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Many (most?) PC games support surround sound. (Re another comment: Fortnite supposedly supports both 5.1 and 7.1. I have not tried it.)

But primarily via the analog audio outputs on the back of a PC motherboard.

If you've hooked your PC into your surround sound setup via HDMI, optical cable, or other single connection method, it is unlikely to work.

If your surround sound amp supports per-channel analog in and your PC has 5.1 or 7.1 out support, you can use 4 or 6 (5.1 / 7.1) 1/8" stereo to RCA cables to connect your PC to your surround sound system. Depending on your TV / surround sound system, you may need to mess with delay settings to get the audio to sync with the video. Having your TV and surround sound system set to "game mode" may help. Hooking your PC output directly to the TV may also help.

My understanding is using DTS, Dolby Atmos, etc to encode / decode surround sound requires paying licensing fees. These aren't paid by Microsoft as a part of Windows, by the gaming framework companies for their Windows games, etc.

I suspect Microsoft and Sony handle the fees for their consoles, but I do not know for certain. It's possible they require game makers to pay them.

Edited for clarity.




I use HDMI with 7.1 PCM for audio from my gaming PC. It requires setting up an A/V receiver as a second monitor, which is kind of annoying, but it can be a "clone" of the primary gaming monitor. I do get immersive 2D surround sound from games.




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