I'm not sure what that would really entail. What kind of sound does TF2 need to provide for Windows 10 to be able to use virtualized surround sound?

Nope

You don't need to provide anything. You just right click your sound icon in your tray, click spatial sound, then select WIndows Sonic. Then when you're in-game, you select 5.1 setup as your sound device. It's essentially emulated surround sound, but seems a lot better than traditional emulation. More details here about it.

I just saw in the sound section you have some customized values for DSP and it was most likely configured and setup on stereo. I think when you switch to 5.1/7.1, the game makes some changes to the DSP values to account for a surround sound system, opposed to stereo. There are also some commands like snd_legacy_surround.

6.5.0-b8 https://github.com/mastercoms/mastercomfig/releases/tag/6.5.0-b8

I don't think any values need to be changed for surround sound.

is preloading enabled or disabled?

That term could mean a lot of things. Could you specify what you mean?

=

https://i.imgur.com/GgA1XL5.png

just delete the class specific CFG's that come in the vpk file and use the ones u had before
heck

I myself have changed some values for this purpose, though I'm on Windows 7 using Out of Your Head for 7.1 surround virtualization. Here's what I use, but testing this stuff is a pain and I'm not sure about all of these...the general idea is to get rid of all spatialization effects that are intended for stereo output. Would be very interested in some thoughts:

snd_surround_speakers 7 // or 5 for Windows 10, it seems
dsp_enhance_stereo 0
dsp_slow_cpu 1
snd_spatialize_roundrobin 0
dsp_speaker 0
dsp_water 0
dsp_spatial 0
dsp_facingaway 0
dsp_room 0 

On a different note, one thing I've noticed about the network settings is that "rate" and "net_splitpacket_maxrate" are set to match. All of the competitive servers I've played on recently have had "rate" capped to >100000, but "net_splitpacket_maxrate" uncapped, so the values end up mismatching (1048576 splitpacket/100000 rate, for instance). Not sure how important it is those values match, but you might want to consider innovating a safeguard of some sort or reducing the values below 100000 in the comp preset.

It would be cool if you integrated ytrium's viewmodels mod (which involves preloading and is probably what he's talking about).

Keep up the great work, mastercoms

snd_surround_speakers 7 // or 5 for Windows 10, it seems
dsp_enhance_stereo 0
dsp_slow_cpu 1
snd_spatialize_roundrobin 0
dsp_speaker 0
dsp_water 0
dsp_spatial 0
dsp_facingaway 0
dsp_room 0 

I'm not at home at the moment, but I know you can remove all those commands and just disable DSP everywhere with one of these:

"dsp_vol_5ch" = "0.5"
"dsp_vol_4ch" = "0.5"
"dsp_vol_2ch" = "1.0"

Great commands if you want to set a tiny bit of dsp, or want it completely off, etc. I'm unsure if 7 channel has a command, or if it's shared with 5ch, but these will remove all DSP, as it acts as a master volume for all DSP from what I understand. Just don't use "dsp_volume", as it constantly resets if maps have different soundscapes and you enter/exit them. Unless you want to bind it to a commonly used key.

I don't know if it's just me, but disabling dsp entirely makes sounds at the back really low. So some DSP is good if you have same issue as me. If you put too much, it throws off the positioning, so you have to dial it in perfect.

I'm not sure why disabling DSP is necessary for surround sound. Shouldn't it be enough to only disable the spatial DSP effects with a delay?

dsp_enhance_stereo 0
dsp_spatial 0
dsp_facingaway 30 (or 0)

And I guess spatializing every frame would be helpful too:

snd_spatialize_roundrobin 0

I'm not entirely sure what I'm supposed to do on my side. Shouldn't yttrium's viewmodels work if you properly install them?

The installer adds "map_background preload_room; wait 10; disconnect" to autoexec, but doesn't apply to any autoexec in custom. Could be added with a module or just instructions to add it to custom.

dsp_enhance_stereo 0
dsp_spatial 0
dsp_facingaway 30 (or 0)

snd_spatialize_roundrobin 0

Sorry, I was sleepy and copy & pasted a section from my custom.cfg then forgot to remove 'dsp_water 0' and 'dsp_room 0'...would you mind elaborating on what the others do, exactly? Any effect that is intended to produce 3D sound from a stereo source is problematic for proper output to something that's doing the same thing, but yep, delay and reverb are the main things used in surround sound virtualization and you don't want those being applied on top of each other.

If you don't mind, I'll go ahead and dive into the "spatialization" section of your comp preset here:

//dsp_enhance_stereo 0 // Disable spatial DSP effects and delays
//dsp_enhance_stereo 1 // Enable for slight increase in sound quality, most
                       // noticeable on multispeaker systems

My understanding is that this effect is that "snd_surround_speaker 0;dsp_enhance_stereo 1" is the equivalent of setting sound to "Headphones" in the game options menu--basically TF2's own crude headphone surround sound virtualization (Miles3D, specifically, if I understand correctly).

//dsp_slow_cpu 0 // Use enhanced positional effects
//dsp_slow_cpu 1 // Disable initialization of enhanced spatialization

I'm assuming these "enhanced positional effects/spatialization" are designed for 2 channel output

//snd_spatialize_roundrobin 1 // Spatialize sounds every 2 frames, less performance benefit.
//snd_spatialize_roundrobin 3 // Spatialize sounds every 8 frames (2^3) using round-robin algorithm.
                              // Pretty reasonable performance benefit, but delay in spatialization.
//snd_spatialize_roundrobin 0 // Spatialize every frame

I'm not sure how the "sound travel" part of "Spatializing" (you define it as "sound travel and volume falloff") accounts for speaker count, but yeah it seems you'd want it to happen every frame if at all.

//dsp_room 0 // Disable automatic DSP
//dsp_room 1 // Enable automatic DSP. Big performance hit

Curious about what "automatic DSP" is, seems possibly relevant

//dsp_facingaway 0 // Disable the facing away DSP effect
//dsp_facingaway 30 // Use a DSP effect for sounds you are facing away from

Is it known what kind of effect is applied here? Seems important

//dsp_speaker 50 // Administrator effect
//dsp_speaker 0 // Disable administrator effect

Ditto

//dsp_spatial 40 // Spatial effect for positional audio
//dsp_spatial 0 // Disable spatial effect

Could you explain the significance of "40", and what disabling this does exactly, please?

//dsp_db_mixdrop 0.7 // Use enhanced volume scaling

What's being enhanced?

Thanks, I know it's a lot for a pretty niche thing. Really appreciate your time.

snd_surround_speakers 7 // or 5 for Windows 10, it seems
dsp_enhance_stereo 0
dsp_slow_cpu 1
snd_spatialize_roundrobin 0
dsp_speaker 0
dsp_water 0
dsp_spatial 0
dsp_facingaway 0
dsp_room 0 

Thanks, very interesting....I wonder why there is no 7ch command. I'm also curious what all DSP effects are being applied in the first place, aside from sound placement stuff.

JarateKing knows more than me

7ch is in fact shared with the 5ch volume setting, so if you want it completely off, you can use the dsp_vol_5ch 0. As far as the other commands, I'm going to try testing them myself tonight. I know the default settings in this config break the soundstage in multi channel speaker setups, aka surround sound. Or at least I think it does. I'm too lazy to reset my config and test with no config, as it might also be TF2 is just bad with surround. Or maybe it is Sonic from Windows.

A simple test you can do, go to 2fort sert, go to the water tunnel underneath, go to between the med pack and stairs, stand halfway between, shoot a rocket and then turn your back immediately before the rocket hits the wall and listen. On 5.1, there is no sound of the explosion to your back. If I switch to stereo and do the same test, I hear the explosion fine when I turn my back.

dsp_enhance_stereo 0
dsp_spatial 0
dsp_facingaway 30 (or 0)

snd_spatialize_roundrobin 0

//dsp_enhance_stereo 0 // Disable spatial DSP effects and delays
//dsp_enhance_stereo 1 // Enable for slight increase in sound quality, most
                       // noticeable on multispeaker systems

//dsp_slow_cpu 0 // Use enhanced positional effects
//dsp_slow_cpu 1 // Disable initialization of enhanced spatialization

//snd_spatialize_roundrobin 1 // Spatialize sounds every 2 frames, less performance benefit.
//snd_spatialize_roundrobin 3 // Spatialize sounds every 8 frames (2^3) using round-robin algorithm.
                              // Pretty reasonable performance benefit, but delay in spatialization.
//snd_spatialize_roundrobin 0 // Spatialize every frame

//dsp_room 0 // Disable automatic DSP
//dsp_room 1 // Enable automatic DSP. Big performance hit

//dsp_facingaway 0 // Disable the facing away DSP effect
//dsp_facingaway 30 // Use a DSP effect for sounds you are facing away from

//dsp_speaker 50 // Administrator effect
//dsp_speaker 0 // Disable administrator effect

//dsp_spatial 40 // Spatial effect for positional audio
//dsp_spatial 0 // Disable spatial effect

//dsp_db_mixdrop 0.7 // Use enhanced volume scaling

snd_surround_speakers 7 // or 5 for Windows 10, it seems
dsp_enhance_stereo 0
dsp_slow_cpu 1
snd_spatialize_roundrobin 0
dsp_speaker 0
dsp_water 0
dsp_spatial 0
dsp_facingaway 0
dsp_room 0 

I guess you have to set these settings to 0 to make yttrium's viewmodels work properly

mod_load_anims_async 0 // Disable async animation loading
mod_load_mesh_async 0 // Disable async mesh loading
mod_load_vcollide_async 0 // Disable async vcollide loading

P.S Sorry for long-quoting, I'm not good at it :)

6.5.0-b9 https://github.com/mastercoms/mastercomfig/releases/tag/6.5.0-b9

I've started to document the sound effect cvars a bit better and it will improve in future betas as I do more testing on DSP effects. Hopefully this will lead to not only compatibility with surround sound systems like the ones you've been describing, but also greater overall quality of sounds and DSP effects.

If you'd like to know more about where the DSP values come from before I document them fully, you can check out the dsp_presets.txt file.

Ok, I was testing just now and the no rear sounds is in fact an issue with TF2 and Sonic emulation, at least on my PC. Sonic works fine in other games, so a bit weird. I tested a few other emulation (Razer Synapse and Dolby Atmos) and they seem to work perfectly fine with the configs sound commands. You can get a 30day trial for Dolby Atmos on the windows store, but Razer seems to be best for TF2 to my ears, and it seems like by a pretty big margin. It's also free.

Hi, I might just be missing out on something that could be written in the files, but since 6.5.0-b7 I now have gibs appearing upon death by explosion where they would previously be disabled, and I'm pretty sure I didn't have bullet trails on scattergun whereas I can see those now. Do I just have to set some var to a different value ? I'm using maxperformance on b7 right now
Thanks

That shouldn't be the case, how did you install the config and have you tried the latest version (b9)?

I installed the config using the zip file, that might be a bad thing x)

you are so bad >:(

I know x) I've now switched to b9 and vpk it seems to be just fine I dunno x)

6.5.0 released with a new modules system, tons of quality enhancements, performance improvements, bug fixes and documentation updates.

Great new release! Just to report, you made a typo with your Max Quality preset. The command "3dsky_on" is spelled as "33dsky_on" in maxquality.cfg.

6.5.1 released with bug fixes and documentation updates.

How do u add the bad gpu addon, plus is the original mastercomfig the default one?

To install an addon, just put it in your custom folder alongside a preset. And yes, also you can read the descriptions of presets here.

does the 6.5.x release no longer contain the mastercomfig folder that used to contain the autoexec file?
if so and the autoexec file been moved elsewhere?
if not where should I be downloading the zip from because I must be downloading the wrong one.

Just use the VPK.

'aa' modules don't seem to do anything for me. When I type aa_low into console the game freezes then tabs out for a moment as if it is doing something, but no AA effect is obvious after the fact.

Unfortunately there is a bug in the game that causes the game to crash if MSAA (mat_antialias) is set during startup, so I have removed that command from the aa module until the bug is fixed. Though, it might also be a bug caused by conflicting cvar settings, which I am currently investigating.