State of OpenAL?

[skid]

Yes, switching your PC to stereo output and feeding that into an external DPL2 decoder will work.  I am not sure if DSP HLE will output DPL2 as Dolphin does not have a DPL2 encoder implemented yet, so unless the game uses pre-recorded audio with the DPL2 signal encoded in, that will not work.  DSP LLE does emulate the encoder built into the DSP ucode and will work with an external DPL2 decoder.

The DPL2 decoder option is there for PC's which output audio in 5.1 channel, so that the user does not need to switch between stereo and 5.1 between games and Dolphin.  It is also for users who do not own external DPL2 decoder hardware.

[themanuel]

(01-20-2015, 12:16 PM)skid Wrote: Yes, switching your PC to stereo output and feeding that into an external DPL2 decoder will work.  I am not sure if DSP HLE will output DPL2 as Dolphin does not have a DPL2 encoder implemented yet, so unless the game uses pre-recorded audio with the DPL2 signal encoded in, that will not work.  DSP LLE does emulate the encoder built into the DSP ucode and will work with an external DPL2 decoder.

The DPL2 decoder option is there for PC's which output audio in 5.1 channel, so that the user does not need to switch between stereo and 5.1 between games and Dolphin.  It is also for users who do not own external DPL2 decoder hardware.

You've totally laid it out for me, skid.
I completely get it now.

You are right, switching between the two configurations between games is a real pain in the patootie.  I've seen esoteric solutions involving automation scripts and registry mods but none of them so friendly for launching dolphin from steam BP Mode.

I'll keep a close eye on OpenAL and DPLII decoding.

Thanks!

[themanuel]

A bit  of thread necromancy here just to follow up on where this stands.
Have there been any changes in the HLE drivers, regarding DLPII output?

I did a few tests recently with the surround test in the options menu of Super Mario Sunshine and surround sound only works with:

1. xaudio2 & LLE DSP (interpreter)
2. openal & LLE DSP (interpreter)
3. openal & LLE DSP (interpreter) + DPLII decoding

Notes:
- The LLE DSP recompiler option prevents the game from starting
- The DPLII decoding function does not work with HLE (see here)
- In OpenAL, LLE DSP + DPLII decoding does work but the sounds are not correct (sound of the drum beats gets mixed with the sound bit of the waves crashing).

DSP LLE does take a noticeable toll on performance, so right now it is a trade-off.  The Ishiruka build has the same problems: the build allows DPLII decoding with the xaudio backend but it won’t really work with HLE either.

Dolphin is in a great state of compatibility and performance right now and does so many things the console never did, to the point that I think it is the most exciting exciting emulator out there.  I would say surround sound is one of the last neat original console features that are yet to be cracked.

[JMC47]

DSP-Recompiler shouldn't cause the game to hang? It's worked with Super Mario Sunshine forever for me...

[themanuel]

It may be something in my setup. I'll recheck with the latest build. However, I would not use LLE anyway due to the performance hit.

[DaRkL3AD3R]

So just to be clear: DSP-HLE should theoretically be able to decode DPLII and send it out to my soundcard as native 5.1 analog audio right? Because that is my preferred form of audio output, and it allows me to avoid playing around with annoying decode settings. Just pure analog, the best way to go.

[themanuel]

(07-02-2016, 11:43 AM)DaRkL3AD3R Wrote: So just to be clear: DSP-HLE should theoretically be able to decode DPLII and send it out to my soundcard as native 5.1 analog audio right? Because that is my preferred form of audio output, and it allows me to avoid playing around with annoying decode settings. Just pure analog, the best way to go.

In theory, dolphin's DPLII decoding feature should work with HLE but it really doesn't.  It doesn't even work with LLE.  If it did work, Dolphin would send a 5.1 digital surround signal to your sound card, not analog.  Your sound card would have to decode it to analog why you would prefer to connect an analog signal to your a/v receiver instead of digital is beyond me.  

The only way you can get surround sound from games right now is using LLE because the hardware is emulated more faithfully but this requires quite a bit of processing power and slows games down.

[mbc07]

You're missing the point. OpenAL backend have an implementation of DPL2 decoder, so, by using it with DSP LLE you should be able to send 5.1 audio to the sound card. All other scenarios will (or at least should) just output the raw 2.0 DPL encoded audio from the game, in those cases you would need to route that analog audio to an external receiver capable of decoding DPL2 to get 5.1 sound...

[themanuel]

(07-02-2016, 03:38 PM)Jhonn Wrote: You're missing the point. OpenAL backend have an implementation of DPL2 decoder, so, by using it with DSP LLE you should be able to send 5.1 audio to the sound card. All other scenarios will (or at least should) just output the raw 2.0 DPL encoded audio from the game, in those cases you would need to route that analog audio to an external receiver capable of decoding DPL2 to get 5.1 sound...

Have you actually tried it yourself and tested the output?
Load Super Mario Sunshine and go to the options screen before loading a save file.  There is a surround sound test there.  When surround sound is working properly, you can hear the drumbeats alternating between front and back speakers with left and right side beats.

There are only two ways to get surround sound from Dolphin and one of them is broken:
1. Any backend with LLE, and setting computer to output 2.0 sound: the DSP is emulated more faithfully and a DPLII encoded signal is sent for external decoding by an a/v receiver or similar hardware
2. OpenAL LLE with DPLII decoding in dolphin itself and setting computer to output 5.1 sound:  this does send 5.1 channels of audio signals but they are not properly mixed so it doesn't sound right.

No backend options with HLE will send neither 5.1 decoded audio nor 2.0 DPLII encoded audio.  Also, as mentioned before, using #1 above degrades performance too much.

The ideal scenario would be to have surround sound decoding working with HLE to avoid the performance penalty, and so that the computer doesn't have to be set to 2.0 channel output just when playing dolphin.

Maybe I'm the only one interested in this but the DPLII decoding feature is certainly not working.

[mbc07]

(07-03-2016, 12:04 AM)themanuel Wrote: Maybe I'm the only one interested in this but the DPLII decoding feature is certainly not working.

We know that. That's why you should use DSP LLE with 2.0 output instead of OpenAL + DPL2 Decoding if you want accurate surround sound.