Vista and surround sound?

[Drift]

I just bought a new PC, Vista 64bit, and I know they removed support for DirectSound in Vista, so any older games that use DirectSound now only play in streo sometimes mono.

Maybe it was like this before, but now I'm aware of it, I noticed only my front two stereo speakers are working, does Aquaria use DirectSound for it's... well, sound? If so, is it possible to add support for openAL, which works in Vista? It shouldn't be too hard if the sound API is independent... *crosses fingers* It's just that the audio in this game is so brilliant, I need it to work right! lol

[Alec]

We use FMod... which I think can use DirectSound or other implementations if necessary. I think the only way to be sure is to try it out...

Did you try running the demo at all?

[Drift]

actually I have the full version

What I meant to say was that I'm not sure if Aquaria ever used surround sound, as I didn't really take note of it with my old PC (which was running XP), but now that I have Vista, I did notice that the only speakers doing anything in Aquaria are the left and right front speakers, which is what happens in Vista if a game is using DirectSound. hehe guess this goes to show, you only really notice something when it's gone

In Vista anything that uses DirectSound ends up running completely in software so you loose alot of quality and only stereo will work. I just looked into OpenAL and fmod, and I think adding OpenAL support is actually going to require a complete re-write of the sound system unless you did make it API independent... even then it's going to be dodgy as apparently OpenAL is high level while DirectSound is low level. I've only briefly used FMod before so I have no idea myself lol <_<

Anyway, really hope you can fix this! It would be effecting everyone with Vista except those with a sound card that supports Creative Alchemy.

EDIT: Further on that, it now works... I have no idea why, just booted the game again, and now got full high quality surround sound. I don't know what fixed it, but I assume there's other people out there who did have the same problem I did? If so, say something, cause if not, well, no reason to add openAL support lol.