Title says it all... it is 2006, 5.1 sound would be nice, as games and sims years and years ago have it, so why can't LFS?

Everyone already knows what the other sound problems are.. crash/ impact sounds (mainly that extremely loud and unrealistic tire screech sound that is used in place of proper impact sounds), some engine sounds are absolutely horrible... even the good ones could use impovements, etc, etc, etc....

If the next patch includes no sound improvements millions of people will be doing this-

If the patch includes sound improvements and updates, good- if not.. :-/

i wonder why no one ever thought of this suggestion before

Couldn't agree more. I think (or I hope ) that the devs have still something secret in their pocket... but

At least those very annoying crashing sounds (aka headphone & ear breaker sounds) should be removed. Silence would be better while crashing than those.

Why not 7.1?

Quote from inCogNito :

i wonder why no one ever thought of this suggestion before

Well if people don't keep bringing it up nothing will ever happen.


EDIT-

Quote from FPVaaron :

Why not 7.1?

Yeah actually that would be great too- but I would be happy with even just 5.1.

Quote from deggis :

Couldn't agree more. I think (or I hope ) that the devs have still something secret in their pocket... but
At least those very annoying crashing sounds (aka headphone & ear breaker sounds) should be removed. Silence would be better while crashing than those.

Yeah that was the whole point of this thread.. it is because a patch is close and no mention of the badly needed sound improvements. If the physics are good (it seems they will be) I will be playing a lot more, but those sounds I remember are just plain painful (to me anyway).

Quote from Hankstar :

http://www.lfsforum.net/showthread.php?t=2626

I do not see anything about 5.1 (or 7.1 for that matter) in that thread.
Maybe if enough people post in this thread just saying a simple- "yes, better sounds would be nice"... then maybe the devs would realize that many people think it is a priority?

I am not b!tching about the current state of the sounds in LFS, but rather trying to highlight the need for better sounds, and 5.1 support of some kind, ANY kind.. especially since it looks like yet another patch will go by w/o one change in the sound department which is very depressing when it comes to LFS development.

If people don't keep bringing it up, it won't be discussed. But I'm sure it's somewhere on Scawen's long list - I don't believe for a minute that they are not even more aware of LFS's short-comings than we are.

I believe that surround sound effects all come in the same package. To expand on this, last time I investigated, the DirectX framework just required setting a member variable to the secondary sound buffer and it would magically go away and Just Do It (TM), after you've tied it all in with a "listener" / origin coordinates. Unfortunately all my investigations were orientated about Dx9, not Dx8 which LFS uses.

Basically what I'm saying is that it could potentially be more work to do this, than "fixing" the tyre physics for example I'm just speculating here, and I could potentially be back on form with my mis-information.

I'm a big fan of chunky headphones. Experimenting with Holophonics would be ace. It kicks both 5.1 and 7.1 in the face in my opinion.

5.1 can be down-mixed to stereo via EAX 1, 2, 3, etc, etc.. or D3D or AUREAL 3D or SRS Circle Surround II or whatever and you get the same affect... up down behind above in front, etc... Ever used headphones in a first person shooter? Try SOFII... you can tell where sounds are coming from. Still it doesn't beat 5.1 speakers.. (or 7.1)- I have a Fortissimo III 7.1 but still only use 5.1 because it gets the job done.

Quote from EeekiE :

I'm a big fan of chunky headphones. Experimenting with Holophonics would be ace. It kicks both 5.1 and 7.1 in the face in my opinion.

The simulated holophonics isn't particularily hot though as it's more or less panning left/right and doing a little filtering to make things sound different high/low/forward/rearward, rather than winding up with a really different sound like you get with the real recordings. The real recordings I too find very impressive, more so than surround sound, but I haven't heard it done with wave files on nearly that level.

Well I raced LFS for about 6 hours tonight.. ( I haven't fired it up since my upgraded system)- had a blast.. can't wait for the new patch.

There are some cool affects, like going under bridges and very detailed engine sounds.. although they need tweaking, they communicate what it happening with the engine very well. I am using a manual clutch now and some more transmission sounds would be cool too.

Basically the slow speed physics definitely is a much bigger priority and I am glad they are tweaking that first.. it would be cool to have at least a few improvements to the sound this time around. If it doesn't, hopefully next time after more important things get sorted.

Can't wait for that patch!