Surround Sound II

[Scorpiоn]

Here's a question: what does surround sound do exactly?  I got 5.1 speakers awhile ago, and I expected to hear artillery in Battlefield 2 behind me, to the left etc.  Instead, all it did was assign certain audio to certain speakers.  Radio was center, artillery was rear etc.  Is this right?  So far, the only was I was really pleased with 5.1 was music.  Lot's of bass. And this is only for games that support 5.1 of course.

Could this have something to do with sound cards?  I notice Battlefield 2 plugs Creative a lot.  I have AC'97.

[Politically Incorrect]

If your using a onboard sound card then I don't know if you can calibrate your speakers.
But with the Audigy 2ZS for example you need to calibrate your speakers, that is where you define the speaker placement (distance)  from you and the volume output of each speaker to make it all hit your ears at a simultanious time. Once that is done then you should be hearing true surround sound,

As for the specific game sounds coming from specific speakers I would think that would be a game setting maybe, that or your sound card only allows sound to be played in stereo and  each specific sound is played through a certain channel.

sorry if this sounds confusing, i nkow how i want to word it in my head just can't get my fingers to agree with me  LOL!