There’s no real way to dance around it: engine sounds have not been one of Gran Turismo’s strong points, historically. While a few of the 1200+ cars in GT6 howled and growled authentically, the majority left a lot to be desired for many players. This latest video, straight from the floor of the Paris Motor Show, could be a sign of those days drawing to a close.
Showcased by french website Planete-GT, the big difference here compared to other videos we’ve seen recently is the direct capture of the audio. Without the sound of the surrounding event drowning out the game, we’re given a rare opportunity to experience the improved sounds of the title itself. The GT-S’ turbo V8 takes a starring role, and first impressions are good.
For starters, the engine note has more depth than we tend to hear from Gran Turismo. It’s richer, and less sterile-sounding. The off-throttle burble entering braking zones is also impressive. How does it stack up to the real thing? GTPlanet member KevenHeryanto hunted down an appropriate comparison clip:
As mentioned above, engine sounds have long been a bugbear for Polyphony Digital. The subject is of such importance that when the team launched the PitStop blog in 2014, that was the first subject Yamauchi & Co. talked about.
If you’ll pardon the pun, actions speak louder than words, and Polyphony’s move to bring on former Forza Audio Lead Mike Caviezel last year was a further sign of intent. What we’re hearing above could be the beginning of the audio renaissance fans of Gran Turismo have been clamoring for.
Of course, not all of the sound effects heard in the video are flawless: the clunking when two cars collide is particularly strange. But with at least a few months to go before GT Sport is released, this audio progress is nonetheless encouraging. With Paris Games Week happening later this month — the same event the game was originally announced at in 2015 — we’re curious to see what Polyphony may have in store.
As ever, don’t forget to swing by our GT Sport forum sections to discuss this and other news.
A tip of the hat to okami11408 for first sharing the video.
See more articles on GT Sport Video and Polyphony Digital.
It’s too distorted through improper recording to tell if there’s any improvement.
Yes it sounds better but anything would sound better than it did!
Bottom line is it still sounds like garbage. Sounds very electronic. No life at all. Very monotone. I think you guys get my drift.
While this is an improvement, it still lacks a little more “Oomph,” if that makes any sense.
…I can’t believe that we are still uncertain about what has been for granted for ages in Driveclub – and this time sound-wise speaking. We get excited that just ONE car sounds as good as it should in the firstplace, while the only improvement as far as I can tell is graphics-wise… everything else.. still meh.
Race craft is a foreign concept to this driver.
PD, please change or update the generic collision sound, it it very grimacing and noise polluting, to say the least.
It still sounds cheap. No overrun, no blowouts, no breaks to hear, no rattling of the framework, no sound from the differential, just engine an squealing tire noises.
An i´m tired of seeing video with the view of a bus driver with a head up display.
Show real cockpit views please.
Sounds good, but not perfect. There is still lots of room for improvement.
The V8 sound in GT never was a big problem. And while it sounds better than the vacuum cleaner sounds. After a while it gets pretty annoying since the tone level and shifting rhythm is pretty even.
Nice improvement.
The collision sounds are off, but that may be a mix issue too perhaps. Though I haven’t been in a race car when it bashes into another one, so I have no reference :)
I wouldn’t be too enthusiastic about the sounds. PD had always good sounds for the deep V8 engine cars, like old muscle-cars. The problem are the high-pitch screaming Ferraris and other cars with high RPM. Let see how a Ferrari or similar sounds like?
Except of this… the car collicion sounds are still horribly… and no damages at all at the cars :(
Im still waiting for GT 7 :)
Just release the damn game already
Sounds are good. Driver needs some work.
HAHA! Thats what I’m talking about!! Well done PD, we are finally getting somewhere! Now keep it up and do that for all the others!
Wow, that’s the biggest improvement that I’ve seen (or rather heard) so far. Still not quite convinced that I’ll be getting that game any time soon, mainly because it’s more of a racing game (I’m more into cruising). The real AMG GT sounds amazing!
I was actually caught by surprise when I heard how much better this sounded compared to GT6. It still needs some work, such as the popping noises heard, a bit more growl rather than screaming. Now, if PD applied this major sound improvement to all of the cars, then GTS will maybe, just MAYBE, be an actual successor to GT6… Not putting my hopes too high though just yet.
Sounds quite decent IMO. Until he hits the Aston One-77 and then the immersion is instantly gone. Collision sounds need some desperate work as well.
PS – show some new tracks already, showing same old Nordschleife / Tokyo / Brands Hatch gets boring.
Still sounds like GT’s generic awful V8 sounds. They’re okay compared to the rest which is why this might stand out, but it still sounds crap.
Got to agree with you there. For someone who races cars and supposedly is car crazy they certainly have never got sounds right.
Totally disagree. Get some better headphones. :)
While sound-wise this is indeed a major step towards the right direction, there is a significant problem… RUBBER-BANDING. Have you seen that SRT driving crazy and all the other AI being ridiculously slow? Why doesn’t PD get rid of this and use the same AI for everyone?! This footage shows that there is some potential with the AI but is not exploited, as usual with PD…
Where did you notice any rubber banding, because I dont…?
Oh yeah? I don’t know how to get the point across more obviously than to tell you to watch the video. Nothing happens for you when he overtakes all the ai cars in the first portion of the track, and gets some combat with the first car until the end of the race?
we seriously need the AI to adhere to the Nurburgring rules, to please keep on the right, especially when a human player is approaching from the rear in a car that is superior to the one AI is driving.
Why anyone needs those chase and dash cams when everybody’s just driving from the angle shown in the video…
That is a lot better! Hopefully the sound across the board is of this standard and not limited to certain few cars.
Hopefully the game will be fleshed out with a proper single-player experience and more contemporary cars.
The trackside details on Nordschleife are also coming along nicely. Cambers and kerbs were also looking very good (although FoV is a bit odd so hard to be certain). Pleased with this.
Now to wait and hope for a much larger car list and single player experience to GTS :)
Now THIS makes me want to buy the game. But the car sound must be mean/realistic for ALL of them, not just one or two. And that collision sound is totally unrealistic, it has to be changed asap.
WOW. I hope they’re able to get a lot of cars up to this fidelity.
GT6 had some cars that sounded this good, they were just few and far between. I knew they were capable of doing good sound but they somehow haven’t done it for all of them.
They redid the car models from scratch, (and re-recorded them??) so I’m hoping the earlier GTS demo’s were just placeholder sounds because all of the newer cars should sound this good unless they didn’t really re-record the cars.
cool … maybe they can move onto collision detection next!
The collision detection is perfect. Obviously you’re ignorant to how GT’s bumper camera works.
GT’s Bumper cam isn’t great, neither is their Hood or Chase view. PD have a habit of doing simple things different, but it really just breaks immersion. Almost every other racing game has nailed down camera views, except GT, not surprising considering how long it’s taken them to address the sounds!
@Ben I for one prefer GT’s camera angles over, say, P CARS, or Driveclub, but maybe its just me.
@nascarfan1400 I think DriveClubs hood view is perfect! Their chase cam is a little low, but the distance is perfect.
Encouraging, I can close my eyes while listening and not immediately see my grandmother vacuuming her rugs :-)
The car sounds good, but the sound of the cars hitting each other sounds like a ladder hitting the ground. Also, I see they still haven’t managed the car damage feature that I’ve seen many people say they wanted.
Overall, I’m impressed by the graphics thus far and they’ve obviously done some real work on the sounds as well. I’m still not sold on this one.
I thought they sounded more like two shopping carts hitting one another. They’re so bad they must be placeholders.
Yea it sounds awful which is weird because it sounded great in GT6. No idea why they’d change the sound to something worse.
I think ace Room Racing Experience used the apex icons to aid in learning how to drive tracks.
And hitting them is not as easy as it looks. You have to have decent throttle control.
But it does teach you where to place your car on the track. Nice feature.
I like the sound improvements. I just hope PD plays the “emersion” card with the tuning UI.
It would be nice to make realistic mechanical and aero adjustments and have those adjustments actually have effect on the track in both off-line and on-line environments.
Add that to more realistic sound to better physics, tire model and FFB feel?
Things look much better for PD/GT/KAZ and us lot.
The sound sounds good, i like it, let’s see if all the 1200 + cars is getting a sound overhual, but this is a start, i’m also curious about the single player since i’m not a online gamer. if there is only practice and qualifying stuff in the single player, then this game is not for me, good sound or not :) .
GTS isn’t getting the full GT6 car list….
It’s a much smaller count of cars, most of them being racing cars.
And there’s not been any word of a true single player mode.
Yes, it sounds pretty good. There were cars in GT6 that sounded this good though. Here’s hoping they find some consistency in the next title. The GTR’s sounded pretty gnarly when he passed them. The clunks of vehicle impact are surely not finalized. I did think of a nice touch that could really improve the AI experience, but PD would never do in a million years: have the AI say stuff over voice chat during a race :-) you could have a lot of fun with that.
Speaking of AI, note the typical GT AI behavior where only the car in P1 is fast at all – the rabbit. He was practically drifting through corners, pretty neat. He was aggressive for a little while after being passed, but eventually settled into a non-aggression/no-pass pact with the human. A few guys caught up to him as he trailed the player, which was a good sign. GT’s AI is capable of outrunning all but the fastest humans, PD just doesn’t want to let it loose. Maybe because they can’t get it to behave properly in that company? This didn’t seem too stupid, just artificially slow.
Also, I like the little apex triangle things for learning a new course MUCH more than the usual driving line nonsense (never used it) though I hope they make both available to suit everyone. There’s no substitute for the blinking gear indicator when learning a new course, in my opinion!
That’s a good idea actually. Does anyone remember Namco’s R: Racing for Xbox/PS2/GC? That had voice clips for each AI driver, and aggression meters above each AI car which would increase as you kept the pressure on them. If it got too high, they might crash or go off the track, accompanied by some shouting and anger from that driver over the team radio. A nice feature, I thought. I wonder if Polyphony could work in some of their B-Spec AI behaviour (like the hot/cool temperament system) to liven up the racing.
This is a very heartbreaking news for all GT fans because they don’t record all the vacuum cleaners in the world for this game anymore. Say good bye to all of our favorite vacuum cleaners sounds. Very sad. :-(
There will be a DLC for “classic GT engine sounds”
HA HA HA
Very good! I guess I can always turn on my vacuum cleaner at home during the game and everything is good again.
Sound aside, one thing that annoys the hell out of me is how slow the AI is when they are leading and the boost they get when the player is leading the race. It spoiled all the fun in GT5/GT6 and it still looks present here. A fake way of PD to make races competitive. God, how that irritates me…
That’s not how it works. There’s no rubber band. The AI knows how to slipstream and like in real life, can push when they want to push, cruise when they want to cruise. There is such a thing as strategy you know.
@TomBrady
Don’t kid yourself – of course there’s rubberbanding. Have you not seen the competitions they had with several humans driving the cars on stage and ALL of the races ended in amazingly tight finishes. What a coincidence!
It’s the same algorithm that was called “Boost” in the previous games. Once behind, each car gets a subtle boost according to their gap to the leader. Otherwise, how did people spin and catch up with the leader who didn’t make mistakes?
Same thing here. All the AI driving like being asleep and only after he had overtaken every car (by sector 2!!) the lead AI car wakes up, once tries to dive into the lead again and then stays close for the rest of the lap (as does all the other AI). What a coincidence that they all finish spaced about 1 second apart at the end.
This AI is (still) heavily rigged and with an emphasis on artificial and none on intelligence.
You also have to take into account the changes in intensity of the human driver. He pushes noticeably harder when he’s behind, then starts to play things safer once he gets into the lead. Then goes back to pushing hard when the Dodge appears in his rear view. I tend to do the same thing. I think a lot of people do.
Awesome
I’m really starting to like the new sounds, not only in the AMG GT S but also the turbocharged race cars, since their blow off valve sound is among the best I’ve ever heard in a video game.