Why i still think proper replay sound can add realism even to the graphics! All we haf now is realistic visuals with flat sound...and watching replay is a strange experience. I understand that rfactor is all abt driving but u know. http://www.crankandpiston.com/on-the-track/poll-whats-the-best-sounding-race-engine/
I can tell you that engine sounds are spot on. My wife used to work around cars (and she's an amzing cook- she is a real keeper and has this uncanny ability to spot a car from a distance and tell the year model and make and also she has this uncanny ability to identify an engine by sound. I did a test of the ISI cars and some 3rd party cars and she could ID them by sound in the game. When you get the right mod the game's sound is incredible- the URD EGT mod is an example. I don't think the sounds are flat.
I absolutely agree with you. Somehow "sound" within the game/sim world has become an underdog. People who play games are more interested in graphics than sound. I'd rather have good sound than good graphics. The whole SB market is almost dead. If wished they would pump SB cards like GPU cards but nowadays i wonder if anybody has a separate SB card in their PC. I think 80 % uses the onboard SB. So far i think R3E has the best sound but their external sound is also way to soft and lame. I do not know what the exact problem with sound is. Apparently is very hard to create "real world" sounds. Its is not on par with nowadays graphics, which is a true shame. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0BeB1JMpzo
I think he means replay sounds. Lacking wind noise/road noise, etc. The cars are impossible to hear until they are right near the camera.
Imagine an rf2 replay (with current graphics having those kinna external sound). It will definitely increase the feel by x9999999999999999999999999999999999999999!! Believe you me!
I'm curious if ISI will migrate over to this is they haven't started already. http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/windows/desktop/hh405049(v=vs.85).aspx
Id choose improved sound engine over 5.1 for racing anyday. Why is 5.1 so requested for a racing sim?
IMO, iRacing sounds (at least recently updated ones) are the best to date. The replays demonstrate very effective variation in approach vs. departure sounds when passing the camera. It's not just volume but, also pitch and tone giving the exhaust much more punch and rasp after the car passes resulting in very convincing track-side environment. These sounds make watching replays at high volume levels addictive for me. The cars to try are C6, Cadillac, Super V8, Lotus, & RUF.
I have worked in sound throughout my life. The sounds in rF2 are awful. Load up the Lola T280 and listen to ignition. You can tell that someone has put time and effort and skill into making it sound great - it is a perfect contrast to how terrible rF2 sounds in every other area. After ignition the sound becomes flat and drab. rF2 lacks all kinds of acoustic modelling - or at least it is not employed. Reverb tails off in strange ways, compression is not utilised properly, channels are not dynamically mixed properly etc etc I do not know why this is the case. There is no question that audio is a masterful weaver of immersion. There is no question it would add to the realism and - if properly done - can accentuate the already impressive experience. I can only suggest that the reason is because ISI has kept the audio production in-house, and has not gone out of their way to employ external professionals. Try sending any piece of audio to an audio producer and see what you get back. I don't care what the audio is or how good you think it already is. If the response doesn't blow you away, then find another engineer. Without going through that specific process, who knows what kind of sound you have. ISI is no different. It's like singing to yourself in the shower. I already know YOU think you sound great. TL;DR: Worlds-best-practice driving simulators, need worlds-best-practice audio.
Well Coops from Aussie, im glad that rF2 will follow your path of development...because apparently you have the monopoly on the truth.
Exactly! But from my understanding, i think a high quality virtual/real-time sound processing in game (echo, reverbs, doppler etc.) will take resources out of the gaming rig. (not sure cpu or the soundcard core itself) From wut i understand fr ISI, these processing power is gonna be prioritised for the physics simulation. Which i think why sound is taking a backseat.
Where do you want me to start?! and a new sound engine would bring 5.1 as standard anyway, it's needed, it was needed in rf1 let alone rf2!
Yup, thats why I think the pure sound engine is way more important than 5.1. The sound dynamics are wayyyyy too simple at the moment in RFactor 2, simply keeping it the same but adding more channels (5.1) won't do anything to improve that. The only difference will be that you have some more directional cues, but it's still the same crappy and overly simple audio modelling. We need the pure audio engine itself doing much more complex things with sound, regardless if it's 5.1 or 2.0. I can find and blast a 2.0 sound real life raw footage video from youtube on my sound system and it will sound absolutely insane and beautiful, so if the game sounds like over simplified audio from the 1990s then simply adding more channels (5.1) doesn't change anything, well except that you hear that same simplified audio from more directional channels.
In racing sims directional sound is much much more important than quality. Personally I find the quality of rF2 sound good enough for now. Of course I wouldn't mind a few more sound samples but, yeah.
Really? I would have thought the opposite. It's not a shooter game where you need 360 degree awareness of enemies running, explosions going off, helicoptors coming towards you, etc. You are straped in a car where the engine is so loud that it fills up all the sound around you and you hear nothing else. You can't even hear other cars around you unless their exhaust is very close to you like when they are right in front of you and very close to your bumper, or when they are halfway alongside and half way in front of you (45 degrees). You don't hear cars that are behind you or coming alongside you but still behind and not alongside yet, you don't hear that. 95% of the time it's just your car blaring away with tons of drone filling the cockpit with sound, and that's all, hardly any directional audio, just your car blasting in your ears from all around.
I think so. You can hear where other cars are in relation to yours, hear a specific tire or side of tires which are squealing.
Everything you're saying can be done with 2.0. Left, right, and both played together for front. You don't hear rear lock up, infact you hardly hear front lock up either unless its really bad and you're car is really quiet, but not in most racecars. You also don't hear people coming up from behind you, absolutely no way at all, not even when they're on your bumper because you're car is wayyyyyyy too loud, again, unless you are in a really quiet car and the car coming up behind is really, really loud. I'm all for 5.1, I'm just saying that because ISI is a smaller team and they can only get so much done in so much time that I would rather have them first update the sound engine to have much more complex and dynamic sound, like for example Iracing, rather than keeping the exact same current sound modelling but having it output to more channels.
