Basic Info:
Platform: Steam
Issue Type: Audio Driver
Game Mode: irrelevant
Server Type: irrelevant
Map: Exiled Lands
Server Name: irrelevant
Mods: irrelevantBug Description:
The audio comes through only on the front left speaker positions. This is the only game in my library of 100+ games that doesn’t work right on the SteelSeries Sonar audio devices.
Bug Reproduction:
Use SteelSeries Sonar on JBL Quantum One headset. Swap between using the JBL and the SteelSeries as the audio device and see for yourself.
After a while away from the game I come back to all sound effects (grunts, combat sfx, building sfx, anything not ambient) coming from the left speaker. No surround or stereo panning. I went through and did all possible combinations in the configs of any components related to “audio” and nothing changed.
These are the default values:
[Audio]
MaxChannels=32
CommonAudioPoolSize=0
UnfocusedVolumeMultiplier=0.0
UseAudioThread=True
EnableAudioMixer=false
[AudioChannelAzimuthMap]
FrontLeft=330
FrontRight=30
FrontCenter=0
BackLeft=210
BackRight=150
FrontLeftOfCenter=15
FrontRightOfCenter=345
BackCenter=180
SideLeft=270
SideRight=90
; These are the default channel orderings to use when using pro-audio interfaces that don’t report channel order
[AudioDefaultChannelOrder]
FrontLeft=0
FrontRight=1
FrontCenter=2
LowFrequency=3
SideLeft=4
SideRight=5
BackLeft=6
BackRight=7
[/Script/Engine.AudioSettings]
DefaultSoundClassName=/Engine/EngineSounds/Master.Master
DefaultSoundSubmixName=/Engine/EngineSounds/MasterSubmix.MasterSubmix
LowPassFilterResonance=0.9
MaximumConcurrentStreams=2
DialogueFilenameFormat=“{DialogueGuid}_{ContextId}”
Using the “EnableAudioMixer=True” has offered the sound to come from BOTH speakers, but there is still no stereo or surround sound effect, there is a god awful echo, like I’m in a tunnel now for all sounds, including ambient now.
I even tried adjusting the Azimuth (with “AudioMixer” either on or off) to force the audio from “FrontLeft” to “FrontCenter” and that had no change. Adjusting the settings in speaker orientation in SteelSeries Sonar barely made a difference. I did every combination a month ago of setting tweaks in the config, the closes resolution was using “EnableAudioMixer=True” but the echo causes a serious headache.
I did find some extra audio config settings in the Dedicated Server config files that I added to the Game Client configs that seemed to offer more control over some things, but I’m not an audiophile to really understand what is going on there, so I defaulted them and moved on.
I am using SteelSeries GG Sonar for my streaming setup, and that seems to be the issue. I swap from the SteelSeries Sonar - Gaming device to the JBL Quantum One - Game device and the audio is fine. There seems to be a bug in the audio engine that freaks out when using the 8 Channel virtual audio device. I cannot emphasize enough, how it confuses me for over 100 games in my Steam Library don’t throw any tantrums over the audio, but then Conan Exiles can’t seem to figure it out. In order for me to stream this game, I need the SteelSeries Sonar devices to be used by the game correctly, and seeing how when my system is slammed by VRChat and abused far more than any other game could abuse my system, and it runs flawlessly with audio through the SteelSeries virtual devices, I can’t justify blaming SteelSeries for the audio issue, especially after seeing a colorful history in the Funcom Forums about the games abhorrent handling of audio drivers across the last 6 or 7 years. Some posts sharing instances directly relating the games audio engine to FPS stability, one even saying “If you want a smooth game you have to turn the volume to 0”
IDK what it’s like to code a game, but I do know that the Unreal Engine works flawlessly for audio in hundreds of other titles, and that the SteelSeries GG Sonar works just as flawlessly on other Unreal Engine titles. I may be a nooblet to the process of coding a game, or debugging, etc, but I’m certainly not illiterate with computer hardware and software.