Are there any UB or Intel games with Dolby Digital Surround?

[Irishman]

For the Mac, of course. I have Deus Ex, but that's OS 9 and only works with a patch specific to Creative's SB Live! card, which I have, and a set of Klipsch Promedia 5.1's.

Anyone know of newer titles that feature legitimate Dolby Digital Surround? I thought Doom 3 did, but I haven't found any reference to it in the reviews.

 

[applekid]

I think Doom 3 added Dolby Digital Sound (or possibly at least 5.1 audio) in a patch.

In general, Mac games skimp on the DDS and 5.1 audio from what I understand. There was a long thread in the Inside Mac Games forums about this a while back. Maybe you can find it?

I think World of WarCraft has 5.1 support, but I'm not certain.

 

[Irishman]

I think Doom 3 added Dolby Digital Sound (or possibly at least 5.1 audio) in a patch.

In general, Mac games skimp on the DDS and 5.1 audio from what I understand. There was a long thread in the Inside Mac Games forums about this a while back. Maybe you can find it?

I think World of WarCraft has 5.1 support, but I'm not certain.

Well, as far as that goes, 5.1 can either be Dolby Digital or Digital Theater Surround (aka DTS), or some faked simulated surround sound.

I hope it's the real thing. I'll do some digging.

Well, it didn't take long to find the patch, on filefront, where it specifically mentions 5.1 OpenAL support for OSX and external sound cards (like the FireWave I imagine?). The patch is compatible with OSX versions up to 10.4.

Plus, a link to specs on the Firewave mentions WoW and UT2k4 for Mac as having 5.1 dolby digital surround.

Hot. A great start.

Just found two more additions - UB versions of Jedi Academy and Jedi Outcast take advantage of it.

Also, apparently Quicktime supports it via Coreaudio, so if you play some movie trailers on quicktime.com that are DD encoded Like the HD Harry Potter trailer, it plays back in full DD surround!

(Via the Firewave or similar device)

From unanalog.com I found that Call of Duty 2 features OpenAL sound, Apple's page lists X2: The Threat as an OpenAL title, but doesn't specify DD. I imagine X3 might use it too. From garagegames.com I found that Dark Horizons: Lore Invasion supports OpenAL 3D audio.

From the openal.org page:

Albert's Armageddon (where it lists multiple formats it's not a given that the Mac one will use it as the Linux or windows version does)
Alien Flux
America's Army: Operations
A Tale in the Desert II
Battle Just Started
Bridge Construction Set
Escape From Monkey Island
Eternal Lands
Flight Gear
Gish
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets
Legends
Marble Blast
Massive Assault
Megacorps Online
Minions of Mirth
Orbz
Planeshift
Postal 2
Scorched 3D
Stubbs the Zombie
Supertux
Think Tanks
TORCS
Tribal Trouble
Trigger
Ultratron
VDrift
Vega Strike
Wurm Online
X-Plane
Zap!

Now, clearly the presence of OpenAl can't mean these all play back in dolby 5 channel surround sound on a Firewave connected to a 5.1 speaker system does it? Probably not?

Anyone in a position to verfiy any of these?

 

[applekid]

Most Mac gamers used the M-Audio's Revolution 5.1 and 7.1 PCI audio cards. I am unaware of any PCI-X or PCIe sound cards, and the only real option I've are using the digital audio out on most current Macs or the FireWave as you mentioned.

You definitely did quite a bit of research. Keep us posted

 

[Irishman]

Most Mac gamers used the M-Audio's Revolution 5.1 and 7.1 PCI audio cards. I am unaware of any PCI-X or PCIe sound cards, and the only real option I've are using the digital audio out on most current Macs or the FireWave as you mentioned.

You definitely did quite a bit of research. Keep us posted

Applekid, do you have a 5.1 setup on your Mac? If so, how's the experience with movies and games?

Plus, I did a lot of reading on openal.org, and it seems the whole raison d-etre for it IS 3D audio, so I imagine that all the games on that above list actually SHOULD feature 5.1 surround.

 

[Irishman]

Ohh, I am reading the OpenAL forum archive, and someone using the name "bills at apple.com" posted the following:

"We are planning on supporting up to 8 channel configurations (inc.
7.0 (we don't output separate info for the LFE channel) as well as
octagonal speaker systems) for Leopard.

If you would like to test this (which would be great!), you can enrol
in the Leopard seeing program (I'm not sure of the exact process, but
http://developer.apple.com should have details). That will get you
early access and the ability to test this before we ship (though it
is late in the game for Leopard at this stage).

Thanks

Bill"


I don't know how legit this is, but it would mean that Leopard would be including 7 channel surround (DD perhaps?) and that if compatible hardware exists to play it back and output it, you would be in business.

Hot tidbit, I think.

 

[applekid]

I wish I had a 5.1 setup.

I'm just stating things I remember from the long thread in IMG. Thread here: http://www.insidemacgames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=18798

While I was searching for that old thread, I also found this more current one about someone trying to make a budget surround sound system: http://www.insidemacgames.com/forum/index.php?showtopic=29996

It seems like a receiver setup is the best way for the Mac to take advantage of Dolby Digital.