Enslaved PS3 title update adding 5.1 surround sound for optical output

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze
I doubt many people sporting a 5.1 system will NOT be using an HDMI cable with it, allowing it to slip by.

@SolidRevolver Yeah right, you must be in the dark. i would guess more than half the people who own a 5.1 system are running it through optical, with their PS3s running to their TV.

I had a top of the line receiver (Pioneer Elite) that cost about $1000 back in 2004/5, and there were no HDMI inputs in it. It wasn't until 2008 when I bought a Denon with HDMI 1.3 inputs. In 2008 that was about $600, and it only has 2 HDMI inputs.

@SolidRevolver

Mine only goes to optical Cable. I'm sure i'm not the only one

though I probably will be picking up an HDMI sound system in a few weeks. But by then i'll have this game beaten and moved on,... not looking forward to playing it in stereo YUCK!

@mywhitenoise Bingo. Receivers that support multichannel LPCM are pricey and not the average gamers' digital audio rig. Even high-enders are not going to cut lose a great relatively new receiver when Dolby D and DTS are standard. Plus lots of the original HDMI receivers were pass-through only. No matter how many HDMI ports they had they were nothing more in the HDMI department than convenient switches. And a good Dolby D or DTS production will be indistinguishable from LPCM for most people on most systems. I have laser discs with great ProLogic 5.1 productions that sound better than some of today's mediocre Dolby D productions. It's not all tech. a lot of art in audio production.

@mywhitenoise Exactly. I'm running optical right now. My receiver has HDMI but I don't think it's the supreme lossless kind (?). I don't know much about it but I'm pretty sure there's a difference because a receiver with the better audio with HDMI was hundreds more (this was a couple years ago). So yeah, optical is definitely being used.

@Monty Airline Pass-through! That's what I was trying to think of. Good post.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze

QA teams are highly under funded, less than minimum resources (your grandmas old PC from the 90s would be an upgrade), and spread extremely thin between projects. Not only that but most of them are contract workers who only make minimum wage.

@Ezio Auditore da Firenze Receivers with HDMI LPCM audio are not at all expensive. You can get one for under $200.

The reason many gamers don't have them isn't because they are expensive now, but because they were expensive until recently.

If you already have a working system with optical audio few would see the advantage of buying a new amp just to get HDMI audio. Only rarely will you notice the difference, and with many sources (360, or satellite/cable) there won't any difference at all other than simplified cabling.

Monty Airline:
Pro-Logic is not 5.1, it's 4.0. And I'd dispute that Pro-logic can match 5.1. Pro-logic was matrixed and contained very little audio steering info. You couldn't really have different sounds in different channels at once, you could more just move two channels of audio around the room.

LaserDisc did support 5.1 (some of them) and DTS (very few of them), so perhaps that's what you're referring to as matching recent soundtracks?

@spin cycle Sorry, I was thinking of PLII, probably because that's what I was using to play Enslaved. My receiver when I used the LD on a regular basis was plain old PL, so four channels. But oh what a good engineer could do with those four channels. It's all perceptive. I'm sure a great deal of it was PL was the first thing that made any kind of home theater experience generally affordable, and wow it knocked your socks off. Still there are some right garbage Dolby D productions on DVD out there.

@ZigmaTheEliminator Epic did some research around the time of Gears 2's release and discovered that only something like 15% had played Gears 1 on an HDTV and had no specific plans to upgrade their gaming TV to HD during Gears 2's prime popularity window. And those were M-rated games -- at least ostensibly a mostly adult audience, people with the at least the latitude if not the budget to buy their own higher end entertainment gear. So of course Epic's developers realized they were doing a lot of stuff in making those games that some of their most avid fans would probably never see.

@spin cycle
It's first game with Unreal Engine for Ninja Theory.
Even if it is not as good as X360 version (typical for multiplatform games) it's fairly decent PS3 port. Problems with sound notwithstanding.

http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-enslaved-faceoff

@Tparsons5150 Haha you could try pro logic if your system supports it

@DustbinK

That's what it Default's to with no 5.1 present but still not the same,. far from it.

@DustbinK Likewise

@Raffi256

Nah. There's a reason the PS3s have excellent flexibility and super high quality outputs. 1080p, lossless audio, etc. You can't get that with one size fits all yet.

I already bought it, but I can see where you're going. I'm gonna put this game away until it gets itself right, and in the meantime I have an excuse to buy Civilization V (finally).

@InkSix
Surround sound really makes a difference in games. Just adds another level of immersion. But when you get a game that has crappy surround, you can tell.

Haven't played Enslaved yet, though it sure looks like fun. I use HDMI audio anyways, so I wouldn't have noticed anything wrong...

@InkSix Nah, you're in good company. Like I mentioned above, uncompressed LPCM does not by any means guarantee a good digital multichannel production. Talented audio producers given time can produce better results as perceived by human ears with compressed Dolby D or DTS. If uncompressed digital audio were that important, that massive a difference in sound quality, Apple would still be a niche computer company with a tiny little share of the PC market. Uncompressed digital audio is still in the realm of the hobbyist and will probably remain so.

Also, HDMI is not the gold standard for multichannel LPCM. It's just the most common for consumer-grade receivers these days. Actually Blu-ray decks with individual ANALOG multichannel outputs are the gold standard for lossless audio. (Optical digital doesn't have the bandwidth to carry multichannel LPCM audio programs. Works fine with common compression schemes, though.)

Important clarification: Talented audio producers given time can produce better results as perceived by human ears with compressed Dolby D or DTS, COMPARED WITH LESS CAPABLE PRODUCERS AND TECHNICIANS IN A RUSH. Important distinction: in theory if not practice, lossless productions have the highest quality potential.

@Monty Airline No, Blu-ray with individual analog outputs are not the gold standard for lossless audio. There's no information that can be carried on those analog wires that can't be carried on HDMI (or 1394 for that matter).

The data is on the disc already digital, so there's no advantage to converting it to analog in the player, it's best to keep it digital until it gets into your receiver/pre-amp.

@spin cycle I'll concede it's a splitting-hairs argument. "Gold standard" is an overstatement on my part. It's not like human ears would hear the difference. But there are at least slight technical advantages to letting the (high quality) BD player pump the channels ready to go. Like not having to worry about upgrading/changing HDMI receivers and wondering what the new one will do to the audio that will affect the sound field in your listening environment.

For top-end quality AND convenience, HDMI, hands down. I'm not so worried about it I even bother to own lossless multichannel gear. In my old townhouse the listening space just doesn't warrant it. I'd have to remodel for proper lossless home theater.

Oh, I should definitely say, it's a really great game, ignoring the technical issues. Not too short on normal difficulty but I finished it in two sessions over two consecutive days, which is unusual for me.

I'd say anyone paid full price for it but doesn't have LPCM multichannel audio on tap may as well go ahead and play it. I just used the two-channel DSP on my receiver to give the audio some oomph. I'm sure I'll be able to tell the difference with Dolby D production working properly, but I don't think w/ a good receiver and nice DSP simulation most people will particularly notice, like most people don't notice watching movies at home. In fact, one of my best friends of long-standing, total movie freak like I am, connoisseur of both the technical and creative aspects of cinema, she'd slap me for even having this conversation. ;-)