this post was submitted on 17 Dec 2023
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You have heard the story "I have moved to Linux (arch btw).", well.. this is also my story. Anyways I have problems with my headset's virtual surround. I realized that almost all of the drivers are just simply not working on Linux, but also that there are a bunch of alternatives. I have a HyperX cloud 2 (it was cheap), it's 5.1 by default and 7.1 if toggled. Since I switched to Linux it has been stereo only. And I also feel like the sound quality is worse.

I heard somewhere that any headset can be virtual surround if configured correctly. And they sell "gaming junk" because people don't know of this. I'm writing this so that hopefully some of you can teach me how to make any headset surround. I feel like I also must learn how to do this if I'm planning on gaming on Linux.

PS: I tough about buying an actual good headphone, but if it's not capable of surround than that's kind of a deal-breaker. I don't play that much, but I remember playing shooters on stereo and they were unplayable, I wouldn't like to lock myself out of those kinds of games.

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[–] [email protected] 4 points 11 months ago (1 children)

I asked a similar question and I was lead to this post.

I got side tracked and eventually lost motivation to get it working. I might give it another try in the new year. Hopefully this is what you are looking for. I assume your distribution is using PipeWire, otherwise you may have to look into HRIR for PulseAudio.

[–] UnRelatedBurner 1 points 11 months ago (1 children)

Alright, thanks for the lead, will try what it's saying but atm I have no idea what HRIR Convolver or SOFA Spatializer is

[–] [email protected] 3 points 11 months ago (1 children)

The post explains them quite well. HRIR (Head-Related Impulse Response) and SOFA (Spacially Oriented Format for Acoustics) are standards for representing spacial audio (surround sound) in audio files and streams. A convolver is something that performs convolution (a mathematical term for taking one function, applying it to another, and then producing a third function as a result), and a spatializer is more specifically something that, as the name suggests, gives "space" to audio (distorting audio to represent sounds coming from more than simply 2 directions, or again, what you call surround sound). So HRIR Convolver is simply a method to apply the HRIR function to audio to represent it in a way our brain would interpret as 3D audio, and SOFA Spatializer is simply a method to do the same thing, just with the SOFA standard instead of the HRIR standard. Based on the comments of the post, it seems that they recommend you use SOFA.

In either case, Pipewire supports both standards, and it is trivially easy to implement them through filters (as the post covers in depth). You could try both if you want and see which you prefer. If you're unfamiliar with managing Pipewire and need further resources, the Arch wiki has an entry in great length about it here. I'd recommend reading the comments to that post first if you struggle with anything, such as persistence. Everything you need to set it up should be accessible in that post and its comments.

I'd also like to recommend that you read the post and comments to the post, or simply use a search engine if you come across unfamiliar terms. You can find answers to all the questions you've asked through the linked post and a simple search.

[–] UnRelatedBurner 1 points 11 months ago

I managed to get it working, I just can't control where the sound actually is coming from. I have to set my default sink to the new surround, so it just picks one random device that's connected it'd seem. How can I tell it where to play my audio back?