ex. Fortnite don't seem to support it (but it does support some binaureal sound). When I got the system I ran through a couple of games on my steam Library to try it out and found very few supported it. Most vere based on the big engines (Unity / Unreal) and I kind of just suspected it to be a compile time swith on the devs side, but maybe im wrong - are sounds mixed in a studio and not on a "per source" kind of way ? - maybe they are not really attached to a position.
I can verify that at least parts of this list is correct. I remember getting jump scares when hearing monsters behind me in Dead Space 2, F.E.A.R., and as I mentioned earlier Left 4 Dead 2.
One thing I will say is that settings screens usually do a poor job at showing whether they're using surround sound. Games often just query the system for audio setup and show little more than whether you've selected headphones or speakers.
edit: since I thought it strange that your experience was so different from mine and that Fortnite wouldn't support it, I googled it and found an article from 2019 about how Fortnite, originally built for 5.1 surround sinds
sound, now supports 7.1. My guess is there's some configuration issue with your PC.
It depends on the engine and how you set it up. But the big engines all support attaching sounds to positions and mixing is done in real-time.
I remember a lot of effort went into making sounds feel right in the NFS games. Including mixing engine sounds recorded from different parts of the car to match the camera's position relative to the car. We even had an article about the process of recording those sounds:
