Dolby Atmos in Cyberpunk 2077?

[Thedinotamer]

Hi, I have a question about the implementation of Dolby Atmos in Cyberpunk 2077. What setting am I supposed to use or turn off to fully get the Dolby Atmos experience? currently I have Dolby atmos correctly configured in windows settings using a flat eq with virtual surround turned on with a pair of Audeze Maxwell headphones. Then I am using the headphones preset in-game with spatial audio turned off via the main menu. Am I using the correct config or is the game designed otherwise?

 

[koalahugs]

I hope you get a clear answer! I'm also confused about Dolby Atmos in Cyberpunk.

I wish there was clarity on:

• what settings to use in-game;
• and what settings to use in the Dolby Access app.

(I use a pair of Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro headphones)

 

[Thedinotamer]

@koalahugs There is this article from cdpr suggesting you're supposed to leave the in-game spatial audio enabled and just choose the correct preset, but that leaves us with a question, which preset is correct? Headphones or 3D Headphones?

Personally I feel like the config i posted in my post sounds the best but It may just be me doing something wrong

 

[Soylencer]

Hi, I have a question about the implementation of Dolby Atmos in Cyberpunk 2077. What setting am I supposed to use or turn off to fully get the Dolby Atmos experience? currently I have Dolby atmos correctly configured in windows settings using a flat eq with virtual surround turned on with a pair of Audeze Maxwell headphones. Then I am using the headphones preset in-game with spatial audio turned off via the main menu. Am I using the correct config or is the game designed otherwise?

The menu you are in is not where they were specifically directing you to go. That said, leaving all those dials at 0 leaves the audio mixing unaltered which is generally ideal unless you need to boost bass or improve clarity on bad hardware or have hearing loss in certain frequency ranges. The Virtualizer upmixes Stereo [2-channel] audio to Atmos to utilize more [than 2] speakers; it also "upscales" the audio a bit, and it's not necearily authentic to what the sound designers put together but it's typically more immersive sound.

That said, regarding that guide: The "corresponding preset" is the one that matches your speaker layout. If you have multiple speakrs, select home theater. If you have Headphones capable of 3D mixing [which is what Atmos does] pick that, and so on.

For Step 3 in that guide, you can also just right click on your Speaker/Volume mixer [next to the clock on Win 10] and use the Speaker Setup branch to select Dolby Atmos for [Headphones/Home theater].

Their guide perhaps overcomplicates it. The only complicated thing is making sure your audio HARDWARE is setup correctly, which is not their problem [Step 0]. However, enabling the in-game and Windows function itself is easy [Steps 1-4].

You need to:
---
Step 0: Make sure you actually have Atmos compatible listening device. Headphones should be run with USB (some cheat with a TRRS [stereo "aux"-style headphone jack]). If using an **external amp** [e.g., soundbar or AVR], make sure that it is configured correctly (most people spend hundreds on gear and never set it up right); it needs to be run with HDMI for full effect, and have the settings configured such that it will properly utiilize an Atmos signal (I reccomend letting the device automatically select the decoder based on the source, if your device has that option). Check your user manual if all that is gibbrish Laptop speakers should handle themselves, yet will be worst quality of all.
---
Step 1: Own Atmos lisence (only once per MS account)
Step 2: Install Atmos app and complete setup (only the first time unless something breaks)
Step 3: If on PC, verify that Atmos is Enabled/Ready for use [that right-click thing I mentioned] (check this periodically, particularly if you hop between headphones/speakers)
Step 4: In a game's audio menu, select the output that best matches the hardware you are using to listen. (Change if/when needed.)

FURTHER READING:

Regarding step 4: This setting typically only adjusts the Dynamic Range [the volume difference between the loudest/quiet sounds, and stometimes the amount of bass:trebble] as different speaker classes tend to have different capabilities. An Atmos-certified home theater system will have at least 7 speakers, each with 2 or more drivers, and at least one subwoofer -- your headphones have two speakrs the size of a dime or nickle. Their audio reproduction capabilities are simply, quite different and for user experience, games adjust the mix -- especially bass intensity and dialogue clarity -- based on your hardware. In short, generally, this *shouldn't* affect the number of channels the game outputs, supposing you're not selecting an explicit setting like "mono," "stereo," "2.1", etc. in one of these menus. Simply, Atmos does not use per-speaker channels like traditional surround sound, so it does not care how many speakers you have -- that is the job of your speakers' decoder [the Amp, or the hardware inside your headphones, for example.] **TLDR for this parahraph: Just don't select "MONO" and you should be okay.**

The only thing you need to keep in mind is that Atmos is primarily for 3D audio and your headphones are still only two speakers, left and right, just that same as listening to a cassette tape in 1990. However, what you will experience as far as quality increase with headphones is the fidelity of the audio coming from the game. Higher quality sound, in short. If you ever listen on external speakers, particually if you have them set up around you, and above, is audio moving around you in real space, rather than just hopping left to right. That is to say, Atmos is almost always better than no Atmos (same with DST:X if you have access, which is similar if Atmos is not available), but temper your expectations because headphones are headphones.

 

[Thedinotamer]

@Soylencer So basically the "3D headphones" preset is the correct one to use together with Dolby Atmos? I've done your step 0-3 correctly i'm pretty sure, the Audeze Maxwell are wireless but this shouldn't make them any worse since they have a built-in sound card or whatever so they don't lose sound quality

 

[koalahugs]

@Soylencer So basically the "3D headphones" preset is the correct one to use together with Dolby Atmos? I've done your step 0-3 correctly i'm pretty sure, the Audeze Maxwell are wireless but this shouldn't make them any worse since they have a built-in sound card or whatever so they don't lose sound quality

To be honest I'm still confused. @Soylencer I appreciate you trying, though I'm still struggling to follow. The CDPR article keeps things pretty simple - definitely not over-complicated at all! Great for non-audiophiles like me but I think it just needs to clarify the in-game preset question. That's it.

You've sort of already answered this I think but, just to be certain, am I supposed to use the "headphones" preset for a pair of stereo headphones? My Beyerdynamics are plugged into my case's front headphone jack. Although I saw an audiophile on Reddit claim that using the "3D-headphones" preset would give Dolby Atmos more channels to work with and make the sound on a pair of stereo headphones a bit better. Was that person wrong? Should I still just select the "headphones" preset?

As far at Windows and the Dolby Access app - it's all fine and setup apparently:

Step 0: Make sure you actually have Atmos compatible listening device.

But basically any stereo headphones should work with "Dolby Atmos for Headphones" right? It just helps if they're higher quality. I mean, I thought the whole point of Dolby Atmos for Headphones was that it could simulate virtual surround sound for any headset. It definitely sounds better to my untrained ear anyway.

From CDPR's guide:
" Dolby Atmos for Headphones
Any headphones work in this case. Just remember, the higher the quality of the headphones, the better your Dolby Atmos experience."

Headphones should be run with USB (some cheat with a TRRS [stereo "aux"-style headphone jack]).

Wait, you need USB headphones now? Why? What's wrong with using ones that plugs into your line-out/headphone jack? Mine are plugged into my case's front headphone jack and Dolby Access seems happy with that.

 

[Soylencer]

Wait, you need USB headphones now? Why? What's wrong with using ones that plugs into your line-out/headphone jack? Mine are plugged into my case's front headphone jack and Dolby Access seems happy with that.

I'm going to partially retract -- rather, restate, that for the sake of confusion. Your PC is handling the Atmos signal there, not the headphones. There are about a dozen common names for the headphone jack, and a few more specific technical ones: TRRS is one of those technical names. Simply, per my parentheses, your system is cheating to make Atmos available to you. It is still better than not having Atmos, mind you. TLDR: It depends, but don't sweat it if you don't have USB. If you do, switch to that.

As far as your settings, I'm conflicted on what to tell you to do. I think the correct thing to do for simplicity and sanity, is to just select 3D Headphones and live your life.

What I am *inclined* to say is: If your headphones featured Atmos on the package or came with the Atmos license you are using, select 3D Headphones. If you have a pair of headphones anyway, and then later, purchased Atmos license on your own, select Headphones.

If you haven't gathered from all the forum posts you may have seen, all the arguments, all the confidently incorrect people (maybe me??), and all the conflicting YouTube tutorials and Atmos demos -- you can really get in deep and get lost in configuration instead of just enjoying it. You want to get what you are paying for of course, and you want to experience what you are intended to experience, but at a certain point you just have to realize there's a reason why "audio engineer" is a lucrative career and why Geek Squad still gets paid to set up soundbars.

Completely unrelated to that GeekSquad comment (I was never with Geek Squad), I do just want to say that I sold high-end A/V gear for a decent amount of time. I have first-hand experience with this stuff. I am certified in some of it, and was at least competent enough that my managers would call me for help after I left the job. But. I am no longer a professional, I don't have access to your equipment in front of me, and sometimes the best action is to stop thinking about it and enjoy it. You can always spend more time/money, or calibrate better. But you only have so much time to enjoy your gear before the next thing comes out.


---
Not to infodump like I did in the last post, but I try to educate people about tech, so if you are interested in specifics, read on:

Spoiler: [click for nerd stuff]

That "headphone jack" is basically only capable of transmitting an analogue, stereo [aka, 2-channel audio. Commonly: Left, and Right channel] signal. The three segments on your headphones are L, R, and Ground - if you have a fourth it's the line for the microphone.
Dolby Atmos (And DTS:X, a competitor), first, is a digital signal. But it also is not stereo -- without getting even more in the weeds, it can handle mixing any number of speakers one is likely to have. There are also some technicalities with realtime mixing like games do, vs a movie or song which are manually edited, but with traditional mixing is sending each sound to a specific speaker [commonly 2, 3, or 5], at ear level, to create the impression of motion. In comparison, Atmos has all of those sounds "physically" (well, figuratively) placed in an imaginary sphere around the listener.
Reiterating, those sounds are not placed to a specific speaker like with traditional mix. Instead, the sounds are given a position in that sphere corresponding with what you might be seeing on the screen (in a movie or game anyway), and they trace their path of movement through that sphere to move around the listener in all three dimensions.
Because these sounds are not assigned to a speaker specifically, your system (AVR, PC, Amp, etc) translates the position of those sounds according to where you have specified to that system, where, in your room, your speakers are (via distance, height, and quantity). Thus, you end up with digital signal being decoded and sorted out, specific to your system, to position audio, specifically where your speakers are, in a way that corresponds to where things are in the scene.
To give a practical example: Imagine a helicopter in a movie. it is flying overhead [per the camera's perspective] from left to right. In practical terms, with Stereo, the helicopter will move from the left speaker to the right; briefly it will sound centered on you. With Atmos, and the correct speaker setup, you will hear the elevation of helicopter change, as well as helicopter specifically above you, rather than centered on you at ear level.
This is all done by a digital signal, being transmitted to a smart decoder on your listening device. An analog system cannot do this. Your PC is collapsing that 3D bubble of sound into a left and right stereo mix that your headphones can understand. This is not the same. However, this is still generally considered an improvement for several reasons. First, Atmos is a higher-quality source to begin with; cleaner audio and a higher bit-rate than other solutions, and even if that quality is being translated differently to your speakers [in the headphones] over analog, you are getting more/better quality on the business end (your ears). Secondly, because the audio is being downsampled to stereo, you do lose a bit of the true sense of dimension but the stereo experience you get is more dynamic and more prepositionally accurate than any plain, manual stereo mix could conceivably be. So in short, it's not the full experience; but I also don't want to leave you with the impression that you might as well be listening on a $12 Bluetooth speaker, because it ain't like that.

Post automatically merged: Jan 9, 2024

@Soylencer So basically the "3D headphones" preset is the correct one to use together with Dolby Atmos? I've done your step 0-3 correctly i'm pretty sure, the Audeze Maxwell are wireless but this shouldn't make them any worse since they have a built-in sound card or whatever so they don't lose sound quality

Read the Bolds above.

 

[koalahugs]

I'm going to partially retract -- rather, restate, that for the sake of confusion. Your PC is handling the Atmos signal there, not the headphones. There are about a dozen common names for the headphone jack, and a few more specific technical ones: TRRS is one of those technical names. Simply, per my parentheses, your system is cheating to make Atmos available to you. It is still better than not having Atmos, mind you. TLDR: It depends, but don't sweat it if you don't have USB. If you do, switch to that.

As far as your settings, I'm conflicted on what to tell you to do. I think the correct thing to do for simplicity and sanity, is to just select 3D Headphones and live your life.

What I am *inclined* to say is: If your headphones featured Atmos on the package or came with the Atmos license you are using, select 3D Headphones. If you have a pair of headphones anyway, and then later, purchased Atmos license on your own, select Headphones.

If you haven't gathered from all the forum posts you may have seen, all the arguments, all the confidently incorrect people (maybe me??), and all the conflicting YouTube tutorials and Atmos demos -- you can really get in deep and get lost in configuration instead of just enjoying it. You want to get what you are paying for of course, and you want to experience what you are intended to experience, but at a certain point you just have to realize there's a reason why "audio engineer" is a lucrative career and why Geek Squad still gets paid to set up soundbars.

Completely unrelated to that GeekSquad comment (I was never with Geek Squad), I do just want to say that I hold high-end A/V gear for a decent amount of time. I have first-hand experience with this stuff. I am certified in some of it, and was at least competent enough that my managers would call me for help after I left the job. But. I am no longer a professional, I don't have access to your equipment in front of me, and sometimes the best action is to stop thinking about it and enjoy it. You can always spend more, or calibrate better. But you only have so much time to enjoy your gear before the next thing comes out.


---
Not to infodump like I did in the last post, but I try to educate people about tech, so if you are interested in specifics, read on:

Spoiler: [click for nerd stuff]

That "headphone jack" is basically only capable of transmitting an analogue, stereo [aka, 2-channel audio. Commonly: Left, and Right channel] signal. The three segments on your headphones are L, R, and Ground - if you have a fourth it's the line for the microphone.
Dolby Atmos (And DTS:X, a competitor), first, is a digital signal. But it also is not stereo -- without getting even more in the weeds, it can handle mixing any number of speakers one is likely to have. There are also some technicalities with realtime mixing like games do, vs a movie or song which are manually edited, but with traditional mixing is sending each sound to a specific speaker [commonly 2, 3, or 5], at ear level, to create the impression of motion. In comparison, Atmos has all of those sounds "physically" (well, figuratively) placed in an imaginary sphere around the listener.
Reiterating, those sounds are not placed to a specific speaker like with traditional mix. Instead, the sounds are given a position in that sphere corresponding with what you might be seeing on the screen (in a movie or game anyway), and they trace their path of movement through that sphere to move around the listener in all three dimensions.
Because these sounds are not assigned to a speaker specifically, your system (AVR, PC, Amp, etc) translates the position of those sounds according to where you have specified to that system, where, in your room, your speakers are (via distance, height, and quantity). Thus, you end up with digital signal being decoded and sorted out, specific to your system, to position audio, specifically where your speakers are, in a way that corresponds to where things are in the scene.
To give a practical example: Imagine a helicopter in a movie. it is flying overhead [per the camera's perspective] from left to right. In practical terms, with Stereo, the helicopter will move from the left speaker to the right; briefly it will sound centered on you. With Atmos, and the correct speaker setup, you will hear the elevation of helicopter change, as well as helicopter specifically above you, rather than centered on you at ear level.
This is all done by a digital signal, being transmitted to a smart decoder on your listening device. An analog system cannot do this. Your PC is collapsing that 3D bubble of sound into a left and right stereo mix that your headphones can understand. This is not the same. However, this is still generally considered an improvement for several reasons. First, Atmos is a higher-quality source to begin with; cleaner audio and a higher bit-rate than other solutions, and even if that quality is being translated differently to your speakers [in the headphones] over analog, you are getting more/better quality on the business end (your ears). Secondly, because the audio is being downsampled to stereo, you do lose a bit of the true sense of dimension but the stereo experience you get is more dynamic and more prepositionally accurate than any plain, manual stereo mix could conceivably be. So in short, it's not the full experience; but I also don't want to leave you with the impression that you might as well be listening on a $12 Bluetooth speaker, because it ain't like that.

Post automatically merged: Jan 9, 2024

Read the Bolds above.

Thanks for taking the time - this helps!

 

[Thedinotamer]

@Soylencer I bought the Audeze Maxwell (Playstation version) which doesn't come with a license out of the box, which means I had to buy the license afterwards. So going off of what you wrote above you're supposed to use the "Headphones" preset instead of the "3D Headphones"? The Xbox version does ship with a Dolby Atmos license and it says on their website that both versions are compatible with Dolby Atmos for Headphones, does this change anything?

 

[Soylencer]

@Soylencer I bought the Audeze Maxwell (Playstation version) which doesn't come with a license out of the box, which means I had to buy the license afterwards. So going off of what you wrote above you're supposed to use the "Headphones" preset instead of the "3D Headphones"? The Xbox version does ship with a Dolby Atmos license and it says on their website that both versions are compatible with Dolby Atmos for Headphones, does this change anything?

This is a tricky one. My observation is that their Mobius model is their actual "surround" headset. My other observation is that they seem to have a fairly robust visualizer onboard, which will *itself* handle or translate the Atmos, rather than the PC; supposing it gets to the headset without the PC screwing with it to begin with.

So, because it has this virtualizer -- and given that it otherwise meets my rules-of-thumb by [technically] including an Atmos license alongside offering the hi-res USB connection -- then my educated guess is to use 3D Headphones.

To facilitate this:

1) Update the firmware with the Audeze app, if you haven't (or haven't for a while)

2) Use the supplied USB cable, as I recommended. Remove the headphone jack.

Spoiler

Per their user manual, this will enable higher bitrate transfer than your "Aux" jack. In either case, without this, the PC will take over downsampling the Atmos which is not ideal here because it will treat your headset as stereo no matter what we do, and that gives the headphone's virtualizer less to work with. We want this setup to translate that high quality Atmos signal to the headphones' speakers via their internal virtualizer which is designed specifically to do so with the specific speakers, and number of them [incidentally still 2], which which the headset was designed. If the PC crunches down the Atmos to stereo, it will be better than regular stereo, as discussed last time, but then the headphones will need to turn it back into simulated 3D, and then translate it once again, to the speakers on the headset. This is messy and every step loses authenticity and/or quality. Simply, we want the game audio to get to the headphones with no changes, and the headphones will sort out the mix for the hardware they were desdigned with. This is true in almost every A/V setup you will ever do -- you generally want the path of least resistance between the source and the destination.

3) Follow all the earlier steps to enable Atmos on the PC itself. Note, as I did earlier, they also recommend leaving all the EQ sliders at default (0hz).

4) Select 3D Headphones in-game.

5) Periodically, check that Atmos has remained enabled, particualrly after systen updates, suspicious restarts, loss of audio, or disconnecting the headphones for whatever reason.

A good way to test that this is working is to go into Dogtown and try to hunt around for a cargo drop and listen for the overhead sounds as the transport flies by. Or save before a particularly exciting cutscene. Or somewhere that there is a repeating sound, particularly something overhead that you can move around.

It's not always going to be mindblowing. Afterall, you do not actually have speakers all around you; you have exactly two, and they are stuck right to your head. Temper your expectations. But! you should notice at least some kind general clarity improvement, and you should notice a more dynamic, and natrual perception of motion as things move around you/r character. A small note is that in movies the audio tends to come from "in front of" the camera, whereas in games it typically floats around the camera itself, or your character's head. Things may not always come from where they seem like they are coming from. Your distance from your screen may affect this further.

Hope that helps, if you're still stuck I'd reach out to the manufacturer for advice. It's not that I am unwilling, I just didn't design them myself and don't have them in front of me to physicall work things out.

----
As an aside, they have a good graphic on their site about how the 3D audio simulates items moving around in space (though this is not the explicit purpose of this video) -- for our purposes here, ignore the fact that the head is looking around, and just note how sounds are popping up in the distance and moving around the listener. In a traditional setup, sounds would simply be coming out of one of those green anchor points in the corners.

https://cdn.shopify.com/videos/c/o/v/fca9a16f43b942aba0c74a126eec6151.webm

 

[GTOman758]

Hello ALL I really want to share what I have found to FIX Dolby Atmos for Headphones and if you use Atmos for Home Theater as well. First I wanna share how I know I am correct because I am now fully immersed in Dolby Audio in this game.

My Story: I've been trying to fall in love with Dolby Atmos for Headphones ever since I did the free trial and eventually bought it in 2017. Some games that I used to play that advertised Dolby Atmos was Rise of the Tomb Raider, Shadow of the Tomb Raider and MW 2019. Back then when I enabled Dolby Atmos on my windows 10 machine they sounded "okeeeyyy" nothing mind blowing I thought I could hear the difference but i wasn't really blown away like watching a dolby atmos demo on a web browser lol. SO I was wondering wat the heck I have good quality gear i have always used a high quality usb DAC and good monitor headphones so whats the big deal. Well then I took a break from PC and started using my Xbox Series X and something crazy happened. I played MW 2019 Campaign with dolby atmos Enabled for headphones and my jaw dropppped... So I couldnt rest and I had to find out why does the PC sound so unimpressive across everything games and netflix disney plus. I promise that this one setting will help deliver that immersive experience through any dolby atmos compatible app or game. TRUST ME

THE FIX:
1. (Optional) Right click the speaker icon in the system tray> Sound Settings > More Sound Settings; this should open the legacy sound device dialog box > Now highlight your device and click "Configure" in the bottom left > Check "Full Front Left and Right Speakers" If you cant access configure don't worry about it.

2. (Crucial Step) Highlight your sound device and click "Properties" > Advanced > EXCLUSIVE MODE Uncheck both options and then Click "Apply"
2a. I want to explain what EXLUSIVE MODE has been lying to everyone. Because every forum i have come to said the same thing its really just not that impressive or seems to not be working no one notices the moving audio. But now omg man now weve been missing out.

EXPLAINATION
EXCLUSIVE MODE aims to prioritize no interruptions from windows notifications or simply pass over the audio to the device's sound card/ sound driver. Essentially its very similar to what Fullscreen Exclusive mode does but for an audio device. This is good when you are listening to music or editing videos/recording music because you want bit perfect audio and it solved many audio issues a handful of people were having with creator apps. SO basically Exclusive mode strips the dolby atmos app from ever receiving the Dolby Atmos sound from any program/game that's running LOL. That's why the "Dolby Atmos for Headphones is in use" message is actually lying to you. And what really happens is Dolby Access is trying to read the apps/engine's audio to grab a dolby atmos signal but it can only see what your sound card's default settings are (Stereo) in Exclusive mode. Once you uncheck Exclusive mode the Windows Audio engine can allow Cyberpunk to run normally in its audio engine/streams therefore allowing the dolby access app to correctly apply the virtualization effect on the sound device. It now reads the native Dolby atmos mix built within Cyberpunk 2077. This is also the case for Netflix and any other applciation that plays dolby atmos content.

Now with this fix im telling you I have not ever been more immersed in all my games. It's truly amazing how spatial sound works. I use a USB SCHIIT MODI Dac with DT 770 Pros 250 Ohm. Phenomal sound man i use to sound whore in Siege so much ha. Shadow of the Tomb raider and Cyberpunk are my two games i'm replaying this year. Dolby Atmos for headphones really put me back into that kid that got his first turtle beach surround sound headphones i just wanna cry it sounds so damn good now.


*** THIS IS ALSO THE CASE FOR DOLBY ATMOS FOR HOME THEATER*** Uncheck that Exclusive Mode i have a LG C2 with built in Dolby Atmos speakers and it works and audio flows around my TV and I was freakin shocked. They weren't bs'n about the dolby atmos on TV speakers lolol.

 

[StrontiumD0g]

On PC you have to go to audio settings and it's a surprisingly irritating experience, but most things are in windows 11.

 

[Soylencer]

If you have an AVR [or certain soundbars] it will tell you if it is receiving an Atmos signal.