Question about Sound output. Answer is probably "No" ... but I'm still curious.

[Ghallo]

I run 4 toons on 1 PC and 1 toon on another. Right now I have headphones to monitor my main with speakers (on low) to monitor my alts ... with just 1 of my instances set to output sound. As I was re-configuring my speakers tonight I thought about the idea of having each alt's sound go to 1 of my speakers. The idea would be that then I would be able to hear what/when something was happening even if my toons were spread out.

Is this possible on a single PC?

[Ellusionist]

I run 4 toons on 1 PC and 1 toon on another. Right now I have headphones to monitor my main with speakers (on low) to monitor my alts ... with just 1 of my instances set to output sound. As I was re-configuring my speakers tonight I thought about the idea of having each alt's sound go to 1 of my speakers. The idea would be that then I would be able to hear what/when something was happening even if my toons were spread out.

Is this possible on a single PC?

Hmm...

I think it would be a little hard to do.

Think about this for a minute:

PvP: Stuff happens so quick that by the time you figure out which speaker your sound is outputting from, you'd be dead. Done for. I can't think of many situations where your boxers would be split up so that you wouldn't be able to hear the slaves being attacked (or whatever) on the main's sound output.

PvE: Nothing should be behind you. You'll probably already know the instance. Here again, I would think your reaction figuring out who is being attacked would be a little slow. At least not efficient enough to save a wipe. I guess during boss fights you may be spread out. This is something that watching your X-Perl bars would achieve a little bit quicker. (I would think, anyway.)

Quests: Normally stuff that would "come up behind you" wouldn't kill you quick enough that you wouldn't notice. The mob would have to be beating on you a good while before one of you dies. I can't think of any situations where you would be spread out during questing, either.

I guess this is just some insight on the idea... it's one of those things that if you get it to work correctly, you may get used to it enough to make it efficient, but I would think it'd take a lot of setup to accomplish.

[algol]

Possible, but pointless.

[Maxion]

If you have Jamba, your alts will tell you when they get attacked anyway.

[Ghallo]

*sigh*

No one's even interested?

By the way, I can come up with dozens of ideas as to why not to do any specific configuration or to use any specific addon... it's just like "What can't Adam Corrola complain about". If you don't know or don't want to try that's fine - but why knock the fact that I want to? I have 5.1 channels of sound... and although you may not want to use them I might want to.

But if you absolutely must have a reason... Take "Stupid vehicle quest 22" - I have alt2 running around far away from my group and I can't hear a darn thing. Makes the game REALLY fun. Instead, I hear the clink-clink of the blacksmith near my main ... and take off the headphones because it's so annoying. (For those that are humor impaired ... this quest does not, in fact, exist). Do I need this to play the game? No. Actually I can't think of many situations where any sound is needed at all. You can always make the arguement that paying closer attention to the screen will give you all the information you need.

[Svpernova09]

There would be no way to separate the line coming in. You would have to bring them in on their own separate channel. Then you would need software / hardware that would route each channel to a specific speaker. If you're hoping to do this with standard 5/4.1 computer speakers this isn't going to work unless you find some software to route the channels and even then I don't think it would be possible. The very minimum you would have to separate the output from the 4 wows on 1 machine.


I think the best you're going to do (cheaply) is just run your 4 wow's to your line in.




This is where running multiple PCs has its advantage. I run 4 PCs sound outputs into my mixer and I can mute / unmute just by turning the volume knob.

[Bovidae]

I was able to do exactly what you asked, using my onboard Realtec mixer (onboard audio). It differentiates incoming channels by the source program. Then by fading left-right / front-rear I am able to effectively divert all the sound from each instance to an individual speaker.

It is doable, but I prefer not to.

[zanthor]

I was able to do exactly what you asked, using my onboard Realtec mixer (onboard audio). It differentiates incoming channels by the source program. Then by fading left-right / front-rear I am able to effectively divert all the sound from each instance to an individual speaker.

It is doable, but I prefer not to.

is this a Vista only feature? I dont' recall the realtek drivers having the ability to differentiate by application under XP.

[Bovidae]

Might be, I do use Vista 64. But it was super easy. I'll try to get more details when I go home.

On an aside, if you're not using surrond sound to your advantage, you're missing out. IMO, directional sound is an important indicator of WTF is going on, and WhereTF its going on at. Perhaps if you use two sound cards (onboard+pci) you could set-up both.

[Freddie]

I was able to do exactly what you asked, using my onboard Realtec mixer (onboard audio). It differentiates incoming channels by the source program. Then by fading left-right / front-rear I am able to effectively divert all the sound from each instance to an individual speaker.

It's nice to see a post where somebody tests and really answers the question.