Quote from lalathegreat :

Too loud at low RPMS
then i noticed the car is actually too loud for the rpms its actually at in the lower range. if u listen to a real car drive by the engine is hardly audible(in the cruising RPM range) so is the exhaust(this is from the external view) the tires actually make more noise.

Loud IDLE
i noticed the idle is ridiculously loud i parked the XRT at the 50M marker at blackwood straight and i could still hear the car from 250M marker. also did the test at the start line on blackwood and i could hear the car at the pit entrance lane cones.

Power vs loudness
was curious to see if power played a role in how much noise the car produced so i lined a XRt up on the BLack wood straight took off did a replay and listened from the same spot the car left and noted when i could not hear the car anymore. i redid the test with the hatch and in terms of loudness they were pretty much the same. sound cut out at the same points. went back to an old lfs ver and tried the same test with a 7.5liter V8 (500Hp) same thing.

Attenuation
LFS dosent do this. basically as a sound source gets further away the higher frequencies of that sound are absorbed by air and don't travel as far as the lower frequencies. so stuff like gear wine should not be audible after a certain distance. another example of this is a helicopter u can hear the sound the blades make from further distances than you can hear the high pitched noised from the jet engine.

3D Sound would be nice
back Fires
would rather see this run off of some simulation rather than down shift and hearing a pop. rather have the sound and the size of the backfire dynamic. (love the sound of 4 or 5 cars going into a corner and all that random popping )
---
I don't think LFS sound is actually going to get better without hardware acceleration. i would suggest scawen look at OpenAL and EAX5 as 3d sound and attenuation are easier to implement using them. i can't really comment of all the benefits in terms of sound quality in using those because the documention for EAX5 is under NDA. You have to register with creative as a developer.

For the first two tests, this is already simulated to a certain extent in LFS. The cars tend to have a quiet idle volume unless you boost the "idle volume boost" tab.

In your 3rd test, what Bob said was correct, it has nothing to do with the volume of the car, LFS only plays the sound up to a certain distance away (which is not really a good thing imo).

For the rest of your points, yes, good ideas. I think backfiring wouldn't be too much trouble, it would be similar to the popping sound you get with engine damage / TC.

Quote from anttt69 :

Patch improvements were a huge step in the right direction thanks Davews
my suggestions:

When you crash into something it should sound like a skid, crunch & bang. Like a real accident. Not like a biscuit tin sliding across a car park.

Those horrible tin ey tapping nioses when you rub bumpers or doorhandles have got to go. Totally unrealistic imo.

So big crunch, wallop, bang sounds, curb rumbles, & race track atmosphere sounds (cars blasting down a straight in distance, cars roaring past the pits & gravel sound when you slide off into the kitty litter) even a pnumatic air gun (when pitting) sound might be an idea.

example of crash sounds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G_6AyjDIqZA
just try to ignore limpbizkit & listen to all those 5's skiding & crashing
the cheers from the spectators says it all.

Yep, these too need work. But we need these re-recorded, and not just taken from videos, in order for better results. Skid sounds too.

Quote from Shotglass :

what i mean is not using one single sample for the entire time lfs is running but using a noise generator the output of which gets filtered to create the pulse "sample"
with the engine pulse sample essentially being noisy this might or might not add some depth to the engine sounds (either way it should be more realistic as no firing of the engine sounds exactly the same irl like it does in lfs)

I don't mind you chatting about other stuff if it's still basically on topic.

I now understand what you're saying. IMO, it's a great idea. Could be very interesting. Unfortunately I can't "preview" how it would sound though. One interesting thing you would probably like to hear, when I made the sample for the RAC from white noise, first I put it through a specifically set band pass filter to get a reasonable tone in LFS, then I tried cutting an adequate length piece of sound to use as a sample. Now the interesting bit is the although the clip of (now filtered) white noise I took samples from was basically the same noise throughout, each sample I took from it sounded different each time in LFS. So your idea could give some interesting results.

Last edited by DaveWS, Sat 28 Apr 2007, 11:31.

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

Elaborate? Hm... There is a sound that goes tickety tack.

It's much more prominent off throttle, than on throttle. It's really audible in the FZ50 sound. All of the sounds sound good ON the throttle at very high revs. So, I suspect your are right, and that with hours of fiddling you could probably work some magic. Look what you did with the regular sounds!

If what you did somehow faded in based on torque/power output, and went away off the throttle, that might help. I suspect you already know what to do though.

edit: Why do you say it's going nowhere?

I get what you are describing now, that's the high frequency distortion. With more fiddling I could have the effect applied to certain volume levels and above (which would hopefully reduce the off throttle noise). The problem is most of what I'm doing is trial and error (and I really don't have enough time at the moment). I'm not as much as an expert as some of you think I am, I've learnt / am learning what I can though. But really, I need more of an understanding of how the sound system actually works. Anyway enough rambling, I have a huge amount of coursework due for Monday.

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

What about that tickety tacking sound?

Erm, care to elaborate? I only posted these to see if there was potential, doing it this way. IMO it adds much more character and liveliness to the sound. With hours of fiddling I would think it could sound good. Its kind of a controlled distortion at specific volumes (making it different to clipping), but like I said could sound much more convincing..

Edit: My mistake was allowing too much high frequency distortion

Edit 2: This is going nowhere. I should let it rest until we have some more patches out of the way.

Last edited by DaveWS, Fri 27 Apr 2007, 23:36.

Quote from Shotglass :

which to my knowledge is a very crude system that stacks a few low passes on top of each other and thats it ... at least thats what it sounds like

Could be, although I wouldn't think so, based on how the sample affects the resulting sound in peculiar ways...

Quote from Shotglass :

how exactly did you create these ?

he should be able to implement my suggestion pretty quicky ... at least if he can figure out how to get a working pulse sample from noise

Basically I just edited the sound dynamics in an audio editor, to see what would come of it, and it requires very little processing power.

Do you think you could elaborate a little? Because I thought you were after a similar effect to what I used to produce those clips. Some of the engine pulse samples (such as the RAC) I made from white noise (heavily edited of course) btw.

Quote from Ball Bearing Turbo :

I just had a listen...

I'm not generally very critical, but I have to say that whatever that is sounds like the current sounds with some strange, VERY VERY artificial noise of some sort over top of it. It's much worse than what we have IMO.

You know I love your work, but whatever that was - I hope I never hear it again

I still love you though

Edit: In the attempt to say something constructive, I would note that at VERY high revs, it doesn't sound TOO bad. But at mid/low revs it's quite cacauphonous indeed. Whatever it is might bring a hint of the rawness needed at very high revs, but it ruins the rest of the rev range big time.

Edit2: I don't think we are going to get anywhere without Scawen doing... the reverse of what he's doing now with the exhaust side: induction noise needs to be simulated, not just exhaust noise. Induction is what makes up most of the vehicles engine sound when you're at high revs.... The mechanical clutter starts to overpower everything at some point. Botching the exhaust noise to compensate probably isn't going to be successful IMO.

You've been doing a lot of "stock car" work lately....

As far as I know the V8 in LFS is only flat plane crank... there needs to be a cross-plane crank firing order V8 to get the right sound, although whatever you're using sounds very nice.

Well, it was simply a quick attempt at fiddling with some sound dynamics editing (which can change the whole character of the sound, but its normally some form of distortion). I wouldn't expect it to sound good straight away, but I think there could be potential. I know there is a hissing effect, ignore that , it can be fixed.

I agree with you that this is a "fake" way of producing sound with more character, however I would think for Scawen to come up with a model of something else is a) going to take a while, and b) is going to require more CPU. However I agree it is the way to go eventually.

The stock car, yes... well I just think it sounds great that's all. As far as I know we WON'T be having one in LFS any time soon...

Edit: I don't mind criticism. If no one criticised we wouldn't get anywhere would we.

Last edited by DaveWS, Fri 27 Apr 2007, 23:22.

Some more.

Quote from Shotglass :

thats something a lot further down the line though whereas my suggestion can be done as a relatively quick hack job
going along the same trail of though you went what would help a lot is physical modeling of the pipes ... if im not mistaken currently the simulation is basically jsut a bunch of low passes stacked on top of each other ... if you were to add some delay between those with the possibility for waves to travel both ways things should change dramatically for the better

one thing which i think is way off is that the transmission whine doesnt change at all with the gear settings and final drive

That's not how the sound system works as far as I know. It puts the pulse sample through an exhaust simulation.

Quote from Shotglass :

like i said ... ditching the samples and going for true noise as excitation should add a whole bunch of distortions which sound better and are relatively realistic

I guess you are thinking along the lines of these, which would not be too much work for Scawen to implement into the sound system (I would guess). I think there is potential here, they aren't perfect though, have a listen anyway.

Edit: Actually they are pretty crap, but I STILL think there is potential.

Last edited by DaveWS, Fri 27 Apr 2007, 23:52.

Victor really must be wetting himself by now..

Another mix for you guys to judge.

Ok guys, here is another dual recording of the BF1. In other words a MIX of two recordings of the BF1 with different settings. IMO this is really getting somewhere now. Edit: The more I listen to it the worse it gets.

P.S. Again ignore the reverb/echo like effect where the mix isn't perfectly matched.

Last edited by DaveWS, Wed 25 Apr 2007, 22:52.

There is no hope..

BF1 any better?

Check it out.. :headbang:


BTW oval racing is not my thing, just listen though.

Quote from Jimmy_Lemon :

heh thats awsome. thanks.

but shame you had to use a 4 letre flat 8 tho :S, stock cars are 5.7-5.8 letre V8's with 650bhp to around 800 unrestricted.

god how i hope they make a lfs stock car some day lol

I don't have my wheel with me atm, so if I made it more powerful I wouldn't be able to cope with it. Flat 8 sounds more like a V8, than a V8 in LFS.

Quote from Jimmy_Lemon :

bit off topic of ideas etc for other people, but if you can make a XRT sound like a V8 nascar id be over the moon

doubt its possible tho, xrt hasnt got the right engine to even sound like a stock car in anyway

@icyocean: Nice vid . I am fairly certain his windows are open. Whether or not windows will be able to be opened in LFS I don't know.

Quote from [Viking] :

I love the new sounds Kudos to Dave. Haven't played LFS for over a year since I've moved out from home and my DFP is left back there, but when I heard the new patch with new sounds was out I just had to try it, and I love them. The new sounds for the GTRs really make me feel like I'm driving a charged monster ready to explode and not to mention the LX4/6 and FZ5. I've always felt that the sound department is where LFS was lacking the most. Physics are superb.

Just a quick question though. I see some people mentioning exhaust volume. Is this a default setting in options which I'm just too blind to see, or is it a mod? I would love to increase the volume a little bit. Right now I've got echo a bit down and car sound maxed.

Simply press Shift+A to see the editing menu.

Quote from Hyperactive :

The only reason why I kep using the U30 as long as I did was the simple reason that I had got used to the bad old sounds. With the new bad sounds my ears were bleeding all the time and I couldn't concentrate on driving. It was so damn messy! With the old sound my ears had got used to them and only ever I had problems with the sounds was when I was watching a replay or onboard movie etc. but with the (then) new sounds there wasn't even any reason why bother. Now that I can edit the sounds it is slightly better than the old (<U31) ones but I still have no idea if the distortion/clipping is bad for my sound systems etc..

The sound editor is good (and very useful atm, would make very hard to listen LFS without it) but I fail to see the logic what goes to let us tweak the sounds so deeply. Agreed, the V (and later) sounds should have been a lot better but imho just the volume sliders for different sounds would have been enough.

I have pretty much given all hope that the sounds are going to be updated in S2 anymore, although my I will still be disappointed if there won't be any updates

I'd use CSR more if it was possible to make it automatically load when I double click LFS...

Blimey, we need to get you on some antidepressants...

Quote from deggis :

Thief!

http://www.dotdotdotcomma.com/motorsport/f1/lookalikes

funny site btw.

Damn you got me.. Still, I had to organise them in my post...

OK, here is my idea. A second exhaust simulation should be generated alongside the present one. The first exhaust simulation should cover the low frequency sounds, and the second one with different settings, should produce higher frequency sounds. This way the sound will have two layers.

I have attached a mix compromising of two different sound settings to produce the multilayered sound I'm looking for.

P.S. Ignore the reverb like sound in the recordings, it's where I haven't quite matched up the two recordings exactly in the mix.

Quote from Sheepy1977 :

but i do feel the off power volume in some of the cars is too high

The off power volume was originally too low, maybe now I've changed it to far the other way. Anyone else have opinions on this?

Quote from Sheepy1977 :

also i think the gearwhine in the open wheelers is a bit too high, and the cars sound like some kind of jet plane. is that realistic?

Yes, especially in GTR cars, the whine sound the straight cuts gears produce is often very loud and high pitched. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q8ZNkhxT04

Quote from MoonForce :

just tried to set the LX6 exhaust volume from 1.3 to 3.0

I'll agree it can sound nice, however that's purely the distortion you hear. The wave is cut, and therefore the sound is more aggressive, but it's not how the sound should be produced. Just personal preference.

Quote from Ian.H :

:faint2:

I agree that the echo is far too great around trees, however under bridges etc it gives a good sense of environment.

Quote from Electrik Kar :

...

Yes, that idea sounds good, however Scawen will probably want to simulate it properly which could be difficult as I would guess its to do with the air being compressed / moved quickly..

I agree with the other points also.

Quote from Vain :

From comparing LFS's engine sounds with onboard videos I think there are two points I can put my finger on.
1. LFS seems to lack a bit regarding very low frequencies. Maybe those aren't produced by the combustion but rather by other resonating objects (cylinder block, chassis) which would also explain why it is so difficult to grasp.
I don't know how far LFS simulates this, but a real exhaust system oscillates quite heavily under revving. This could cause sound itself, or might be an indication of other oscillating parts.
2. Many high end vehicles sound very much like a trumpet. Click here for a real vehicle (...with wrong description...) and here for an LFS car.
You can also nicely hear how the real engine sound 'flitters', while the LFS sound is very monotoneous. This might have something to do with the oscillation from point 1.

Vain

I agree, and I have an idea which I will post in a minute.

Quote from icyocean :

imho it'd be a good idea to have dynamic volume for engine sounds, like low rev = low volume and high rev = high volume. and when the volume is already at its maximum maybe the volume of other sounds can be dynamically lowered so relative loudness is changing.

also a higher maximum wind volume would be nice, with more significant volume change when driving in slipstreams.

You can change the wind volume in the Shift-A menu. Dynamic volume is already present. The cars grow louder already with revs.

Quote from deggis :

Btw what actually causes this clipping? The sound engine just can't take it and then it goes like that?

Sometimes the wave produced by the synthesizer is an exaggerated shape it seems when certain pulse samples are used. But in general, clipping occurs when the amplitude of the wave exceeds the limit of volume LFS can produce which cuts off the top of the waves (clips).

Now we're talking.

Quote from Shotglass :

calculated (white) noise as the excitiation updated for every single stroke of the engine to make it sound more random and rough ... could help a lot with the engines current way too clean sound

Yeah. Possibly another simulation. Currently we have an exhaust simulation only. It would be good if another metallic (property) type object could be simulated which would vibrate based on the engine strokes, and resonate loudly at certain frequencies based on its mass to produce more "layers" to the sound. Just an idea.

Quote from dpcars :

been playing with the W patch on my newly built system - finally can run it at 1920x1080 and it looks great! getting over 90 fps at that resolution at LOD 1.0 when i don't limit it. whether my car will ever make it into the game or not i don't know (would be great, obviously) but i like the improvements in rendering. as i said before, i'm sure the devs can manage their priorities

btw, after a couple RL trackdays i got a whole lot worse at LFS - not that i ever got good at it to begin with but it is more clear to me now where the differences in skillsets lie. LFS is definitely useful and continues to impress. a friend of mine tried it yesterday and immediately asked for the link to download. he is a hardcore car guy and was involved as a sort of informal 'consultant' in development of both PS and Xbox games a couple years ago (one of his cars was recorded on a dyno by microsoft for the game sound) and he said it was the fist time he saw a game that was reasonably close to driving, as opposed to just being a game.

Have you tried the new test patch? It has preload added to the setup options, and makes a major difference imo.

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=23009

Patch W car sounds any better to you? (seeming as you aren't in the situation where you are used to the old ones)

Hmmm, didn't make an impression it seems.... oh well I tried. :P