What is the modern way to get emulated 3D on headphones in a video game?

[monsieurpooh]

For the past decade or so I've been playing video games with an X-Fi Creative Sound card which has the ability to convert a 3D surround sound signal into a very believable emulation for 2 ears. Basically I specify on my computer I'm running 5.1 or 7.1 surround (so Windows thinks I'm running surround), but specify in the sound card console that it should convert a surround signal into headphones. It's called CMSS-3D Headphone and it sounds like those binaural recording demonstrations on Youtube (not as good as those, but still good).

I have been looking into building a new gaming PC and read everywhere that sound cards are no longer needed; they are yesterday's technology. But then how do I get 3D sound to my headphones? Do people just not do this anymore?

Even more perplexing is I came across a 5-year-old reddit thread that asks, "Why isn't binaural audio used in gaming?" But that is exactly how I have been playing my video games for the last 10 years! Is this some sort of lost forgotten technology, like the myths of Atlantis or something? https://www.reddit.com/r/truegaming/comments/126fjp/why_isnt_binaural_audio_used_in_gaming/

 

[guanyu210379]

I think you got the wrong impression,
Vast majority of the available surround headphones are actually only simulated surround effects using one speaker for each ears.
Only very few headphones are the true surround headphones a.k.a. using multi speakers for each ears.

For those emulation, many headphones came with a soundcard e.g. many of those USB conencted headphones. The emulation is done via software inside their soundcard.
Emulation can also be done in your dedicated internal soundcard, on-board soundcard, etc.
You can also just use third party simulation. Look in internet, there should be many e.g the one from Razer.

 

[monsieurpooh]

I think you got the wrong impression,
Vast majority of the available surround headphones are actually only simulated surround effects using one speaker for each ears.
Only very few headphones are the true surround headphones a.k.a. using multi speakers for each ears.

For those emulation, many headphones came with a soundcard e.g. many of those USB conencted headphones. The emulation is done via software inside their soundcard.
Emulation can also be done in your dedicated internal soundcard, on-board soundcard, etc.
You can also just use third party simulation. Look in internet, there should be many e.g the one from Razer.

I did not have the wrong idea. I don't want the multiple-speaker "true" surround sound headphones; I'm not interested in them. I was in fact referring to the "emulated/simulated" surround: Taking a 5.1 or 7.1 signal, and processing it to become a 2-channel suitable for headphones which gives the believable illusion of listening to surround sound. When the algorithm is good this works extremely well, much better than those "true" multi-speaker surround headsets!

You seem to have mentioned many different ways this is done; internal soundcard, on-board soundcard, and a soundcard that comes with the headphones you purchase? Which of these is the best-sounding these days? Does the on-board emulation work as well as dedicated emulation? Which brands/algorithms are the best? Is "Dolby Headphone" the new CMSS-3D or are there better ones?

 

[monsieurpooh]

I have done some more research and the Razer you mentioned is relevant, but according to many sources it is very poorly done and not nearly good enough for high-quality 3D audio in gaming.

Dolby headphone is a contender but still slightly worse than CMSS-3D.

I also found this comparison from years ago

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BxO9cd-sYA

As you can see for yourself the CMSS-3D is superior to other implementations, and almost all comments are in agreement (ironically, if you go on internet forums, there will be lots of disagreement over which one is better. Hence this is an indication that they simply didn't know how to set it up properly, because when it's set up properly everyone agrees CMSS-3D is the best).

So it is starting to seem like I just have to keep using my extremely old x-fi card with extremely poor customer support and drivers. This is a dying ancient technology like Greek fire.

 

[guanyu210379]

Well, I do not know which one delivers the best sounding and surround sound effects.
I have never used any of them intensively.
I always pick up headphones and soundcard/DAC mainly aiming for music.

Aside of the sound simulation, your stereo headphone must be able to to do such stufss too. Some headphone with bad or no soundstage reproduction are either bad or completely incapable of doing proper surround effects. I tried this one at least using my own systems for a couple of times.