.

I think it's just marketing that fooled you.

lol alright

For anyone else who has played PSVR games before and understands the difference, this is an unfortunate thing. This is the first time I've ever played a PSVR game that didn't use 3D audio. It feels so weird for the audio not to be connected to the movement of my head.

daitoqu · Nov 17, 2017

Fun fact: there is a HRTF-sound mod for Skyrim on PC.
Github | YT-demo

Spukc · Nov 17, 2017

shit NO BUY.

oh wait i own a oculus rift

Gold_Loot · Nov 17, 2017

Taliban Stan said:
Is it at least surround sound?

Yeah , surround is fine, 5.1 headphones seem to working right.

goonergaz · Nov 17, 2017

Grinchy said:
lol alright

For anyone else who has played PSVR games before and understands the difference, this is an unfortunate thing. This is the first time I've ever played a PSVR game that didn't use 3D audio. It feels so weird for the audio not to be connected to the movement of my head.

lol, people need to check out some demos on youtube

Real shame, especially considering the top price

arhra · Nov 17, 2017

Bramble said:
Why is this called 3D audio all of a sudden? It's just surround sound. Had this on my PS3 back in the days.

Standard surround sound only positions sounds on a horizontal plane at ear-level. Proper 3D spatial audio can provide height cues as well, so you can hear things above or below you as well as in front/behind/left/right.

Spukc · Nov 17, 2017

Gold_Loot said:
Yeah , surround is fine, 5.1 headphones seem to working right.

hate to break it to you but there is no such thing xD

Aonuma · Nov 17, 2017

This is bad when Skyrim for the Switch does surround sound just fine.

Gold_Loot · Nov 17, 2017

Spukc said:
hate to break it to you but there is no such thing xD

Simulated obviously

Gold_Loot · Nov 17, 2017

Aonuma said:
This is bad when Skyrim for the Switch does surround sound just fine.

3D audio/surround sound. Quite different actually.

martinstraka8282 · Nov 17, 2017

Not interested in this game but big on my PSVR... I can't imagine a VR game without 3D audio, it would almost be downright confusing at times.

Grinchy · Nov 17, 2017

martinstraka8282 said:
Not interested in this game but big on my PSVR... I can't imagine a VR game without 3D audio, it would almost be downright confusing at times.

It reminds me of playing Fallout 4. Sometimes it would sound like an enemy was talking right next to me, and it would turn out that they were way up above and on the other side. The sound design in Bethesda games just sucks.

Luckily the games are good.

BibiMaghoo · Nov 18, 2017

I'm thinking this is a bug. The work for it is already done. No reason not to include it.

MultiCore · Nov 18, 2017

I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive, but I'll report back with my findings as soon as I can.

As a side note, all the mixing done for 5.1 is basically the same for VR, it's just tied to two head tracked speakers, essentially.

If it doesn't work, it absolutely has to be a bug. I'd expect a patch pretty quickly to fix it. Would make the VR experience much worse, for sure.

Grinchy · Nov 18, 2017

MultiCore said:
I'm still waiting for my copy to arrive, but I'll report back with my findings as soon as I can.

As a side note, all the mixing done for 5.1 is basically the same for VR, it's just tied to two head tracked speakers, essentially.

If it doesn't work, it absolutely has to be a bug. I'd expect a patch pretty quickly to fix it. Would make the VR experience much worse, for sure.

It's really strange because it's like it's almost there. Sometimes a person to your right will have their voice be just slightly louder in the right ear than the left, but it doesn't even feel like it happens at the right angle. Hard to explain in words. It's so subtle that it basically just sounds like all audio is always in both ears no matter what direction it comes from.

MultiCore · Nov 18, 2017

Grinchy said:
It's really strange because it's like it's almost there. Sometimes a person to your right will have their voice be just slightly louder in the right ear than the left, but it doesn't even feel like it happens at the right angle. Hard to explain in words. It's so subtle that it basically just sounds like all audio is always in both ears no matter what direction it comes from.

Yep, all the voices are basically in mono.

I wonder if they've done this to make sure you hear dialogue.

I'm currently willing to say it's broken, but how this got through to retail blows my mind.

I hope Doom doesn't have the same issue.

For anyone playing this with Move controllers: do both controllers rumble for you?

I'm currently only getting rumble from my left hand controller. Wondering if I need to open it up and check it.

Grinchy · Nov 18, 2017

MultiCore said:
Yep, all the voices are basically in mono.

I wonder if they've done this to make sure you hear dialogue.

I'm currently willing to say it's broken, but how this got through to retail blows my mind.

I hope Doom doesn't have the same issue.

For anyone playing this with Move controllers: do both controllers rumble for you?

I'm currently only getting rumble from my left hand controller. Wondering if I need to open it up and check it.

I kinda feel like it's not an accident or a bug. I think the game has just always had terrible dialog audio and they didn't go back and change anything for this port. Fallout 4 suffers from the same horrible audio, I've found. I'm hopeful that Doom won't have this problem.

I haven't noticed the rumble thing but I will definitely think about it the next time I play.

gmoran · Nov 18, 2017

Bramble said:
I don't hear anything sounding better. In fact, my Tritton Katana gives way better audio then plugging in a headset. In or out of VR, if I turn around in a game, I hear voices etc. just around me depending on my position. Works just fine.

I think it's just marketing that fooled you.

Surround sound creates a complex sound field by reproducing sound from different directions (front, back, sides) through a number of channels, sometimes including sub-woofers.

3D audio, in relation to VR, recreates directional audio computationally, by calculating where all sound sources are in world space in relation to the listeners 2 ears (2 ears that move as the head moves because in VR that is known) and then correctly transforms that to a stereo signal.

3D audio in VR allows you to accurately determine where a noise emitting object is, rather than just generally: in front, left side, right side, behind.

So, no, 3D audio is not a marketing gimmick, and, no, its not the same as surround sound.

Bramble · Nov 23, 2017

gmoran said:
Surround sound creates a complex sound field by reproducing sound from different directions (front, back, sides) through a number of channels, sometimes including sub-woofers.

3D audio, in relation to VR, recreates directional audio computationally, by calculating where all sound sources are in world space in relation to the listeners 2 ears (2 ears that move as the head moves because in VR that is known) and then correctly transforms that to a stereo signal.

3D audio in VR allows you to accurately determine where a noise emitting object is, rather than just generally: in front, left side, right side, behind.

So, no, 3D audio is not a marketing gimmick, and, no, its not the same as surround sound.

Thanks for clarifying. I have to apologize, I really thought it was bullshit. Just did some research and what I didn't realize is that the audio needs to be patched in by the developer or the game should be designed with 3D audio in it in the first place. That explains why I didn't hear it. In "flat" games it's in Uncharted 4 and HZD (but you'll need the Platinum headset to take advantage of it), to name 2 and in VR it is present in at least VR Worlds. I can't find an actual list of games that have it, unfortunately.

Anyone knows if there is any word on Skyrim receiving a patch? If it does, I'm gonna wait with playing the game any further.

Aztorian · Nov 23, 2017

Bramble said:
Anyone knows if there is any word on Skyrim receiving a patch? If it does, I'm gonna wait with playing the game any further.

They were gonna implement smooth turning for move controllers iirc, no idea about the sound. Sounds like a lot of work to add if it wasn't build in 3D audio from the ground up.

Also: Bugs in Bethesda games? I though those were features.

Bramble · Nov 23, 2017

Aztorian said:
They were gonna implement smooth turning for move controllers iirc, no idea about the sound. Sounds like a lot of work to add if it wasn't build in 3D audio from the ground up.

Also: Bugs in Bethesda games? I though those were features.

I don't know. If the original Skyrim has a 5.1 or 7.1 audiostream (which I assume it has), then everything in the game should have it's own audio channel. Hopefully it's just flipping some switches which couldn't be done in time because of the upcoming releasedate. It doesn't even have proper surround sound. Somebody at Bethesda must have thought of the most immersive version of Skyrim being more immersive with proper audio, right?

Jack Videogames · Nov 23, 2017

Spukc said:
shit NO BUY.

oh wait i own a oculus rift

Give it time

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