Improve in game sounds - how to

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@RaisinFlakes wrote:
@OldTreeCreeperThe company you work for couldn't understand Audio For Dummies.

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Please do read the signature attached to all my posts. 

So, I've been playing for a few hours with the SteelSonar enabled, and I must say, its wonderful.

I use a Razer Nari headset, and quite honestly, I should get a new headset soon. In other games, I could hear things just fine, but within Apex, I couldn't hear things like footsteps without SteelSonar installed. Back in season 4, I could hear all these things just fine with the headset that I have now.

Now, with SteelSonar installed, I can hear people run up from behind, I can hear more of the gun fire, and I can hear legends like Vantage and Octane use their tactical instead of rarely hearing them. It feels really good being able to close my eyes, and know exactly where people are based off of the audio. In fact, its much easier to identify if a player is above or below you now as well.

Sometimes I get what sounds like dead audio, or no audio at all from players running, or shooting. However I'm not missing any of the action, as the audio ques are coming from players I can directly see. Which in this case, I don't need to hear what they're doing at that given moment. Just wanted to mention that as well.

I'm also not sure if they stack or anything, but I also use Razer Synapse, as I can't really disable it without disabling my keyboard and mouse. I mention this, as in the THX audio tab, it now shows Apex as a supported game, and SteelSonar has a setting to enable this kind of audio as well, so I'm guessing it hooked right into Razer Synapse.

At my friend's suggestion, I recently started playing with a couple new-to-me settings on PS5.  I changed my audio format to DTS and my 3D audio profile to type 5.  I do feel like I'm hearing in game audio (footsteps, mostly) better than before I made these changes.  Could be placebo, who knows?

@Midnight9746 thank you, that's great information. 

@pandareno1999 just found those settings on the xbox. Under general audio setup there's

Stereo uncompressed (which I what I was on) 

Dolby digital

DTS digital surround

The 2 latter sound really good. So I'll follow your friend's advice and try DTS tonight. Thank you. 

I only have a sound bar (2 speakers) and base box, looks like 4 speakers are actually needed for the full 3D effect

@pandareno1999 gave it a spin on the speakers and I would say there is a big improvement in enemy footsteps in arenas, so far, further testing required. Its like the sound field has opened up and focused the dialog to the front or the direction it's coming from. . 

The sound is strange and very sharp at the moment so I'll have to fiddle around with the limited settings I have  available to me.

But immediately I had to turn the base way down to begin with, to bring it back to where it was. Perhaps this is similar to what happens on SSS, as yt mentioned. This probably allows other sounds through, along with the focused placement of the dialog. 

It would probably be much better, directionally speaking, if I had a 4 speaker setup.

Didn't notice any lag while playing fortnite earlier.

All in all a much better playing experience. I can't wait to refine it. 

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@Midnight9746 wrote:

@OldTreeCreeperI didn't even turn down the bass setting, and it worked perfectly for me. Might be because my headphones are modified by Razer Synapse as well. Who knows.
 

@Joemanji This is how I set mine up, and its working perfectly for me.

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Thank you @Midnight9746 

@hayhor My current headset (Astro A40) could use a DAC, but there's no way I'm paying another $150 *on top of $150* for a gaming headset.  Funny you mention the mic - when I got this headset my buddy immediately mentioned that the mic sounded worse than my previous, much cheaper HyperX headset.

After playing for a few days on these settings, I feel very strongly that my directional audio has improved considerably.

I don't know if this will help, as I am not familier with ps5 of 4 but: 

There's a suggestion of being able to adjust your eq on the ps5 here

https://www.playstation.com/en-ie/support/hardware/ps5-change-audio-output/#eq

They suggest 

• Shooter
  Sound that emphasises shooting and footsteps during gameplay.

Also there's a bass boat, but yt found turning bass down on pc helped allow other sounds through. 

I would look at the apex eq settings on the sonic software, as a starting point to help fine tune the ps5 eq.    

Another alternative is to process the ps5 sound through a laptop, but I still haven't got that far on the xbox yet.

DTS, that helped me on my xbox, is also an option on the ps5, but I cannot find out where or how yet.

Maby someone more versed with the ps5 can give me the benifit of their experience. 

@hayhor thank you for your reply. Do you know anything about the DTS setting on the PS4/5?