Why cant we have...
15min practice
15min qualify
x3 races with points
The winner with the most points gets naked dancing lades/men to oscillate in her/his direction for 10 min.
Server changes track (random) and it all starts again.

I run at 340 in the Logitec profiler and full lock in all cars.

One strange this i notice while experimenting, and something i quite liked the feel of was running Logitec FFB @ 50% and LFS ffb @ 160ish
I abuse a Mk2 MR2 rev1 with no power steering and it feels very similar.

Quote from Technique :

I thought it would be the opposite effect. The more samples you have, the more realistic it would sound and the less obvious the change. Any thoughts?

This is the case in music, the more samples you can map to keys and velocity changes the more acurate it will sound, eg. http://www.sonicstate.com/news/shownews.cfm?newsid=6042
The difference between hitting a piano key hard and soft is more than just amplitude.

Most modern synths use samples in some shape or form, from complete notes sampled directly from instruments then passed through envelopes, filters and effects(sample+synthesis) to single cycle waveforms, sine, square, saw etc.. used in analogue modeling to replace unreliable oscillators of true analogue synths.
On paper both look the same but in reality there is a world of difference. s+s is easier, cheaper and can recreate real instruments well but sounds lifeless, analogue modeling on the other hand sounds meaty and can create a wide range of noises but not real instruments very well.

http://www.vintagesynth.com/ is a good place to hear the variety of synthesis types out there.

Last edited by emqu, Wed, 9 Jul 2008 16:01.

I understand other things will take priority in LFS but its always good to think before acting, discussion about sound in games prior to any attention given to the sound engine in LFS can only be productive.

From the moment i first fired up LFS i was intrigued by the noises i was hearing, just taking this opportunity to build on what i already know and maybe have some input.

m

edit: the more i think about sound in race sims the more my head hurts, if i could put some of the ideas i have at the moment in a sim i fear you would have no computing power left to run the thing, would sound shithot tho

Last edited by emqu, Mon, 7 Jul 2008 23:32. Reason : meh

Quote from _--NZ--_[HUN] :

LFS' sound system generates the car sounds from a single very short base sample. It runs this sample through a series of filters which simulate different aspect of the car's engine. For example see attachment. You can access LFS sound editor by pressing Shift-A ingame. (FZ5_test_sample.mp3 was originally a wav file, but you get the idea).

I honestly thought it was pure synthsis (tbh LFS sounds like an FM synth) and was going to suggest the above may yield better results.

LFS sound lacks grit imo (best description i can come up with), its very detailed and communicative but it just lacks something other titles have in abundance, perhaps too much.

I notice the sound quality takes a big hit from the inital waveform to the final output, maybe the quality of the filters used could be bettered?

Many audio applications relating to music provide support for 3rd party effect/synth plug-ins (some of these plug-ins sound identical to the hardware they are copying), its almost a standard feature now, so the technology to implement any form of synthsis in a game is here.

Last edited by emqu, Mon, 7 Jul 2008 23:14.

Could anyone point me to some detailed info of the sound synthesis used in lfs?
I know a bit about synthesis techniques from a musical background and bugger all about audio implementation in games.

Some sound synthesis techniques can create noises others just cant, for example, a true analogue synth sounds nothing like a wavetable synth which sounds nothing like a granular synth which sounds nothing like a physical modelling synth.......blah blah.

ty

M

Thanks for explaning the benefits of the LFS sound engine.
I know quite a lot about music technology so I know the principles behind most games sound, I just couldn't figure out why they kept pluging away with the synthesized method used in LFS, especially after hearing the samples used in GTR.
GTR's use of samples IMO is just a quick fix, the potential/actual detail found in the LFS method is far superior.

Quote from (SaM) :

Well, to start with; LFS plays every explosion in the combustion chamber in the engine as a pop. The amount of throttle defines how loud and clear the pop is. The RPM define how much pops you hear per second. You can hear different sounds wich are different explosions. The engine sound also dependson the exhaust.
Thats the engine sound, you can also hear the turbo spin and release. (You can even hear the axles spin in their bearings and the wheels drive over the tarmac.)

GTR doesnt do any of that. It plays fairly good samples but you cant hear how much pressure you put onto your engine, wich gives you feedback to act to, like LFS does.
At first sight GTR sounds better but I prefer LFS's eventually because I think it's more important for me to hear the state of the engine.

MPH of course.
All you KPH users are just kidding yourselves you are going faster with the big numbers :P

MPH is a mans unit of measurement