Improved Engine Sound

  • Thread starter SammyXp
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Laorin
raymagnu, you'r right about the types of sounds that they're missing - but I don't agree with you on the data restrictions.

With the PS3's data capacity per disk (and HDD) there's no more excuses. We all need to face the music: PD's focused on pretty and not on grunt. That's the way it has always been and although it's getting better, it's like the AI. Never good enough.

They need to hire some audio engineers that know what the hell they're doing and introduce the sound that really makes the "punch" in muscle cars (or any car with sufficient engine)..

Subsonic bass.

That is what you feel in your body and soul when you hear any kind of decent car rev. It's what pierces your body and makes you aware of just how much power an engine has. You get a subwoofer that is capable of hitting those lows and I guarantee you it will sound a hell of a lot more realistic. Neighbors would be pissed but that's half the fun! Granted there's a billion more things to improve in sound like many of the things raymagnu listed but the super low frequencies have been mostly ignored in the GT games. Hell, a lot of the frequencies that are too low or high to hear by the human ear DO influence how we percieve things because we feel it directly. Common 5.1 surround sound systems and sound cards can carry higher than 44100hz sound. They just seriously need to take a look at the audio guys they've got over there because they aren't doing their jobs in terms of implementation.

I've got GTR2 and while overall I feel it is a much more awkward game to race (though I do play it on full simulation, so that's likely why), but they hit all the noises spot on. The creaks of the car as you go down the track and hit bumps, the whine from straight-cut gears in the transmission, everything is accurately represented about as good as you could get for when the game was released. Polyphony Digital and its fanboys have no more excuses. The PS3 is powerful enough. The discs hold enough. They have the fanbase, they have Sony backing them, they have a hell of a lot of employees.

No excuses. Period. They don't make the sounds right because they don't focus on it as much.
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The data restrictions can't be used by PD for the full GT5 release, but it is still a valid one as far as Prologue goes, the download comes in at 1.9 gig, with the BR release in at around 6 gig (the difference is made up of videos). So we are still looking at small data files here, and I doubt a great deal of it is sound.

I do however totally agree with you on the issue of compressed sound (I never download music as I certainly don't want to pay for a compressed audio file when I can buy the CD and get it uncompressed), and in regard to 5.1 systems and the advantages of a good sub. I would just add that a lot of the feel of a subwoofer comes not just from the power of the amp (passive or active) but from the construction of the sub and the size of the driver.

Personally I can't wait till I pick my copy of Prologue up (fingers crossed they post it out early) and seem what it sounds, looks and most importantly plays like. A lot of games recently have done very good things with sound and sound placements (Call of Duty 4 being a very good example), so I expect good things in the long run from PD.

Regards

Scaff
 
saint_dracula
I mean I saw a video of the Corvette C6 on rfactor and have also seen the Z06 in action in GT5; I mean, there is no comparison. Plus the corvette actually has hud.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=atbz5dlN0AQ see what i mean?

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VFywnHIuTtQ&feature=related (a GT5 vid)

There's no 'throbbing' of the engine; it sounds too linear.
But, without an iota of doubt, GT5 rapes this game graphics-wise.
Click to expand...

One thing that you have to remember about those two vids is that the rFactor one is the sound of a C6.R while the GT5P vid is just a C6 Z06 road car. You'll also notice that in the lower RPM range the gt5 version has a little throbbing and throatiness. But it does seem like American cars have suffered especially in this series, but if you'll remember in GT2 they seemed to be on the right track with a lot the American cars on there (they didn't sounds like vacuum cleaners). One thing I REALLY hope they fix in GT5 is the race car sounds. The fact that the C5.R and Viper GTS sounded like touring cars is unforgivable.
 
Scaff
The data restrictions can't be used by PD for the full GT5 release, but it is still a valid one as far as Prologue goes, the download comes in at 1.9 gig, with the BR release in at around 6 gig (the difference is made up of videos). So we are still looking at small data files here, and I doubt a great deal of it is sound.

I do however totally agree with you on the issue of compressed sound (I never download music as I certainly don't want to pay for a compressed audio file when I can buy the CD and get it uncompressed), and in regard to 5.1 systems and the advantages of a good sub. I would just add that a lot of the feel of a subwoofer comes not just from the power of the amp (passive or active) but from the construction of the sub and the size of the driver.

Personally I can't wait till I pick my copy of Prologue up (fingers crossed they post it out early) and seem what it sounds, looks and most importantly plays like. A lot of games recently have done very good things with sound and sound placements (Call of Duty 4 being a very good example), so I expect good things in the long run from PD.

Regards

Scaff
Click to expand...


I agree with your assesment Scaff, sounds spot on. I think sometimes developers get so caught up on one area(PD,graphics) that they tend to not allow resources or time for others( Sound). I agree also the COD4 had great sound, just a weak center channel signal imo.

Also another thing many of us can try if you need to "feel" the sound and your sub isn't up to task, look at the Buttkicker. They are very effective and add a lot of depth to your theatre experience. My sub does rumble through my couch and resonates strongly in the ideal seating position, but this is not the case for everyone, I feel that the Buttkicker would add, even to my system.
 
Scaff
The data restrictions can't be used by PD for the full GT5 release, but it is still a valid one as far as Prologue goes, the download comes in at 1.9 gig, with the BR release in at around 6 gig (the difference is made up of videos). So we are still looking at small data files here, and I doubt a great deal of it is sound.

I do however totally agree with you on the issue of compressed sound (I never download music as I certainly don't want to pay for a compressed audio file when I can buy the CD and get it uncompressed), and in regard to 5.1 systems and the advantages of a good sub. I would just add that a lot of the feel of a subwoofer comes not just from the power of the amp (passive or active) but from the construction of the sub and the size of the driver.

Personally I can't wait till I pick my copy of Prologue up (fingers crossed they post it out early) and seem what it sounds, looks and most importantly plays like. A lot of games recently have done very good things with sound and sound placements (Call of Duty 4 being a very good example), so I expect good things in the long run from PD.

Regards

Scaff
Click to expand...

Agreed. I had not taken into account that Prologue was going to have to be a bit more data-size friendly due to the downloadable aspect of things. Thanks for pointing that out! I don't expect Prologue to be a fully featured game or anything like that. I'm just praying that by the time GT5 comes around they'll have seriously done some work on that aspect of things. The sound IS better. Definitely. But they can do much better than what they *can* show us in GT5P and I guess all we can do is keep our fingers crossed for GT5 :)

Then again I remember before GT4 came around I said the same thing about the AI / Internet play and got burned pretty bad as a lot of us did. Haha :yuck:

Also if you're gonna grab music online, look for it in FLAC format. As an audio engineer myself I can attest that it is about as mathematically flawless as you're gonna get. Big filesize, sure, but master quality.
 
JTSnooks
Agreed, and you're right, it produces a completely different sound. But, it takes a long time to strap a car to a dyno, so I can see why they didn't do it. However, if it's going to take them a week or so to finish a car model (or probably more like 1 per day, really), then they can at least run a couple cars a day on a dyno. If they need the sound of a '66 Pontiac 389 running through the stock single exhaust, I'll gladly volunteer my car.
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You know, you'd think if they took all that time to lug the equipment out there to record stuff properly that they would take the extra 20 minutes out of their busy day and have someone hook the thing into a mobile dyno or something, anything to put it under load. Putting a car on a dyno does not take *that* long.
 
I think it comes down to this being the one area that PD shouldn't look for realism. If you look at GT4, sure I'd hear a lot more wind than I would engine noise if I'm sitting on the roof of a Viper going 300 km/h, but I don't want to hear more wind.
 
GTR2 is a great example of getting all the right sounds. When your driving a GUTTED touring car beast, your ears should be deafened by the high decible exhaust. Also, some sand and pebble noises for added realism like if you goto the very outside of a track or off it.
 
400m_rcr
I mentioned this in another thread, engine sound should be one of the top things to improve. Can a man hear VTEC crossover once?
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Yeah, that's one of my biggest gripes with GT games, where's the I4 8000 rev scream? Ironically, you can hear the changeover with the VFR VTEC motorcycle in Tourist Trophy. But from what I've seen in videos of GT5P it seems they haven't changed the way they record sound, revs in idle and digitally editing them for higher RPMS. So no VTEC for us :yuck:

You can hear it slightly in Forza games since they recorded vehicles on a dyno.
 

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