GT5 Sound Thread

  • Thread starter Marry_Me_GT
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Thanks Balocco for the clip of my favourite Alfa, the underappreciated Montreal, and the ultimate Q-car the Thema 8.32.
The only fault ( well being Italian there were probably many ) this car had was a little boot lid spoiler which went up electronically if you went faster than 120 km/h, very easy to spot if you were a knowledgeable police officer. ;)

Oh, and the Lancia Thema, Saab 9000, Alfa 164 and Fiat Croma were all basically the same car, they were co-developed, as you probably know.
The Thema, 9000 and Croma even shared the same doors, only Alfa ( well, Pininfarina ) designed their own.
 
Ok, I suppose I'm generalizing a bit:sly:, but in my mind, when I picture an Italian V8, it sounds something like this(A lot of drama, very high revs, screaming mostly):


When I picture a German V8, it sounds something like this(subtler, mechanical, with almost synthetic sounding higher rpms)


And finally, when I picture an American V8, it sounds something like this(lots of bass, rumble and snorting, lowest redline out of all 3 types)


disclaimer: ;) Like all generalizations, it can't be right every time, but anyhow, this is an approximation of how I perceive different modern V8 engines...:dopey:
 
Italy: High pitch whine. Sexy and almost irritating at the same time.


Germany: A smooth yet muffled purr. Very easy on the ears.



U.S.A.: A vicious rumble with grunts intermixed within. Very rough and intimidating.



My take on the international differences.

And yes, speedfreak, your generalizations are spot on!
 
analog
The only fault ( well being Italian there were probably many ) this car had was a little boot lid spoiler which went up electronically if you went faster than 120 km/h, very easy to spot if you were a knowledgeable police officer. ;)
Click to expand...

Well, it's an electronically operated component on an 80s Italian car, so you have about 3,000 miles after first purchase where it would be an issue. After that, nothing in the universe, not even the will of god himself, will make that spoiler go up. Especially when you consider how the thing rises out of the trunk.



The Germans would just make it come straight out. But that's not good enough for the Italians. It lacks panache. It must flip, slide and then pivot into place.

I adore the Thema 8.32, it's one of the most ridiculous cars ever made. It's a front wheel drive car with a Ferrari V8, it has a hand crafted Poltrona Frau interior which helped, along with the V8, to drive the price up to way beyond what any sane person would ever pay for a car like this, and my favorite bit, in countries which required a catalytic converter, the 8.32 was actually slower than the Themas which had the turbo Fiat Twin Cam. I'll say that again, in countries that required a catalytic converter, the version with a Ferrari V8 was slower than the version with a Fiat fourbanger.

It's a stupid, stupid car in the absolute most wonderful way.
 
SrRd RacinG: Thanks?;)

While I'm generalizing, I'll throw in a wee bit of British flavor too:sly: (similar to American V8 sound, all shouty and in your face, but not so much in bass, as in mids, also has a cultivated aftertaste of fine vintage British race cars' sound to it :dopey:)
 
The header lengths can change the sound a lot
A Subaru flat 4 with unequal header length sound like it does - uneven and throbby like one side of a V8

swap in an aftermarket equal length header set and it sounds like a typical 4 banger, exhaust wise...
But you still have that uneven throb of a boxer engine on the the induction side
 
The Thema 8.32 is awesome, but it's only the second best front wheel drive car by an unconventional carmaker with an Italian supercar engine. It comes nowhere near the sheer "holy god this thing rules" levels produced by the Citroen SM.

It has all the brilliant stuff the DS has, the self-leveling hydropneumatic suspension, the steering wheel that electrically brought itself back to center, the self-leveling pivoting headlights and the inboard brakes all in a super-aerodynamic body from outer space, powered by a Maserati V6, which sings, just as you'd expect.



It's one of those cars that can't really be compared to anything beyond the most basic levels. There had never been anything like it when it came out and there hasn't been anything like it since.
 
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speedfreak69
Ok, I suppose I'm generalizing a bit:sly:, but in my mind, when I picture an Italian V8, it sounds something like this(A lot of drama, very high revs, screaming mostly):
Click to expand...

Well the Ferrari V8 uses a flat plane crank so it sounds like it does, basicly two 4 cyclinder engines at once. ie like Super GT cars

Your basicly comparing different engine configurations. All typical V8s with the same engine configuration pretty sound much the same
 
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Mercedes SLS flyby cought on camera(video is mislabeled)!!!:D


CoolColJ:
My love of cars is more on the perception(feel/look/sound) level, than on nerdy engineering level!:sly: Although I greatly respect engineer-side of things too!:)
 
Balocco
The Thema 8.32 is awesome, but it's only the second best front wheel drive car by an unconventional carmaker with an Italian supercar engine. It comes nowhere near the sheer "holy god this thing rules" levels produced by the Citroen SM.

It has all the brilliant stuff the DS has, the self-leveling hydropneumatic suspension, the steering wheel that electrically brought itself back to center, the self-leveling pivoting headlights and the inboard brakes all in a super-aerodynamic body from outer space, powered by a Maserati V6, which sings, just as you'd expect.

It's one of those cars that can't really be compared to anything beyond the most basic levels. There had never been anything like it when it came out and there hasn't been anything like it since.
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It seems we share the same taste in cars, apart from the Montreal and 8.32 you now show probably my all time favourite car ever ( the only car i own as a 1/18 scale model ) the glorious Citroen SM ( it deserves to be in GT5 as a historic milestone both in styling as in engineering, a high performance DS ) which until the 8.32 arrived was the fastest FWD car ever.
If it is to be realistically recreated it will probably alienate a lot of people as it is fast and capable but only when driven fluently, and a lot of people won't get the seventies space age jet set charm it oozes out of every part of this gloriously designed hybrid of Gallic style and Italian muscle.;)
 
Some very great vids with wonderful real sound demonstrations. I wish PD could watch these vids and learn from them, even Turn 10 can learn much from them. The main issue with the sound quality and realism in racing games these days isn't the lack of technology to record it properly, both PD and Turn 10 know using a Dyno with the car under load is the way, but its the time and manpower required to do so. I know that i would rather have the game GT5 sooner than later, especially if the sound is on par with Fm3.
 
I would argue that allocation of system resources during run-time also has a huge effect on the quality, but this, as well as all the things you mentioned, are caused by the same under-appreciation of the significance / importance of sound in games - at least by developers of yore - things are a-changing at last!
 
I've said it before and I'll say it again, you will never be able to recreate all the analog sound variations of a real car in a game ever. They haven't been able to 100% recreate a saxaphone in music software with or without samples, and a car and the environment it runs on is even more complex, and with all the extra overhead of a game engine.
 
CoolColJ
I've said it before and I'll say it again, you will never be able to recreate all the analog sound variations of a real car in a game ever. They haven't been able to 100% recreate a saxaphone in music software with or without samples, and a car and the environment it runs on is even more complex, and with all the extra overhead of a game engine.
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At least make it sound like what I'm driving is capable of putting out 400hp and not like a friggin moped.
 
Jarmo
At least make it sound like what I'm driving is capable of putting out 400hp and not like a friggin moped.
Click to expand...

That depends, if the real car developing 400hp sounds like a friggin moped it should be replicated to sound like a friggin moped.
Sounds, nice or not, should be like their real life counterparts, not what you want it to sound like, it's a simulation not imagination.
 
analog
That depends, if the real car developing 400hp sounds like a friggin moped it should be replicated to sound like a friggin moped.
Sounds, nice or not, should be like their real life counterparts, not what you want it to sound like, it's a simulation not imagination.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I agree but they are not like their counterparts in real life right now.

Try driving a Ford GT in Prologue and it just sounds pathetic, though at certain revs it does sounds good.

However, I'm sure the sounds will be improved in the final version.
 
Jarmo
Yeah, I agree but they are not like their counterparts in real life right now.

Try driving a Ford GT in Prologue and it just sounds pathetic though at certain revs it does sounds good.

Howeve, I'm sure the sounds will be improved in the final version.
Click to expand...

Sorry to say this but the Ford GT does IRL largely sound like this, it is a low-revving high torque American V8, it's merely the nuances of sound recording and the general muted and lifeless sound in GT which is considered a problem.
 
analog
Sorry to say this but the Ford GT does IRL largely sound like this, it is a low-revving high torque American V8, it's merely the nuances of sound recording and the general muted and lifeless sound in GT which is considered a problem.
Click to expand...

I know what a real GT sounds like. It sounds powerful. In GT the GT (confusing abbrevation is confusing) sounds weak.

Yes, it mainly sounds like the real thing but it is missing that something.
 
I know what you mean, it's a general concern regarding most cars in GT, that's what i meant by the muted and lifeless sounds in general and the sound recording techniques they use.
But i'm no expert, there are a lot of posts in this thread which explain it much better than i ever could.
Hope like you they will adress it in the final game, that they will find and add that something. ;)
 
Not every GT game had bad sounds. I just tried out GT3 again, and it sounds way better than GT4. They obviously had to cut back with extra doodads in GT4 taking up more memory

The Viper, NSX and Subaru 22b sounded like I expected they would, especially the 22B - that throbby Boxer sound was evident
in GT3 the sounds were fuller and with longer samples. The sounds all changed as expected with uprgrades. In GT4 it was more aliased and brittle sounding.

Sounds in GT3 was at least on par with Enthusia if not better. ButGT3 only had 150 or so cars, which is maybe why it was better, and GT4 was worse with a large increase in cars. The CD can only hold so much data :)
 
Having watched all the videos properly, I think I get where you're coming from with the generalisations (though, like all generalisations, they are generally wrong :P)
That 360 sounds like it has a Kreissieg exhaust on it, like the Countach I posted, and this Maserati:


Cross-plane sounds like a flat-plane? :odd:

M3

Still sounds like an M3! 👍

E92 M3


E60 M5


R8


R35


DB9


I think you get the picture, but it shows that if you take the same philosophy on exhaust design for a range of cars, they will all sound fairly similar in a way - in this case, the highly resonant "cans" and tips that give the scream and howl typical, it would seem, of Kreissieg.

This may not be your thing, but I posted these to illustrate that the manufacturer's have different ideas when it comes to how their cars should sound, and it has more to do with what image they're trying to portray than the fundamental design of the engine, at least as far as road cars go.

I'll leave you with this B8 S4 and a Ferrari Dino...

It's hard to find decent vids of the S4 that are to the point... the MTM kit seems to retain the character of the standard car, whilst others make it sound like a 350Z.


You can tell Audi was going for this sort of sound, rather than the howl of the Nissans etc.
 
CoolColJ
Not every GT game had bad sounds. I just tried out GT3 again, and it sounds way better than GT4. They obviously had to cut back with extra doodads in GT4 taking up more memory

The Viper, NSX and Subaru 22b sounded like I expected they would, especially the 22B - that throbby Boxer sound was evident
in GT3 the sounds were fuller and with longer samples. The sounds all changed as expected with uprgrades. In GT4 it was more aliased and brittle sounding.

Sounds in GT3 was at least on par with Enthusia if not better. ButGT3 only had 150 or so cars, which is maybe why it was better, and GT4 was worse with a large increase in cars. The CD can only hold so much data :)
Click to expand...

That could possibly be one of the more interesting posts in this thread recently! Unfortunately, I don't have access to a PS2 or a copy of GT3, but I'd love to compare otherwise identical cars for their sounds. Actually, I'm determined...

Given that GT5 will come on at least one Blu-Ray, I'd say space should be less of an issue (total guess) than it was for GT4 - all signs should point to improvement.
Fingers crossed!
 
I'll record some comparisons later, but I don't own all the cars in GT3, only 35% complete but I do have 100 million in the bank :D
 

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