It's a big deal in my opinion. The absence of wind noise makes the driving feel more artificial than it needs to be.
I don't have FM5 but I've seen you mention this a few times. Do you have any specific examples?
You may have a point but at least FM6 has crisp sound. I'm definitely hearing distinction between cars in the new game, but I agree that upgrades could be reflected better sound-wise. Don't you think that cars in the old games sounded blurry and almost distorted?
I think Driveclub has a bland soundscape in general. What good is accuracy then?
1. Definitely - You're well past 160 km/h, and there's no road noise beneath the car at all. Or say you're well past 280 km/h in a 1700+ kg car and NO wind noise... many engines already sound artificial to me and the lack of road and wind noise makes it more artificial than it should be. I remember way back in the GT3 days, they had the road and wind noise down pretty good... heck, you'd even hear most of the wind noise cancelling out when you draft behind another car at high speed...
2. Ah, you must get FM5, it is absolutely worth it. Here's the thing, the graphics and overall scale of the game in F6 has been shrunken.. the tracks, objects and cars look smaller on the screen now, though cleaner with less aliasing. As for examples, I'll (just for you) take time out to take shots at the same angle of tracks in both versions. But just to give you a general example - when you look around, you do not see as many trackside objects or detailed backgrounds around the track which lets you "look around" the track surroundings in replays.. for instance, the mountains around Catalunya, or the mountains and valleys at the Bernese track, the lush valleys and treeline beyond the track area at The Ring etc. You really should get FM5 (very cheap now) and sit just 4 feet away from your screen to see how much detail was substracted from FM6.
It's a lot like what we saw between FM3 and 4.. the former being lush and vibrant with track detail, and the latter seeing detail omission to accommodate more cars and higher quality sound.
3. Well, on one hand, I quite like the cleanliness in the sound, on the other, I do not like engine/exhaust samples that sound basic compared to the previous masterpiece they made, although in their own right, they are okay, some very good actually such as the One-77 or 458 (both versions).
On the other, going between FM5 and 6, you are just left stunned thinking - where is that detail in the exhaust and drive by sound i.e. on my ZR1 or LaFerrari that I heard in 5? The thing with 5 is they sat down with nearly every car and took the pain of recording how exactly the engine and exhaust sounds at low revs, high revs, drive by sound, off-throttle and deceleration sound etc. They reproduced that in the game on a nearly 1:1 basis. Part of the problem in F6 lies in how they recreated the recordings in the game - not convincing, particularly when you take F5 into account. And no those sounds were not dolled up to give them a Hollywood edge but rather highly detailed representations of the real cars.
However, FM4's engine sounds were loud (which is good) yet somewhat distorted with certain cars (not good). I corrected that by setting focus to tires and lowering the master volume to 18 or 16. Works great. Those engines are still some of the best sounding ones I've heard in any car game.
Also in 5, you can literally start to hear the depth and detail in every car sound starting from low revs and it just gets deeper, more detailed and richer as the revs climb higher. That is fantastic and you do hear and feel that kind of depth and "richness" in real-life exotic car and sports car sounds. There's a distinct sound to each car which tells you what kind of soul it has; the banshee wail of an LFA, the nerve-racking snarl of the LaFerrari, or the deep, throaty and raspy exhaust of a ZR1 or Viper GTS....ALL of that wonderful detail is there in FM5 and in 6 too, however toned down and "civilized". My ears are practically salsa-dancing to the engine sound detail, crispiness and richness in F5, just don't know how else to describe it.
Either the X1 isn't powerful enough to maintain the same kind of audio fidelity/definition with more cars on track and night as well as rain, or the devs simply took a backseat on this one probably thinking, who's going to notice right, with all the additional cars and tracks?
I know for a fact, PG could have made the car sounds much higher-quality and visceral, they do have good detail at their core but any more detail and they would have had to either scale back the graphics or risk losing the locked 30 fps... which again leads me to believe: did MS misjudge how powerful the X1 needs to be at launch?
If you recall it was EPIC games that convinced MS to throw in additional RAM in the X360 so it could seamlessly handle their GOW engine at a silky 30 fps.
Sorry for the lengthy reply, but it gets to me at times to see them go to such painful lengths to get car sounds right, and then half-ass it with some, not all cars, in the next game. It is disappointing, to say the least, as a long-time fan.
They have been doing this since FM2 - a few steps forward, but only after taking a few steps back.
I'll get down to the photos just to show you what I mean with the track detail although a more fair comparison would be actual gameplay shots, since photomode shots are boosted anyway. Still, you will see what I mean when you see in the photos how the FM5 cars are smoother, rounder, curvier and sexier due to the higher poly count. They better represent their real-life versions.
4. And yes, DC's "soundscape" is rather bland, but the motor/exhaust sounds have been done nicely and they deserve points for that. I wouldn't want to play it though... ambient sound/race effects are VERY important to bring the experience together.
I'm assuming you're running the game on a good high-powered surround amp? Get F5 when you can, you won't regret it one bit. Sim steering is very smooth and responsive in 5 too.
.
Lol
