5.1 or stereo for VR game

Hello guys, I have not used fmod before and this might seem like a stupid question.
For a VR project would I set 5.1 or stereo sound in the fmod preferences? Do I need 5.1 audio files to make this work perfectly or is it just the output format?
Also if I use Unreal Audio for some stuff will it seem out of place in comparison to the fmod sounds?

For any platform, VR or otherwise, it’s generally best to look up the number and configuration of speakers that platform supports (or which you expect the player to have, if it’s a different number), and set your FMOD Studio project’s channel format to that.

This is because, if the channel format you choose has more channels than your target platform has speakers, the extra channels will be either downmixed into the actual channels or inaudible; whereas if it has fewer channels than your target platform has speakers, either the extra speakers will be silent, or the output of your project will be upmixed to spread the output over multiple speakers.

It depends on the content. In some rare cases, and for certain specific types of content, you might be able to use FMOD Studio in conjunction with an engine’s built-in sound system without problems, but I wouldn’t count on it. FMOD Studio is designed to be used for all the sound in a game; if you use it for only some of the sound, you are likely to get some strange-sounding results.

In addition, FMOD Studio’s effects and buses can only affect events in the FMOD Studio project’s routing structure, so if you want reverb or other routing-dependent content in your game, all the sounds it affects must be FMOD Studio events.

In any case, having all your game’s sound use the same audio system makes it easier to maintain, tweak, and debug in the event of problems, as you’ll only have one sound system to deal with. It also prevents problems potentially caused by multiple different sound systems fighting for resources.

Thank you very much, so in that case choosing Stereo would be the best option because most use Stereo headsets and if they use 5.1 headsets it just gets upmixed which would just not sound as great right?

I always thought the silent part only applies to Stereo to mono cause of the cancellation of two channels, didn’t know it can happen with more channels as well.

Generally speaking, yes.