Improved Engine Sound

[SammyXp]

i don't think PD needs better sounds guys... this conversation is going backward.

I think the problem resides in the Game Engine. Or the Sound Engine anyhow. Its most probably the same engine they revamped from GT2. (which was the same as GT3 i believe).

Basically, the Engine itself is incapable of running high quality sound bits because it was designed for the PS1-2 and since it was revamped to better suit the PS2, it does Dolby Digital, but not high quality sound synthonisation.

The games that have good engine sounds for me are current or next-gen titles: mainly Need for Speed Underground (2 & MW) and Test Drive Unlimited.

I have not heard better sounding cars since.

Wait, you contradict yourself. First you say...

i don't think PD needs better sounds guys... this conversation is going backward.

Then you say...

Basically, the Engine itself is incapable of running high quality sound bits

So which is it? Either way, it would seem that it is opinion rather than fact. The fact is that other game developers have managed to create somewhat more realistic sounds, even with the hardware architecture they were limited to in the PS2. Which, while we're giving opinions, isn't much of a limitation at all.

I'm sure PD put forth their bestest [sic] try in this game in every aspect they deemed important. My primary point is that they didn't put much emphasis on sound, and it would seem there are far more who would like to see the sound improved than those who think it is fine the way it is.

 

[RedOak]

you're not getting me Sammy.

When i say the conversation is going backward is because everyone is saying PD didn't record good sounds and its the PS2's fault. That is not true.

The problem is with the sound engine PD's GT series is using. I'm guessing its the PS1 (GT1/2) sound engine that was revamped for the PS2 (dolby surround) for the GT3/4 games. So basically, a weak and outdated sound engine.

PD probably have very accurate and high quality digital sound recordings of every cars known to man, but they lack the software to properly run it. And that's most probably due to the lack of space /choice in their game. With that many tracks and cars, its a lot of Data to put in a CD and the load up in streaming mode (The PS2 doesn't have a HDD). WIth the coming of the Bluray and the PS3's HDD, plus the high memory capacity, streaming and pre-loading sounds (amongts other things) should be a breeze.

That's what i'm saying. I doubt its PD's recordings that's the problem. Its PD's sound Engine that needs to be trashed and changed for a new DTS-ready sound engine.

Like i said earlier, a good exemple is Need for speed Underground/most wanted. You can tell by the quality of the sounds (on a DD system of good quality, it makes a lot of difference) is a lot higher then normal. Because their sound engine (and sound designers) rock. Same goes for the TestDrive Unlimited Demo... the car sounds are very good and unique.

Overall, roughtly 65% of the entertainment experience is related to sound. Not graphics. That's why you can watch a movie on a big screen, but it'll only make it better once you jack in a DTS system.

to conclude, this is what i believe to be the problem. The Sound Engine of the GT series. They need a new one.

 

[SammyXp]

I gotcha RedOak. You're talking software, rather than hardware. Which is a stronger argument, but I still disagree. The way PD modulates the sound is actually pretty good (better than GTR, possibly). The way the rev's respond to throttle input vs available traction, etc. That's all great. My problem is the raw data that underlies all that modulation. The point I use to support my argument is that there are some cars that sound pretty stinking decent.

The fact that other games make better use of the PS2's hardware proves that PD could have done better.

And...

The fact that some of the cars in GT4 sound better than others proves that PD could have done better. Perhaps not coincidentally, most of these cars seem to be those added to the game inbetween its overseas release and its US release. Perhaps it was a time crunch?

 

[RedOak]

Good point you are making Sammy. But i can't agree to the fact that the cars sounds are good. well perharps a better scale would be required to be clear :

Stink --> ok --> Good ---> very good ---> awesome

With that, i think the GT4 sounds range from Ok to very good.

My main problem with the GT4 sounds tho, is not the higher end cars, like all the GTseries cars, Lemans, F1s and all those 600+ BHP. Forgive me for saying this, but all those cars have high pitch engine sounds and although there are differences, they are not as noticable (on the grand scheme of things) has low roll engines.

Its the casual and "unique" cars sounds that bug me. For exemple, the Benz SLR McLaren... That car as a unique sound... but in GT4... the car trully sounds like crap (Stinks) unfortunatly. Same goes for most US musles like the FOrd GT... it sounds "ok" but noway near as good as it should. In reference, i look at the mustang 500. Again with an OK sound... load up Test Drive Unlimited on the 360 and the car just ROARS and comes to life instantly. you FEEL like you are in it. That sound is AWESOME in comparison with the GT4 counterpart.

Overall, i really think the audio engine PD is using is weak and outdated. Its not meant to process that level of quality we are 'used' to now or what we are expecting. Need for Speed has the heavy metal clutch sound integrated as well, which is a very nice addition too.

Overall, I'm not blaming PD for their choice, but i can't stop to think that they could've done better... and here's hoping they WILL do better in GT5 for the PS3.

 

[SammyXp]

On your scale, I'd put most of the cars in the "stinks" to "good" category. The classic Ford GT40 might actually be "very good" at idle, and then ranging from "ok" to "good" at times. That car is one of my favorite to drive in the game, just because the sound isn't quite as bad as some (like the SLR!).

I think you're right in that high-revving cars are a little easier to replicate than low-rpm torque monsters. The frequencies are more fundamental than at low rpms, where subharmonics and resonances seem to come into play to a much greater extent.
Maybe that's why the Japanese cars sound better? Or is it a bit of a bias?

 

[RedOak]

Maybe that's why the Japanese cars sound better? Or is it a bit of a bias?

That could make a lot of sens. Maybe it also comes from a very 'Drift' centric country, where all the cars are high revs and stuff. anyhow, that's only speculation althought the 'Japan' factor does make some sens.

 

[Dimitrov]

Maybe that's why the Japanese cars sound better? Or is it a bit of a bias?

If I had a Softhouse, I would include all Brazilian cars and make them sound better as possible.

It is called Nationalism. They have the right to bias the game the way they want. If they want to include 6.02 x 10^23 Skylines, it is for their market. If you don't like, don't buy it.

Btw, it is much easier to dissecate a Nissan in Japan than make it with an old Opel Commodore.

Where the hell shall Tetsuo / Tsubasa / Horoshi (or another japanese developer) will find an Opel Commodore to record its sounds?

 

[SammyXp]

Where the hell shall Tetsuo / Tsubasa / Horoshi (or another japanese developer) will find an Opel Commodore to record its sounds?

Jump in a plane? That's what Simbin did. Flew all over the world, not only to record auto sounds, but to take GPS measurements of tracks.

 

[Dimitrov]

Now do that for 650 cars

 

[SammyXp]

Not as hard as you think. Especially on PD's budget. Possibly even cheaper in many cases than fully synthesizing sounds from scratch. And just think - the one sound recording for the Skyline takes care of 10% of the entire field!

 

[NismoR34Ztune]

heheh but in that case i wouldn't be suprised if PD was so perfectionistic they recorded all models and not use one recording for all Skylines

 

[RedOak]

heheh but in that case i wouldn't be suprised if PD was so perfectionistic they recorded all models and not use one recording for all Skylines

hahaah well that might be pushing it a little, but still.

....ferrariiii.....

 

[JohnBM01]

This has always been a shadowy topic. How exactly are we judging engine sounds? A number of games have inaccurate sounds, even Forza Motorsport when it came to the Ferrari 333SP. Not the sound I remember. The key complaint here is probably with American cars. I've always believed that a Racing Muffler for a car is for pure racing. The American roar (try putting a Racing Muffler on the 2005 Ford Mustang GT in GT4) wasn't too good. People are going to complain to high heavens about this issue in regards to American muscle cars. How do you get it absolutely right so that people don't cry and complain about it here in the States? The extra capacity of the PS3 will likely allow for more storage. And unlike many people who want stupid amounts of content and very little of the game itself, it may be possible to have more sound samples for almost every car (even if it's a "clone"). The sounds aren't going to be spot on or just as you remember. The trick is to being as close as possible. I do think the Tickford V8 Supercar was close in sound, but not close enough.

I think PD can really improve in this department with car sounds. We just need to better define "improved sound" in regards to all the cars either with regular mufflers or racing mufflers. This is just a mixed subject that needs to be better defined.

 

[SammyXp]

Do you guys honestly think that sound processing respresents anything more than a mere fraction of the system's processing power? If they can bring us the very ample video quality we are seeing, better sound should be a walk in the park.

 

[Jedi2016]

Do you guys honestly think that sound processing respresents anything more than a mere fraction of the system's processing power? If they can bring us the very ample video quality we are seeing, better sound should be a walk in the park.

It takes up a fair amount of power, actually. Not much compared to the graphics and physics and stuff, but it's not paltry. I don't know the specific numbers, but the PS2 is only capable of playing a certain number of sounds at any given time. I think that's part of where the problem comes from in GT.

For each car on the track, you've got engine, transmission, and tires. For the player car, you also have wind. The system also has to hold in memory incidental sounds like off-road, different tire squeals, and collision sounds. Plus the ambient noise of the track, which in GT4 is limited to only one sound, the generic "crowd" sound with that über-annoying air horn. So right off the bat, you have nearly thirty simultaneous sounds going at any point in a race.

In order to get "realistic" engine sounds, that number would have to increase significantly. Right now, each car has only two or three different engine tones stored in memory, for different rev points along the band. In order to fill up the rest of the rev band, they simply pitch the sound up and down, which results in the "fake" sound that we hear so much. Ideally, the cars should have at least a dozen unique engine sounds, so the pitching between them is very minimal, and would yield a more realistic sound. Rather than pitching the sound up and down, it would simply fade from one to the next as you work your way through the rev band. The PS2 cannot do this. Especially not with it pumping out the level of graphics that we see in GT.. the part that makes it perhaps the single best-looking game on the console, and has always been PD's central point in making the games.

Part of the current-gen problem is that the PS2 has only one processor. Technically, I think it has two, but one is used primarily to improve the graphics, the other, main processor is used for everything else. Graphics, physics, sound, control, everything. That's a lot for a single processor, especially one as weak as the PS2's.

The hope is that the PS3 will alleviate this by it's multi-processor design. PD can dump all of the sound calculations onto a single SPE in the Cell. A whole processor that does nothing but process sound. And the system has plenty of memory to store as many unique sounds as PD wants to dump in there.

Whether they'll actually use it is another story altogether. So far, we haven't seen anything to suggest they will. Then again, we haven't seen anything of GT5 yet. I wouldn't go talking about the "ample video quality" we've seen, because we haven't seen anything at all except GT4 running in high-definition. Whoopty-doo. The PS2 version can do that, just not quite as well as what they were showing at E3.

Right now, it's a waiting game. And it'll probably be some time before we see anything of the real GT5. And even then, we won't know for sure until we actually play it, since their publicity videos, and even demo software, sounds very different from the final game. In reality, we won't know until the game's actually in our hands to play. And that's some time away.

 

[SammyXp]

In order to get "realistic" engine sounds, that number would have to increase significantly. Right now, each car has only two or three different engine tones stored in memory, for different rev points along the band. In order to fill up the rest of the rev band, they simply pitch the sound up and down, which results in the "fake" sound that we hear so much. Ideally, the cars should have at least a dozen unique engine sounds, so the pitching between them is very minimal, and would yield a more realistic sound. Rather than pitching the sound up and down, it would simply fade from one to the next as you work your way through the rev band.

Simbin does it with only three sounds - low revs, mid revs and high revs. Well, six, because they record both on and off throttle. But it only has to mix between three, depending on throttle position. With how great GTR sounds, a dozen seems like it would be unecessary. And three doesn't seem like it would be too difficult. GT4 currently has as least 2, if not even 3 or 4. When the car is sitting, idling, and then coming off throttle, and then beyond that it all just sounds like a leaf blower changing in pitch, but it seems like they're on the right track. Just needs to be implemented better.

 

[JohnBM01]

Well keep in mind, GTR is about pure race cars. So there's no such thing as street car sounds as opposed to race car sounds. There are much fewer cars in GTR, so of course each car will sound as distinctive as possible. We're talking about Gran Turismo here. This is a game with a great variety of street cars and competition cars. I don't care how hard you try, it's an uphill battle in getting in as many accurate car sounds as possible. Sounds would have to be different from each angle of the car. Can you really make 700 cars all sound completely different while being as accurate as possible?

Again, I'm not making stupid claims about how powerful the system will actually be. We know it's a powerful system, but how powerful and how much can be acheived are the key areas of discussion. GT5 will likely be a better system transistion than GT2 to GT3. And let's not forget about 20 or so cars to a track. The number from the high-res deal was 12, but let's say 20 cars to a track. Would you be able to tell each car apart? Will they sound honest-to-goodness accurate? This is gray matter in which I think PD is probably better able to come up with the best possible package for car sounds in GT5.

 

[SammyXp]

Well keep in mind, GTR is about pure race cars. So there's no such thing as street car sounds as opposed to race car sounds. There are much fewer cars in GTR, so of course each car will sound as distinctive as possible. We're talking about Gran Turismo here. This is a game with a great variety of street cars and competition cars. I don't care how hard you try, it's an uphill battle in getting in as many accurate car sounds as possible. Sounds would have to be different from each angle of the car. Can you really make 700 cars all sound completely different while being as accurate as possible?

Yes. They can.

But will they? Not if we don't demand it. We must demand excellence, or we will continue to be fed mediocrity.

I'm absolutely convinced they can do it. And I believe it is imperitave that they rise to the standard that other game developers have set. They imposed the sheer quantity of cars on themselves. They can manage it. They've already sold over a million copies of GT4. They sold 1.8 million copies of GT3. I think they realize the precedent they've set for themselves.

 

[everybodysfool]

i thought that some of the engine noises in GT4 was somewhat decent. provided you are in bumper cam looking backwards while driving.

really do hope they fix this though, as well as car physics at low speeds.

 

[SammyXp]

Yeah the rear bumper cam view does provide improved sound, for sure. Which just goes further to show that they could do better. They just got it wrong is all!

 

[salguod]

i don't know if anyone else has noticed this but, if you listen really carefully you can hear an echo, so i take it that the engine sounds were recorded in some sort of warehouse. I think they can do better.

 

[Tenacious D]

The PS2 as well as the XBox have audio effects which they use to "environmentalize" the race sound. That's what you're hearing.

 

[scoobyonline200]

I just finished playing Toca Race Driver 3...the DTM Series, and I have to say. The engine sounds in this game are really nice, not all engine noises are great. BUT the few that are there, which is quite more than you think... are actually really good (IMO). My favorite are the 1960's F1 cars...the Team lotus cars. They sound AMAZING!! especially on a 6.1 system. Its really awesome!

 

[GM]

i you can hear an echo, so i take it that the engine sounds were recorded in some sort of warehouse.

I think thats for realism when driving in tunnels, especilly in a Spoon Civic Type R, that sounds wicked.

Anyway, I doubt they were recorded in a warehouse, probaly in a soundproofed room, but still Polyphony Digital did'nt do a bad job, but could do much better.

 

[shawtyoner]

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know if the sound in GTHD will be improved? Im sure GT Premium using next gen hardware will support better sounding cars, but will GT Classic be bumped up with better sounding cars as well?? I know the graphics will be improved resolution wise from GT4, but what about the sound?

 

[HKS_T51KAI]

Recently brought GTR2, the sounds are just so awsome, the M3 GTR sounds so different to that of GT4, I guess GTR2 is an offical FIA GT game, unlike GT series, so their games have to be almost perfect. I noticed that everytime you let the throttle off, you really hear the popping sound, backfire and all. The thing is, the car always sounds different on the inside compared to outside, which GT series hasnt really done, unlike GTR2.
Thumbs up for GTR2:tup:
Hopefully for the next gen GT, they will do what Simbin had done, but they are 2 different companys so yeh.
What kills me the most, the custom gear boxs, just hate the sound when your in the 3rd person view in GT4, gear boxs dont whine that loud!

 

[Wolfe]

Recently brought GTR2, the sounds are just so awsome, the M3 GTR sounds so different to that of GT4, I guess GTR2 is an offical FIA GT game, unlike GT series, so their games have to be almost perfect. I noticed that everytime you let the throttle off, you really hear the popping sound, backfire and all. The thing is, the car always sounds different on the inside compared to outside, which GT series hasnt really done, unlike GTR2.
Thumbs up for GTR2:tup:
Hopefully for the next gen GT, they will do what Simbin had done, but they are 2 different companys so yeh.
What kills me the most, the custom gear boxs, just hate the sound when your in the 3rd person view in GT4, gear boxs dont whine that loud!

GTR2 doesn't have nearly as much content as GT4, which is one reason why they could pay closer attention to detail. Another (possible) reason is that the SimBin guys simply cared about the sounds more than Polyphony Digital did.




Also, the whole "the PS2 isn't capable of producing great engine sounds" idea is false. GT4 had poor quality sounds, yes, but the sounds in Enthusia, TRD, or even the Need for Speed games were a lot better. As I said above with GTR2, it's the sheer amount of content that likely did GT4 in.

I still remember the first time I saw a video of GT4 when it was nearing completion, and heard that the sounds were all exactly the same. That was so disappointing.

 

[Mr Deap]

GTR2 doesn't have nearly as much content as GT4, which is one reason why they could pay closer attention to detail. Another (possible) reason is that the SimBin guys simply cared about the sounds more than Polyphony Digital did.




Also, the whole "the PS2 isn't capable of producing great engine sounds" idea is false. GT4 had poor quality sounds, yes, but the sounds in Enthusia, TRD, or even the Need for Speed games were a lot better. As I said above with GTR2, it's the sheer amount of content that likely did GT4 in.

I still remember the first time I saw a video of GT4 when it was nearing completion, and heard that the sounds were all exactly the same. That was so disappointing.

Sound are stored in the main memory & they eat CPU power when compressed. I bet GT4 sound quality is to maintain the 60fps on the gameplay.

 

[Patrik]

I still remember the first time I saw a video of GT4 when it was nearing completion, and heard that the sounds were all exactly the same. That was so disappointing.

yeah, the sound have been the same from the first GT which
sucks.. pretty sure the soudn in GT5 will be improved though..

 

[Sportscar_Rob]

Recently brought GTR2, the sounds are just so awsome, the M3 GTR sounds so different to that of GT4, I guess GTR2 is an offical FIA GT game, unlike GT series, so their games have to be almost perfect. I noticed that everytime you let the throttle off, you really hear the popping sound, backfire and all. The thing is, the car always sounds different on the inside compared to outside, which GT series hasnt really done, unlike GTR2.
Thumbs up for GTR2:tup:

The fun thing is, the GTR2 community is complaining about the bad sounds , infact some cars share the same soundfile. I agree though, allready a huge leap forward compared to GT4 but still far away from beeing perfect.