Audio Tweaking (dev branch)

[Atkins.A 10]

I was talking about the VOIP/VON.

But now I understand why others say that it work and others say that it doesn't.

It depends on the server settings. Setting VonCodecQuality to 11 or higher will break the positional broadcasting of the comms. With VonCodecQuality=10 3D works alright (though the DC can be heard to 80 meters, which is way too much in an urban environment).

Made a ticket about the issue:

0016789: Setting VonCodecQuality to 11 or higher makes the 3D (positional) function of comms to not work

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=16789

[bigpickle 0]

@ DNA,

Can you provide any update or indication about the progress on this bug?

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=12340

regards

bp

[Tankbuster 1746]

Mmm, yeah. I'd like this blighter fixed too. Voted up.

It's not just the sound blokes who want this working - there's loads of scripting magic to come once this is sorted.

[bigpickle 0]

Absolutely tanky, this being fixed unlocks a massive amount of optimization and functionality to scripts just because work-arounds no longer have to be used.

[Tankbuster 1746]

Ya. You, me and MANY others.

Edited January 17, 2014 by Tankbuster

[Maxzy 12]

@ DNA,

Can you provide any update or indication about the progress on this bug?

http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=12340

regards

bp

Could someone please explain what is this about? It's like a chineese language for me =). Does it have anything to do with currently broken 3D audio?

[bigpickle 0]

In a sorts yes.

Other issues which deserve a lot of attention include no determinable occlusion, ie standing behind a hill the firing weapons on the other side should appear muffled but currently it sounds like their is no hill there to obstruct the sound. If indeed occlusion is in the game then the values need to be increased exponentially. If I'm perfectly honest its incredible that the sound situation is the way it is with a professional team like BIS.

[Tonci87 163]

In a sorts yes.

Other issues which deserve a lot of attention include no determinable occlusion, ie standing behind a hill the firing weapons on the other side should appear muffled but currently it sounds like their is no hill there to obstruct the sound. If indeed occlusion is in the game then the values need to be increased exponentially. If I'm perfectly honest its incredible that the sound situation is the way it is with a professional team like BIS.

^this

Also please add a decent thunder sound already. Oh and finally fix the 5.1/7.1 mess

[bigpickle 0]

^this

Also please add a decent thunder sound already. Oh and finally fix the 5.1/7.1 mess

Yeah also at the moment if your using a soundcard with digital in/out and or 5.7/7.1, there is quite a large volume difference to a player using onboard sound, naturally digital is going to be slightly quieter but it seems exaggerated currently.

[roberthammer 582]

I like how they saying that they revamped the sound engine - since even 5.1 isnt working right and other thing makes me pissed - Bad positional audio which makes it nearly impossible to estimate distance and direction by sound

[twisted 128]

- Bad positional audio which makes it nearly impossible to estimate distance and direction by sound

this. i cannot say how tricky the shots of enemy are to locate. then i go play bf4 and i can pinpoint sound position so easily. this is soo important for a good fps. very important for bis to get right. didnt arma2 do a lot better job with ambient occlusion of sounds? if so why the step back?

[KeyCat 131]

didnt arma2 do a lot better job with ambient occlusion of sounds? if so why the step back?

Yes, A2's soundscape is IMO superiour to what we have in A3! I have no idea to why things are like this but I do hope the audio part sees an upgrade or whatever it takes to at least get on par with A2.

/KC

[valnwt 11]

this. i cannot say how tricky the shots of enemy are to locate. then i go play bf4 and i can pinpoint sound position so easily. this is soo important for a good fps. very important for bis to get right. didnt arma2 do a lot better job with ambient occlusion of sounds? if so why the step back?

I think sometimes it's necessary to move one step back to prepare for two steps forward.

As with most of these large tasks, this is ongoing work and so the current state is not considered final (in some places it may be worse for a little while)

[Brisse 78]

Distance is kind of wierd too. In Arma3 you can barely hear a firefight 400m away. That's not realistic :)

[Smurf 12]

It's not weird, just plain bad.

[Tyl3r99 41]

It's not weird, just plain bad.

+1 +1 +1

[2nd ranger 282]

Yeah the sound drop-off thing is one of my main gripes about sound in this game right now. A 30mm cannon is firing 300m away from you and you can barely hear it.

[dnk 13]

+1 to the last 30 posts.

[NeuroFunker 11]

sound engine was kinda always the second thing for BI it seems, and i agree in a 2013 game, we are hoping to see something at least more advanced, but not necessary revolutionary. Hearing reverbarions, inside the buildings, forests or at a city, which all people got used from baby on, it's important part in game as well, where you can at least define, was the shot fired from a forest? Is a battle i hear infront of me in the city? Was someone shooting at me on the street, or from inside a house? Right now you can't define a shit, except open field battle. I believe, it was not added, to save cpu resources, since it's already limited on them, but isn't that a task for nearest future, when you optimize the engine further, to resolve some cpu limitations?

[UltimateBawb 1]

Seriously BI what the actual fuck. You can't pull this shit on us in 2013. I really want to draw attention to the pea-shooter-esque sounds of the 20, 30, and 35mm cannons mounted on AAA and aircraft. They sound like absolute garbage. What is this? Honestly it sounds like you recorded someone tapping on a damn table and set it as THE FINAL SOUND IN YOUR GAME. And you still haven't fixed it. Revamped sound engine? Bullshit, A2 sounded better than this trash.

[mikero 79]

Technically, the reason for all this heartache is they changed the meaning of the contents of the sounds[]= arrays.

They did not go back and alter the content of many of the existing a2 arrays that they copied from, to new 'values'. hence still-used arma2 sounds don't come out 'right' in a3, hence 'a2 sounds are better than a3'.

why on earth they couldn't create A3sounds[]= arrays, is that usual million dollar question with inexplicable answers.

[MavericK96 0]

Bad positional audio which makes it nearly impossible to estimate distance and direction by sound

The sad thing is that, playing ArmA 2, this problem doesn't seem NEARLY as bad, if it's even a problem at all in that game.

[dnk 13]

Honestly, the directional/environmental/distanceal aspect of the sound engine in this game would be disappointing by 2001's standards. It's abysmal. By far the worst I've seen pretty much ever in a FPS, or at least in the past 15 years (including A2, which was better by a good bit).

I know they've got a lot on their plates, but... this robs you of so much immersion, not to mention it makes MP quite a bit more challenging.

[bigpickle 0]

Technically, the reason for all this heartache is they changed the meaning of the contents of the sounds[]= arrays.

They did not go back and alter the content of many of the existing a2 arrays that they copied from, to new 'values'. hence still-used arma2 sounds don't come out 'right' in a3, hence 'a2 sounds are better than a3'.

why on earth they couldn't create A3sounds[]= arrays, is that usual million dollar question with inexplicable answers.

Yeah, remembering back to alpha dev's had said that the volume array was raw volume instead of relative volume to other samples but then they changed it again, but currently this sound engine is so far from complete with no occlusion, distance values are way under scaled, the volume limiting feature added in alpha doesn't appear to work as i can destroy my samples with too much Db added.

I think for me as a sound enthusiast, this is far from what I payed my money for, especially as this game was sold for me on the new sound engine premise, to my horror i discover the sound engine is far below the standards of either arma or arma 2.

Not being a callous bastard I understand ArmA3 has had a somewhat troubled development and maybe at this point seems to be seems to be struggling with slow development due to unknown circumstances by the community, but the lack of transparency about the sound engine in particular i find disappointing, by this i mean many people have asked significant questions in this thread, many people have found significant bugs with the audio engine, and official response is no response regarding these matters, considering this thread was created by a member of the development team to discuss such matters, why is development team response not forth coming?

Edited January 22, 2014 by Bigpickle

[fragmachine 12]

@Bigpickle Agree 100%. I remember BI promised to us that with STEAM we will be able to go back to any version of the game. Is this possible? Would like to go back to the beta version when there was occlusion. Too bad I didn't shoot any video of it.

I think that dynamic occlusion would do really good not only for outdoor but also indoor sound experience in A3. As I remember trees, hills, buildings, terrain shape occluded sound differently resulting in much more interesing soundscape. I would think that occlusion would also work indoors. Too bad it's been excluded.

Edited January 23, 2014 by fragmachine