Not sure what you really want from this ticket? I guess category:general fits, but still you should specify more than your current post.

After re-reading this a few times I think I understand what he's trying to say, it's just poorly worded - surround sound.

At the moment ArmA 3 doesn't support 5.1 surround sound, only stereo. This is also something that was missing from ArmA 2. For those with surround sound systems or 5.1 headsets (even virtual) the whole immersion and gameplay experience would be much greater. Communication with teammates using directional comms or ACRE would also be much more accurate and more immersive.

Not sure how easy this would be to achieve though.

True 3D sound is hard to do these days (thanks to microsoft effectively killing hardware acceleration for audio in vista and 7) and back in the day it required some CPU overhead, even with a dedicated sound card doing the processing.

5.1 and 7.1 headsets are also a scam, unless they have 6 or 8 drivers (respectively) then all they will do at best is a software simulation of surround sound, which may or may not work effectively.

I'd like to see binaural recording in ARMA 3 but that might just be a pipe dream.

Oh i agree bin-aural audio would be amazing! it is actually feasible and cost effective. It has an amazing immersive effect.

Yeah, some enhancement in the audio positioning would be appreciated. Xonar DGX / Steelseries Siberia v2 / Win 7 here, and sometimes it's really hard to locate the source of the sound, sometimes e.g. gunshots are played from totally wrong direction (happened at least in A2 sometimes), resulting in great loss in situational awareness and frustrating moments when you find out that you have run 800 m to wrong direction to catch a sniper...

If any of you guys have used JSRS in A2, it works wonders, it really is a great sound pack. Very high quality.

"5.1 and 7.1 headsets are also a scam, unless they have 6 or 8 drivers (respectively) then all they will do at best is a software simulation of surround sound, which may or may not work effectively."

in my expierience its the other way around. 8 drivers in headsets are useless. anyone who knows depth perception with 1 eye isnt possible will understand that 4 drivers for one ear are utter nonsense.
some virtual surround systems though really work.
srs audio labs and cmss3d are good solutions imo.

on topic:
i sure hope they will add multichannel audio.
and, as you said (or i think meant to say) native virtual surround headset sound.
voted up.

i was playing with creatives trustudio surround lately and its a mess. at least for arma 3. and on my 5.1 system i seem to get only stereo sound.

@ daddaflex, any 5.1 or 7.1 headset, whether it uses software effects with 2 drivers (stereo) or has the right amount of drivers is a scam. None of them are any good when you have a dedicated sound card, some of them use USB. They are underdeveloped and focused on marketing, not function. If you have a real 5.1 speaker system, it works, which is a valid reason as to why A3 needs 5.1 support.

Just trying to spread some knowledge and stop people from buying expensive crappy headsets.

CMSS-3D works well, but it's buggy and prone to crash games.

As said by someone else, JSRS for A2/CO works wonders even with just stereo speakers/headphones and a good soundcard.

I stand by what I said before though; binaural recording for stereo would absolutely stellar!

i must admit, i never tried CMSS-3D ingame myself and just judge it from demonstrations in videos....

but i tried the cheap Xear solution, which is acceptable. i used srs labs software for a long time and its the best solution i know of.
now im trying trustudio pro (successor of CMSS-3D), which seems to be terrible, but im not sure yet....

all of these should be unneccessary of course since its possible to simulate better directional sounds for stereo headphones then to simulate the 5.1/7.1 system afterwards.

a "good soundcard" is also a scam today, since sound processing doesnt need or benefit from a dedicated device. its all done by software today afaik. of course some software is only accessible to the owner of the chip, but thats a different story....
all you really need is a good pair of headphones/ a good headset.

as u said "microsoft effectively killing hardware acceleration for audio in vista and 7"...
but imo its not neccassary to have "sound hardware" in that sense, in the age of multicore processors. processing power is not a problem for sound anymore.

what do you mean by binaural recordings? how does this work for the game? do they have to record every sound from every direction and distance? lol

A good soundcard is not a scam. Even if everything is done in software, some DA conversion must take place (digital to analogue, as far as I know, my ears cannot listen to 0's and 1's), and quality of the conversion and analogue output is absolutely paramount to perceived quality.

For one, if you have a low signal to noise ratio, turning up the volume will result in audible distortion. If a source of noise is present, you may hear a low audible hum (just like you can get the 50hz mains electricity hum through speakers)

For binaural recording, see the virtual barbershop on youtube (best listened to with headphones): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IUDTlvagjJA

i had my share of soundcards... mostly from creative. i still have one i could use. i dont hear a difference to my realtec onboard....

i know what binaural recording means. thx for the nice "vid" ;)

but how to use it for GAMES, where your position in the world is not fixed/predefined.

EDITED FOR CLARIFICATION

The use of binaural recording in game would enhance the effect of positioning that is already present in ARMA2/ARMA3 (see JSRS soundmnod, or ACEX_SM) - but using two microphones instead of one will increase the positional accuracy of sounds. This is still dependant on the sound engine of the game, and how it works is unknown to me (I am not a coder or programmer, but I know a thing or two about audio)

The best working example of this already-present positioning is to have a constant sound playing close (for example sustained MG fire), then free look with ALT and move the mouse slowly to rotate the camera. As your head moves with the camera, your "ears" will also move and the position of the sound will change.

As for your soundcards that you still have, what model is it, what headphones/speakers are you using, and what's the quality of your source material? (CD's? MP3's? Lossless?) It all matters!

its some creative soundblaster gold... it sounds great. i listen to high quality .flac/.wav for testing of course. and i have good sennheiser headphones... as i said, dedicated soundcards are a thing of the past imo.

some people say, they hear better sound quality if they set the driver to 24bit/192k compared to 16bit/48k. i dont. so i leave it there.

"In game, sounds would be played based on the relation to your in-game "ears""

right. thats how it should be.
still not convinced, it has anything to do with "binaural recording".

"The best working example of this already-present positioning is to have a constant sound playing close (for example sustained MG fire), then free look with ALT and move the mouse slowly to rotate the camera. As your head moves with the camera, your "ears" will also move and the position of the sound will change."

yes, sometimes it seems to work well already. and i cant really say what exactly is wrong with most of the sound, but i think we all hear, its not good so far.
sometimes i'm sure i hear a heli/quad directly in front of me, run towards it, look around like an idiot and just cant find it. and, no, that doesnt happen to me in other games. ;)

Since playing a lot more PvP in A3 recently I have noticed how many of the cues I rely on for SA are faulty /misleading.

Mag changes used to be detectable hundreds of metres away. They are better now, though not perfect and the new fire select sound has added a new problem. Choppers hundreds of metres overhead would be louder then the same chopper 20m away to your right. Buildings don't channel or occlude sound properly, and of course direction finding is very vague.

I also find that the crack of a bullet going by is much louder then the report of a weapon, heard just fractionally later, even when the shooter is firing unsuppressed from a relatively short range.

This could all do with improvement, if you ask me.