VO sound problem (SOLVED; 5.1 vs.. 7.1 surround sound)

By tsreknor (Commander / Trident Captain) Date 2013-03-22 20:41

Can anyone help me solve an in game audio issue?

I recently received a Logitech G930 wireless headset as a gift. It works great in every context I've tried, *except* receiving VO audio on my main gaming computer, a Dell Alienware. On that computer, it receives system audio and Youtube audio, so I know it works. It receives VO audio on my MacBook Pro laptop and on my Lenovo ThinkPad laptop. I did a group voice chat test in VO on the Alienware, and found that I can be heard but cannot hear.

Before you ask: Yes, I've studied the audio control panel on the Alienware computer and do not see anything wrong. And yes, I've turned the thumbwheel volume control on the headset to make sure I have enough audio gain.

Here are the symptoms and specs on each computer I've tried. Any suggestions to solve the problem would be welcome:

Computer: Dell Alienware
System: Windows 7 Home Premium
Audio driver: Windows Sound (WAV) driver -- works, but unacceptably choppy; Vista sound driver -- does not work.

Computer: Lenovo Thinkpad
System: Windows 7 Home Premium
Audio driver: Windows Sound (WAV) driver -- works, but unacceptably choppy; Vista sound driver -- works.

Computer: MacBook Pro
System: Mac OSX 10.6.8
Audio driver: Mac sound driver -- works.

I'm stumped. thanks in advance, folks.
-- tsreknor

By Easy_Eddie Date 2013-03-25 21:30

Um... use the Mac?

By Ecka Estenk (Councilor / Trident Captain) Date 2013-03-25 22:36

Way back in memory I seem to think that windows had trouble with vo sound being stereo not 5.1 or the other way round. Might be worth having a dig back in forums, there was something that had to be set somewhere .

By tsreknor (Commander / Trident Captain) Date 2013-03-25 23:38

That's an interesting idea, Ecka. This headset does support surround sound, and I wonder if I need to find a way to turn that off.

Oh, I spent a lot of money getting this Alienware computer set up upstairs, and I'm committed to using it. Part of my motivation was to take movies. I still need to talk with Foo about best ways of doing that.

-- tsreknor

By tsreknor (Commander / Trident Captain) Date 2013-03-27 07:55

Hooray, it's fixed !! :)

Starting with Ecka's tip, I found several VO forum posts about sound problems related to surround sound vs. stereo, persuading me that I should check the number of channels my headset is trying to pull. Going into the Windows speaker configure control panel, I found that the headset is 7.1. I checked off two of the channels, downconverting it to 5.1, and everything is fine now.

-- tsreknor

By Easy_Eddie Date 2013-03-28 01:31

Glad you could fix it. It would have been totally beyond me. First, I doubt I could look through all that Forum stuff and find what I needed to find, and then I doubt I could have done a fix. But I'm glad you could.

By tsreknor (Commander / Trident Captain) Date 2013-03-28 02:32

The VO forum search engine is hopeless. I used Google and searched on "vendetta online forum 5.1". I found what I needed pretty easily.

-- tsreknor

By Easy_Eddie Date 2013-03-29 04:44

Smart of you! Cool beans!