This question is just a curiosity of FMOD really, but Im wondering how a stereo image in a game mix might translate or ‘fold up’ if you like to a 5.1 or 7.1 surround system.
So for example, if my settings are like this:
Does that mean if someone is playing the game on a surround 7.1 or so on system, that they wont hear any sound spatialized into the surround setup? Meaning the game will only play from the front left and right speakers in stereo? I would think that spatialize, but unsure.
The various ways in which audio is upmixed or downmixed are described in our documentation on the topic.
I want to be more specific about my question here - I am worried that if I leave my project’s surround speaker mode on ‘stereo’, but someone is listening on a 5.1 or 7.1 playback system, then in that case the mono 3D sound events wont be panned to the surround channels if FMOD’s speaker mode is set only to Stereo, does that make sense?
Your intuition is correct: If you set your project’s surround speaker mode to stereo, it will play using the L/R speakers only. If you would prefer your project to play in surround if a player has a surround speaker system, there are a number of ways to do that.
The simplest method is to set your project to a different surround speaker mode - perhaps 5.1 or 7.1. This will ensure that players with surround speakers will be able to hear your game through all of their speakers. If some players have stereo speakers or headphones, the game’s output will be downmixed to stereo for those players, ensuring they still hear every part of your game.
If you would prefer a more elaborate solution that allows you to tailor different mixes for different speaker configurations, the Setting Up Different Audio Configurations For Your Game section of the FMOD Studio User Manual describes how to do that.
