Audio Playback / Renderer

[Moneigh]

Just a suggestion (something that I came across, that other people might perhaps like as well):


Would it be possible to have an "Audio Playback" option where we can select which device is used for playback of audio during game?
This would have Dolphin play using the selected speakers / headphones instead of using the "default playback device" as designated by you in the Sound options of Windows.

An example would be in Windows Media Player in the Speaker properties where you have a drop down list that lets you select the audio device to be used during sound playback.
(Tools -> Options -> Devices -> Speakers, Properties -> Sound Playback -> "Select the Audio Device" dropdown box)
Another example being Windows Media Player Classic.
(View -> Options -> Playback, Output -> "Audio Renderer" dropdown box)

I came across this when I was trying to make my setup a little bit more elaborate: I wanted my music to be played over the surround (selected via WMPC's "Audio Renderer" option above), random PC games (separate monitor) to be played (thereby using the default playback device) with audio over the headphones, and Dolphin to be running fullscreen on the main monitor using a separate set of speakers for that room only.
So: 1: Game room with two screens (PC games on headphones, Dolphin Emulator on speakers)
2: Music on the house surround speakers (which isn't the problem. I'm just clarifying because I've seen similar variants of this question referring to music only, and the first thing people ask is "why?")

[ExtremeDude2]

Do want

[mbc07]

I'm not totally sure but we already have a issue report about that... Still unimplemented, though

[degasus]

Sounds like a nice feature, but tbh, I think this should be implemented by the audio mixer itself. There is no need to implement this in every application which can play back audio, it's much nicer to have this feature in Windows itself.

[Moneigh]

While I do agree it should be implemented in the audio mixer so that one could simply assign any application wherever they want (drag and drop in the mixer ftw ), I don't think that's going to happen ever tbh (one reason being that the main application people think of this for is media players [music/movies] - and many prominent media players have this option already haha).

And in regards to this, posts from years ago (quickest example [google search] shows a reply in 2011 on superuser.com where a user wanted to effectively do this with miscellaneous games) show that this is a longstanding issue that hasn't really gone anywhere over the last several Windows OS.

On a side note, I would totally donate $20 to the cause of getting this option in Dolphin

EDIT:
@Jhonn https://forums.dolphin-emu.org/Thread-audio-playback-renderer?pid=326141#pid326141
I see I didn't search hard enough. Found what you were referring to I think:
http://code.google.com/p/dolphin-emu/issues/detail?id=5976 (post number 3 on this page by "Montisaq...@gmail.com") dated Feb. 4th, 2013.

[mbc07]

Yes, it's issue 5976. You can star this issue, that way whenever someone post something to it you get notified