According to this -

http://satsun.org/audio/

Unreal II should support surround sound via OpenAL on Windows 7.

I have Windows 7, and OpenAL is installed. I am only getting sound from my front left and front right speakers in Unreal II. What could be wrong?

Make sure speakers are set to 5.1/7.1 via Windows Sound setting (Control Panel) and via your soundcard control panel. Also, try updating your soundcard drivers.

They are set to 5.1, and the center/rear channels fire when I click the corresponding speaker icons. I'll see if I can update the drivers, but I don't think they've released new ones for this motherboard for awhile. They're certainly newer drivers than Unreal II, anyway.

The sound card, BTW, is Realtek HD Audio integrated into the motherboard, and the speakers are connected via 6ch analog.

The last game I played was Deus Ex, using the Indirect Sound wrapper, and I did get proper 5.0 separation.

Win10 + Soundblaster X-fi here = also can't get surround sound (works in other games, even in Unreal 1) =(

I know this is a year old thread, but in case someone gets here looking for a fix:

go to <patchgame>\system\unreal2.ini and change "use3dsound" to true and "usedefaultdriver" to false.

there you go, surround sound.

Try using creative Alchemy to bring back EAX to life

I tried changing "use3dsound" to true and "usedefaultdriver" to false just as PCGW recommended but still no sound from my rear speakers. Also I used the OpenAL dll to replace the original one, still only front sound. Any other tricks?