Nintendo Gamecube Dolby Surround Pro Logic II quality

[Thomago]

I own a PAL Gamecube (DOL-001 with the Digital Video Port) which is connected to a Dolby Surround Pro Logic II decoder (Teufel Decoderstation 5). Unfortunately all the decoder is able to get from Pro Logic II capable NGC games is tinny pseudo surround sound without any real locatability apart from left/right.
Pro Logic II encoded signals from my PS2 on the other hand sound perfectly clear, almost like Dolby Digital. 5.1.

What's going on here? Is this normal?

[rCadeGaming]

Be sure that the specific games you're playing support PLII and that it's enabled in the options. Other than that, I couldn't tell you.

[Thomago]

They support it and it's enabled.

[Joelepain]

Have you tried surround sound tests like the one you can find in the audio settings of Soul Calibur 2 or Super Mario Sunshine to see if the channel separation is good ?
To fairly compare to the ps2, do you use ps2 analog or optical audio ?
Maybe the game you are trying does not have a good audio engine.
It'll be very surprising that the gamecube PLII is bad compared to ps2, because nintendo had some experience with pro logic on the n64, and gamecube was the one wich introduce prologic 2 into the consoles world.

[Artemio]

I recall Rogue Squadron II: Rogue Leader had decent separation

[Xan]

I can't comment on Pro Logic II seperation, but as an example, Resident Evil 4 has far superior sound quality on GC compared to PS2. Both versions support PLII.

[Thomago]

Have you tried surround sound tests like the one you can find in the audio settings of Soul Calibur 2 or Super Mario Sunshine to see if the channel separation is good ?

Unfortunately I don't own any game with a surround sound test. Maybe I should get one of the two. Or do you remember any other games that would do the trick?

To fairly compare to the ps2, do you use ps2 analog or optical audio ?

Both are connected via analog audio; for the Gamecube I tried the included chinch cable as well as the official Nintendo RGB cable (I'm using that one right now).

It'll be very surprising that the gamecube PLII is bad compared to ps2, because nintendo had some experience with pro logic on the n64, and gamecube was the one wich introduce prologic 2 into the consoles world.

Indeed, I expected more.

I can't comment on Pro Logic II seperation, but as an example, Resident Evil 4 has far superior sound quality on GC compared to PS2. Both versions support PLII.

I have that one here, but as far as I can remember channel seperation was really bad there as well. Will try again later - unfortunately I will have to leave for a few days :-/

[Joelepain]

I search through my collection and I found these games have some kind of sound tests (at least they make some multi channel noise when you select surround in audio settings) :

soul calibur 2, super mario sunshine, waverace, 1080° avalanche, mario kart double dash, rogue leader, rebel strike (for these last two, you have to go in bonus and select audio test)

I think the best ones are mario kart and the two rogue squadron because it's just one sound that travels accross the channels, so you can hear each channel separately.
For the other there is a lot of mess at the same time (mostly music) so it's hard to distinguish channels, but i think in these cases we are at the limits of pro-logic-like technologies and I doubt the ps2 can really do better.

(for information, I test with logitech Z-5500, so not bad, but far from the best speakers/decoder available out there)

[Thomago]

I think the best ones are mario kart and the two rogue squadron because it's just one sound that travels accross the channels, so you can hear each channel separately.

Indeed, especially since the PS2 game I'd like to use as a reference (Valkyria Profile 2) does the same.

[Shou]

Sounds better with the GC optical audio mod