No 5.1, Fallout 3

[ukcal]

I recently upgraded to 5.1 sound, and have been amazed at the difference it makes when gaming.
I have managed to enable 5.1 on many games, CoD4 & 5, Left 4 Dead, GRID, etc, anything that has been designed with surround sound in mind.
However, I can't get Fallout 3 to play through the centre or rear speakers. I know there is no setting in game for this, and a bit of Googling said that it picks up the configuration from Windows, which is set to 5.1, though still the game does not play in surround.
Anyway, any ideas as to how i might be able to make the sound 5.1?
I am running XP and have a system plenty good enough to run the game.
Feel free to ask for more info.
Thanks

 

[overshocks]

Have you checked the game supports 5.1 surround sound, go google.

 

[ukcal]

Thanks for the reply.
And yes, a quick google search does show that the game has 5.1, likewise, i'm not the only one that isn't getting surround sound when they should be.

 

[overshocks]

I just googled the 5.1 problem, have you forgotten to change the sound options in the game, sometimes it's these little mistakes that solve the problem

 

[ukcal]

Thanks again.
There is no option in the game settings to set the speaker output, strangely. I had a similar issue with GRID, that game also doesn't have a setting to define speaker output, but I managed to get 5.1 to work on GRID by changing the output in the configuration INI file. I can't find a similar option though in the Fallout 3 INI, which was my next thought.

 

[jay_l_a]

I have a 5.1 system and it's a bit quirky. Some games will work fine. I fire up the PC, open the game, and 5.1 works flawlessly.
Other games, if I follow the above procedure, I only get stereo.

What I have to do to fix this, is fire up the utility that came with the card (HT Omega Striker in my case), and send a test tone to one of the rear speakers before going into the game. At that point, it seems the game is 'aware' of my 5.1 system and works fine.

I don't recall if I have to do this for Fallout 3 or not, as I tend to do the test tone by default before playing a game...
Try it and see if it makes a difference.
J

 

[ukcal]

Hey, thanks.
I tried it, and no luck. I must say, it is a strange way to get things to work
Incase it helps, I'm using onboard audio on my ASUS P5KPL/1600 mobo which uses the Via HD Audio Deck Utility.

 

[ukcal]

/bump
any ideas still?