Sound Engine Improvement and Surround Sound

[MistyBlue]

Hello,

The sound engine in P3D is quite limited by today's gaming standards. Can you please consider significantly enhancing the sound engine to accommodate some of the following?:

1. 5.1 Surround Sound/Multichannel Audio - allow the ability to utilize surround WAV files, or pan a sound 360 degrees around an aircraft (for example, have jet engines behind you, left and right and wind noise much more from the front than rear).
2. Following on 1, enhance the sim's spatial audio environment to allow ambient, external sound to come from all directions (thus the sound from an aircraft or vehicle passing behind you comes from behind you).
3. More control over the type, mixing, and layering of audio files within the sim/sound.cfg. For example, I would like to have unlimited layers of sound that are independently controlled via the sound.cfg based on whatever factors I decide are relevant (speed, temperature, rpm, volume, etc).
4. A good sound design tool to allow better creation, manipulation, and testing of sounds within the sim environment. There is a tool called FS Sound Studio which is very old but allows some level of testing and adjustment. Something like that but a lot more modernized and comprehensive.
5. It's very hard to find any detailed information on creating sound in P3D. Please improve the SDK to provide a lot clearer guidance and examples that allow developers and tweakers to really take full advantage of the soundscape in P3D.

The sound in P3D has been largely ignored over many versions and is still based on very old FSX (and earlier) technology. I think it's about time to give it the love it deserves and I think would go a LONG way to improving the platform realism.