Give us better sounds - PLEASE !!

[Eager Snake]

zedextreme8177, I think so too, but it's a good effort at least.

The e30 M3 in Shift 2 sounds exactly like the one in the video



Without the tranny whine, of course

About that video, I think that is depending on the point of view, as always happens.
It sounds similar, at least similar to me, in the middle of the video, the rest is good but not like the real one, but again, I think is matter of your point of view, To some people sounds good, for others sounds good and accurate, and for other none of the two.

By the way, mikecustom, you didn't told me what kind of equipment are you using. Do you remember I asked you about it?
I wanna know your settings, because in the better case your settings can help me and help us to improve the overall experience 👍

 

[FormulaKimball]

Lister Storm

Skip to 7:45

Thank you thank you thank you!! I had completely overlooked the Lister even though I have two in my garage, but seeing these two videos made me decide to try it. WOW.

The Lister sounds great (for GT5), plus the handling is what I might call "civilized", a bit of understeer but it also weighs a lot, yet seems nimble enough for what it is.

I did a fairly hopeless Seasonal (Real Circuit Tours at Nurb 24h) racing it against the Minolta and Sauber C9 among others, but didn't care that I kept finishing 3rd (or 2nd once or twice) because the experience was so nice.

This is definitely in my favorites now. I wish more V12 cars sounded like this. Good sound definitely takes some stress out of the game...

 

[Antonisbob]

The Lister-Storm does sound good for a GT game, but it's missing something... That 'raw' sound, if you know what I mean. In-game sounds somewhat digitized.

 

[zedextreme8177]

Thank you thank you thank you!! I had completely overlooked the Lister even though I have two in my garage, but seeing these two videos made me decide to try it. WOW.

The Lister sounds great (for GT5), plus the handling is what I might call "civilized", a bit of understeer but it also weighs a lot, yet seems nimble enough for what it is.

I did a fairly hopeless Seasonal (Real Circuit Tours at Nurb 24h) racing it against the Minolta and Sauber C9 among others, but didn't care that I kept finishing 3rd (or 2nd once or twice) because the experience was so nice.

This is definitely in my favorites now. I wish more V12 cars sounded like this. Good sound definitely takes some stress out of the game...

You're welcome! I feel that the engine sounds are about 35% of the whole experience, and driving a car with a good engine sound actually allows for more immersion in the game. A huge annoyance factor for me is having a car that does not sound like the version with it's actual engine. That was the reason I passed on the BMW V12 LMR each time it appeared in my UCD, since it sounds like a V8 while it has a V12, and with the R8 LMP's since they have a V8, yet sound like V6's . Of course, many casual gamers would not be able to even notice the difference, such as let's say a Gallardo vs. Murciélago.

The funny thing is that the Storm had that exact same sound sample in GT3 (likely increased in quality):


I don't know what idea they came up with for GT4, I'm sort of glad they switched it back to the GT3 version:


It is definitely a 3/6/12 cylinder sample, but the only thing I can think of which sounds even remotely close to it is a equal-length single-exit exhaust on a V12, and those aren't particularly common (the engine in the video is a 3-bank W12)


It seems as if they spliced the Minolta's engine sound, increased the pitch dramatically, then mixed it again with the existing sound. If you listen carefully, you can hear a hint of the Minolta sound at mid-revs (I wouldn't mind if they added this sample as an option for V12 single-exit exhausts though, since it sounds rather awesome IMO despite being relatively unrealistic).

The only complaint I currently have with the Lister Storm's sound in general (apart from the exhaust/intake stuff), is that the gearbox whine is too quiet now. It actually was much better and more realistic before one of the recent updates (can't specifically recall which one )

zedextreme8177, I think so too, but it's a good effort at least.

Yes, it is an excellent way to get an idea of how the cars should sound in-game, someone should send PD those videos. This is my personal favourite:

The Lister-Storm does sound good for a GT game, but it's missing something... That 'raw' sound, if you know what I mean.

Again, it's a combination of a lack of distortion (sounding too clean, possibly the exact main reason why GT5 cars lack the "raw" sound), a lack of a separate high-quality intake recording, and a lack of a proper exhaust recording.

The raw sound issue can be somewhat addressed apparently:

 

[Crowood]

Played Shift 2 unleashed the last few days, they did a partial good job with their car sounds. They also payed attention to the enviroment to reflect the sounds the cars produce. Means they actually included "echo" effects on narrow track parts.

The replays though are cheap made (think they were to lazy to pay enough attention to them)....you hear no turbo sounds and the "special" gauges don't work. Also if you watch them, i think, there is no sound dynamik at all.

I could record some vids, if you guys are interested.

 

[mikecustom]

Played Shift 2 unleashed the last few days, they did a partial good job with their car sounds. They also payed attention to the enviroment to reflect the sounds the cars produce. Means they actually included "echo" effects on narrow track parts.

The replays though are cheap made (think they were to lazy to pay enough attention to them)....you hear no turbo sounds and the "special" gauges don't work. Also if you watch them, i think, there is no sound dynamik at all.

I could record some vids, if you guys are interested.

Yeah, it's the doppler effect thats **** during the replays, during a race everything is nice.

 

[FormulaKimball]

You're welcome! I feel that the engine sounds are about 35% of the whole experience, and driving a car with a good engine sound actually allows for more immersion in the game.

...

Again, it's a combination of a lack of distortion (sounding too clean, possibly the exact main reason why GT5 cars lack the "raw" sound), a lack of a separate high-quality intake recording, and a lack of a proper exhaust recording.

Great stuff, man. That's the one thing I think PD need to address with the sound and the graphics too, IMO. Too clean. But I'll settle for engine sounds that have their natural distortion - distortion is cool!

Did you notice also how in GT3 there was more atmosphere, especially "evening" races? And the corkscrew at Laguna, *so STEEP* in GT3 and somehow GT4 and GT5 don't get that same feeling.

As for the awesome Lister, here's a vid I made of it winning the 650pp Nordschleife Seasonal:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8hQzCjkNsqc

 

[Eager Snake]

zedextreme8177, I saw the videos you posted a while ago and some of them, particulary the ones with the sound fix, are truly amazing.
It sounds pretty exciting, proving that the game would be almost perfect (let me dream) with a sound fix.

It's weird how all of us look out for the same kind of videos and, eventually, researched the very same thing.
I think we should JOIN US and look for a way to send the videos to PD.
They HAVE the resources, I mean, Sony is behind them and GT is one of their flagship titles. Any idea?

Imagine HOW MUCH the game will improve with the correct sound.
Louder, brutal, accurate (as it is in some cases)...

FormulaKimball 👍 I thought I was the only one who feels sorry for the sunset for example, at Laguna Seca.

Crowood, I get your point. I haven't played too much Shift 2, but I can say that GT5 has the echo all around the circuit.
It's really satisfying when you hear that is actually a lot things going on on the other side of the track.
... And yes, if you can, do some laps around and record a little to see that effect 👍

I don't know if it is a matter of equipment, but I can hear every single detail that you people mentioned.
I can assure you that the game has a superb job in the sound field, but the reproduction of the quality of the sound of the engines is another theme.
I'm really enjoying the game putting my HT really LOUD, with and without his flows in the sound deparment, but I can't say I wouldn't be more happy with realistic sound (with all that that entails)

 

[Crowood]

Jeah, all "soundstuff" (incl echos) is way to soft/clean in GT, but i do like GT s "soundquality" more then the shift one.

In Shift 2 the cars "feel" alive, but they sound allways the same. Means no matter if your car is a race version or stock, they sound exactly the same (the only sound differences are the turbo/blow off valves, transmission and drivetrain noises).

 

[Eager Snake]

Exactly, is somewhat contradictory to say something like this. The sound quality is better in GT5, but the quality of the engines' sound is better in Shift 2.

By the way, I think you are the first one, at least the first one I read, to say THAT thing about Shift 2.
I always thought the same, all of the cars sounds like race cars, and even worse they all sound the same.
Kazunori should learn something from the sound of Shift 2, Project Cars and many others. I find it so hard to believe that even being a professional race car driver he couldn't get the audio right.
I mean, yeah, the sound depending of the view is right, but that it's not enough.

 

[FormulaKimball]

It sounds pretty exciting, proving that the game would be almost perfect (let me dream) with a sound fix.

...

FormulaKimball 👍 I thought I was the only one who feels sorry for the sunset for example, at Laguna Seca.

Yes, love that Laguna Seca sunset !!

I dream of a GT6 with perfect (ok, believable) sound, small improvements to the atmosphere (slightly more gritty and warm lighting like GT3), and slightly more realistic physics (esp. braking, power and aero). Of course much of that is subjective and has to compensate for 1) it's a game, so there's certain sensations it can't recreate; and 2) it's a game, so the audience often likes things exaggerated so it's not "boring" or "too realistic". But IMO the biggest detractions from GT5's enjoyment are the dull engine sounds and the dim AI. And I could ignore the AI if the engine sounds were all really awesome.

 

[Crowood]

So here is the "echo" video i recorded

 

[Eager Snake]

Yes, love that Laguna Seca sunset !!

I dream of a GT6 with perfect (ok, believable) sound, small improvements to the atmosphere (slightly more gritty and warm lighting like GT3), and slightly more realistic physics (esp. braking, power and aero). Of course much of that is subjective and has to compensate for 1) it's a game, so there's certain sensations it can't recreate; and 2) it's a game, so the audience often likes things exaggerated so it's not "boring" or "too realistic". But IMO the biggest detractions from GT5's enjoyment are the dull engine sounds and the dim AI. And I could ignore the AI if the engine sounds were all really awesome.

Kudos man 👍

As I said so many times, I have no complaints over some engines sounds.
But I love to hear something like this too, but without the ridiculous movement, at least to me, of the car. What I want in that case is the movement of the head of the driver, not the car.
Generally speaking, I think the devs, and I mean ALL of them, can't get the right feeling of that, because I think they tried to recreate the movement of the cameras on-board the different cars assuming that that movement is realistic.
I remember the movement in the previous updates of GT5, there was an increased shake of the head that I loved so much, but then they took it away because many gamers complained it about it.

​

Crowood, I can't figure out the echo from your video, at least in the way I was expecting. I was thinking about hearing the cars from far away exactly.

 

[Foxiol]

Eager Snake...good for upload that video...i was about to put one too.

And we still have to wait a little more for the other cars.

RaceRoom Racing Experience has amazing sounds. Sad about the overall physics because we need to see how it will be without aids yet but still thanks to the sound and FFB the game keeps you going and going. I did tons of laps and managed to do a not so good time but i know i can do better.

One friend did 1.21.9...son of a b...xD...but he is amazing at rFactor,netKar Pro and iRacing (and at every racing game he plays) i am not surprised at all.

By the way...that´s how you make a menu.

 

[Dude27]

Internal sound are amazing BUT the external sound are a bit of a let down... it was so amazing with the Judd beemer teaser and its awesome dopplers... on this track, the replay sounds are quite boring, I don't know if it because of the cameras or the Aquila's engine, but it's disapointing... and where the hell are the dopplers? they don't sound quite as good as the beemer's replay video.

 

[tpark103]

To be honest I don't notice the sound. When I turn on my surround it's loud. I can't say that it's accurate but I guess I never expected it to be. I'm not sure what we are comparing our current sound to that we think it's so bad. I've seen stuff on YouTube with F4 and GT5 but we are talking about games the were released at two different times.

 

[Crowood]

I was thinking about hearing the cars from far away exactly.

Na, that is not what i meant....would be awesome, if the next GT game would have that in their replays

 

[mikecustom]

To be honest I don't notice the sound. When I turn on my surround it's loud. I can't say that it's accurate but I guess I never expected it to be. I'm not sure what we are comparing our current sound to that we think it's so bad. I've seen stuff on YouTube with F4 and GT5 but we are talking about games the were released at two different times.

FM2 and FM3 already had better sound than GT5, especially FM2 and that is old as hell.

 

[jimftr]

You know, i've never been bothered about any of the gt games in regards to sound.

 

[mikecustom]

You know, i've never been bothered about any of the gt games in regards to sound.

Do you even love cars?

 

[Eager Snake]

Crowood, I can hear them. In Nurburgring I can hear them from the main straigh for example really well. And I'm talking obviously when they are really far. It's awesome how they come and go and the sound resonates trough the circuit.
I have to admit also that I always put my HT really loud, at least when I can.

I have to record a video.

 

[Darren.]

PD needs to get FM4's sounds. GT's sound so generic. This video says it all,

 

[Eager Snake]

I don't quite think so, I do recognize that some cars (MOST of them) sounds bad, but I can't really find reality in FM4's sounds.
They are too exaggerated, at least for me, but hey, that's just my opinion and you can disagree with me.
GT5's sounds aren't the best ones, but FM4 is far from realistic in that area.

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

Has anyone tried Ferrari 599 Fiorano with stock exhaust, when I shift down and blip the throttle, I could hear the crackling back fire, does this happen to other cars as well ? I tried Lexus LFA, barely noticeable ... I cranked up the volume, love the sound of exhaust crackling.

 

[Dude27]

There is an area where GT5 is STILL ahead of the competition: the dopplers! never heard so realistic dopplers in any PC or console game than in GT5 (especially for the JTCC cars which sounds really nice - too bad they don't have the exhaust bangs and crackles):

 

[Griffith500]

Internal sound are amazing BUT the external sound are a bit of a let down... it was so amazing with the Judd beemer teaser and its awesome dopplers... on this track, the replay sounds are quite boring, I don't know if it because of the cameras or the Aquila's engine, but it's disapointing... and where the hell are the dopplers? they don't sound quite as good as the beemer's replay video.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Stv-iHOm0E

That is a very promising step forward, they're actually updating the audio control input at a sensible rate, so there is none of the usual (e.g. in FM4, the Shifts, other Simbin games etc.) "stepping" as the inputs change rapidly (free revving, close fly-bys etc.). Just a shame that there's only one external source, because the looped samples are excellent.

That's the next thing to tackle, convincing sound propagation from the various sources on the car - as a proof of concept, I applied a very approximate representation of the frequency-dependent directivity of a speaker (the exhaust is approximately a circular plane-source, much like a speaker diaphragm), and that alone made quite a difference to the expressivity of the exhaust sound as the car approached and drove by - it also gives that nice phasing effect as you "walk around" the car.
GT5 has the directivity, but it's not frequency-dependent, so the sound just gets louder or quieter as the angle changes (although their excellent exhaust flow-noise thinger does phase slightly; it's partly that, combined with the tyre noise, and the high-resolution audio control that makes the fly-bys so good in GT5). Then there's other cool stuff like the way the car's body itself radiates sound, and there are ways to collect all of these effects into one technique.

One thing that can never be solved with ordinary sample-based synthesis is the stretching of frequencies that should be static (often called "formants") - these are things like the resonance of the intake manifold, or the harmonic rattling of an exhaust (its natural frequencies don't change, it just switches mode as the energy input changes) - these things should be held roughly constant (or modeled separately somehow, e.g. filters) whilst only those harmonics that are coming from the engine should be shifted as the revs change. In this video, notice that the overall "envelope" of the sound stays roughly the same (showing the formants) as the pitch increases, which can be seen in the "spikes" (harmonics from the vocal cords) moving left-to-right - the last sound is simple pitch shifting, notice how it moves all frequencies indiscriminantly and as such it sounds unnatural.

There has been an attempt at this already with musical instruments, based on "spectral morphing". This is where you extract the highly-structured harmonic sound (e.g. of an oscillating reed, or embouchure) and separate it from all the noise and the (pitch-invariant) formants present in a recording, and then adaptively recombine them using some form of additive synthesis. Additive is usually very expensive, though, so you have to be a bit clever - knowing the target sounds can help shortcut a few things at the expense of generality of application.
There's also this, which uses "grains" (small snippets) of the sound of a car accelerating (and / or decelerating), and loops them according to the detected engine speed. It has the disadvantage at the moment of not sounding great at steady state (audible looping.)

 

[FormulaKimball]

PD needs to get FM4's sounds. GT's sound so generic. This video says it all,

Awesome vid. Yeah I'd say the sound in FM4 is way better. I don't mind if they exaggerate the engine sound in order to convey sensations you can't get in the game (like the vibrations of the engine coming through your seat and the pedals and the wheel). It's far better than having engines that sound sick.

Loved that RaceRoom Aquila CR1 vid as well, wow the thought of having GT5's handling but sound that good ... I even liked the bouncy foreground - your head isn't mounted to the car like on-board cameras are, so the car body should bounce a little.

It's funny, but lately I've had a heavier foot in my own car just to play with the sound. Even my 2.5 I-4 engine sounds ANGRY if I put my foot down and rev beyond 3000rpm. Lots of nice meaty distortion. All engines in GT6 better have that quality at full throttle.

 

[Eager Snake]

There is an area where GT5 is STILL ahead of the competition: the dopplers! never heard so realistic dopplers in any PC or console game than in GT5 (especially for the JTCC cars which sounds really nice - too bad they don't have the exhaust bangs and crackles):

Exactly. I love how the sound comes and goes all over the circuit.

Ridox2JZGTE, yes, the DTM Opel Astra for example. There are many cars that has that kind of behaviour, but sadly, the effect depends on your Audio System, or at least that's what I learned.
When I go to play in my father-in-law's house I can't hear the backfire.
He plays on an common LCD, because his HT passed away a few months ago, and again, I can't hear that kind of sounds like in my house with my HT.

As for the sound in FM, I don't want to hear the sound in that way, I want them to be realistic, not exaggerated.

I think it's a matter of taste, I want realism, some people want "male sounds" (or at least is the way some people call it) but again, I think that's ok.
We all want better quality in the sound and not to be tweaking and modifying the settings in out HT to get a better sound.

 

[TURNIP]

that FM4 comparison vid says it all, last time i checked supercars are very loud, they don't sound like blenders as GT5 has portrayed most of them.

 

[Ridox2JZGTE]

Ridox2JZGTE, yes, the DTM Opel Astra for example. There are many cars that has that kind of behaviour, but sadly, the effect depends on your Audio System, or at least that's what I learned.
When I go to play in my father-in-law's house I can't hear the backfire.
He plays on an common LCD, because his HT passed away a few months ago, and again, I can't hear that kind of sounds like in my house with my HT.

When I found about it, I was driving the 599 Ferrari at Monza, it has stock exhaust, the back fire was audible enough when I crank the volume of my AVR to -20 dB and Tone In settings at max bass +10 dB and treble of +8 dB.

The Tone In settings changes the sound totally, the distortion, the rawness of the sound are amplified, and driving the Jaguar XK and Ford GT40 were like a dream. Another method is to use LPCM stereo output ( living room or small theatre ) on GT5 and enable DTS NEO 6 3 channel Movie mode on the AVR while using the Tone In feature.

The DTS NEO 6 3 channel movie boost the mid freq, while the Tone In boost the bass and treble, and for even more kick, add another 1 to 10 dB on individual speaker level settings. This was on Harman Kardon AVR. Large Theatre also sounds nice, but I hate the crash sound getting very loud.