Plans for a new/updated SOUND ENGINE in ARMA3??

[zeep 3]

Devs, i'm just throwing this question out there. The Arma3 soundengine is lacking in possibilities, no need to go into details. Just a "sound" query on the tracker will say enough.

In short, when certain sound aspects in-game are not immersive sounding, that's the engine lacking.

Will you do anything to improve the soundengine and/or it's capabilities for Arma3?

I just hope you will comment here BIS.

I'm sure interested people would love to hear details.

(Examples on Feedback tracker: Link 1, Link 2, Link 3).

Edited October 15, 2013 by zeep

[.kju 3244]

unfortunately the state of the sound engine is the biggest letdown in A3 next to lack of MP focus :(

hopefully BI is able to recruit additional programmers for it. sound immersion is among the most important aspects of a game

[progamer 14]

Sound quality is find, though it's missing certain ape to like reverb.

[dmarkwick 261]

I should like the return of obscurable sound.

[zeep 3]

;2534853']unfortunately the state of the sound engine is the biggest letdown in A3 next to lack of MP focus :(

hopefully BI is able to recruit additional programmers for it. sound immersion is among the most important aspects of a game

This.

[Tonci87 163]

And the 5.1/7.1 Sound is still broken.... :j:

[Fushko 59]

Oh and you can hear people whispering inside of tanks.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

The sound system needs a complete and total over haul. Period. Have you heard Battlefield 4? They got their sounds on lock down. You can hear a helicopter flying through sky scrapers, and just like in real life, the helicopter isn't exactly where you hear it due to the sound bouncing off of the buildings. Its outstanding. Its mind boggling. If BIS wants to improve, they have to step outside of the box. They've done it with Fog, and a few other things. Now it is time to show us something really impressive.

[fumanwho 10]

The sound system needs a complete and total over haul. Period. Have you heard Battlefield 4? They got their sounds on lock down. You can hear a helicopter flying through sky scrapers, and just like in real life, the helicopter isn't exactly where you hear it due to the sound bouncing off of the buildings. Its outstanding. Its mind boggling. If BIS wants to improve, they have to step outside of the box. They've done it with Fog, and a few other things. Now it is time to show us something really impressive.

Wow that sounds cool(excuse the pun). How did you find out how many man hours dice have to spend on audio compared to how many bis have to spend on audio? I really want to know please post a link. Do you know some one at dice and bis?

[Flash Thunder 10]

And the 5.1/7.1 Sound is still broken.... :j:

I'm surprised at how broken..... FPDR

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Wow that sounds cool(excuse the pun). How did you find out how many man hours dice have to spend on audio compared to how many bis have to spend on audio? I really want to know please post a link. Do you know some one at dice and bis?

I do not know anyone at Dice, or BIS (Besides 'Hall), and that is besides to point of whom i may have contact to. The point is standards. The sounds are improvements over Arma 2 indeed, but that is just the sounds. The Engine for the sounds on the other hand, don't play much. Shoot a rifle, and listen to how fast the sound is gone. It is almost like a Wav. file, but no effects to go with it. Shoot inside a bunker. It sounds the same as on the outside. Shoot in the forest... sounds the same. Shoot in a a town. It sounds the same. No re-verb like there would be in real life caused by the sound wave traveling and bouncing off of stuff. I do believe though, that BI can manage these improvements over time.

[fumanwho 10]

I do not know anyone at Dice, or BIS (Besides 'Hall), and that is besides to point of whom i may have contact to. The point is standards. The sounds are improvements over Arma 2 indeed, but that is just the sounds. The Engine for the sounds on the other hand, don't play much. Shoot a rifle, and listen to how fast the sound is gone. It is almost like a Wav. file, but no effects to go with it. Shoot inside a bunker. It sounds the same as on the outside. Shoot in the forest... sounds the same. Shoot in a a town. It sounds the same. No re-verb like there would be in real life caused by the sound wave traveling and bouncing off of stuff. I do believe though, that BI can manage these improvements over time.

Are you just asking for improvement on what we have or are you asking for the audio engine to be as advanced as bf4? Thats why i asked about the man hour thing i thought your first post was asking bis to bring their audio tech up to bf4 standards, so if you were asking then you must know something about the available resources at bis and dice. Those resources would have to be the same.

[Smurf 12]

Default sounds should be, at least, at soundmods standards.

It is something that have a HUGE impact on immersion and gameplay, among all technical things in A3, sure it is the most lacking one.

[frag 0]

Two senses are stimulated when you play a game: Vision and hearing. Period.

So to be successful, a game engine must be strong in both … if not then half of the output sent to the gamer is neglected.

A lot of people think that sound is not that important, but they are the first one to say “WOW†when they hear a very capable sound engine on good speakers. It is day and night.

Shopping for a game engine, I would give the audio as much attention as the video.

This being said, I am sure that BIS knows about the problematic sound engine. As usual, only the number of available resources will tell if they will work on it or not. My guess is that they will keep this work for the next version of their engine.

[froggyluv 2136]

Have to agree, sound is huge and am disappointed that reverb/occlusion hasn't been addressed. I used to never really think about it -until SLX mod came out for OFP and man do I still remember the way bullet cracks boomed in forest fights like the snap from a cozy campfire. I remember him saying (solus) that it wasn't possible in Arma in the same way because they changed or abandoned something from OFP soundwise.

Recently bought X3 Albion and I just can't get over the lack of sound when flying in 1st person view -nothing, nada, niet! The silence screams boredom at you and is more annoying than the lack of any cockpits. Hell I still remember the crisp, cackle of Asteroids thrusters in the arcade as a kid. That's lasting immersion and we need it bad. Visual fidelity is already outstanding for the most part, sound imo, is the bigger need.

[kklownboy 43]

Sound quality is fine, though it's missing certain apps , like reverb.

Fixed that for you. And no it isnt fine. Its absolutely crap as it is now. I am of the hope/belief that its going to be fixed. Other wise wtf BIS?

I do really really enjoy playing A3. And deal with all the broken sound stuff,but sound is still in a RC phase too me, not even beta... If at least the 5.1 was fixed...maybe the modders can repair the wacked out volume and distance sound issues... They did fix the Rain so maybe they can get the sound studio of BIS to do some work...

---------- Post added at 10:14 ---------- Previous post was at 10:08 ----------

Are you just asking for improvement on what we have or are you asking for the audio engine to be as advanced as bf4? Thats why i asked about the man hour thing i thought your first post was asking bis to bring their audio tech up to bf4 standards, so if you were asking then you must know something about the available resources at bis and dice. Those resources would have to be the same.

We all understand the "man power"excuse. Most folks in the thread have actually been around since OPF... We love Bohemia. We are now the squeaky wheel for sound fixes! And It shouldn't be a issue to make the sound better/as it should be. It should be much better right now. push the tickets up!

[metalcraze 290]

ArmA3 sound engine is worse than ArmA2 sound engine to boot.

Pre-recorded reverberated (but hey it's in stereo!) sounds (that aren't that good) even inside houses while sound occlusion gets cut out? No thanks.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Frag is right. Sound immersion is as good as video immersion, and without one or the other, the other is useless. Unfortunately, from the beginning, we can already tell that BI has enough on their hands at the moment, and not only that, they've had plenty of set backs in past times. They even had to change things, and add things, and even remove things before even the Alpha was out. But over due time, i can almost guarantee we will see some changes in sound in the future. If not, we may just have to stick with JSRS 2.0

[zeep 3]

This thread concerns the Engine's capabilities. There shouldn't be need for all pre-recorded effects to sounds. The engine should be capable of doing filtering, reverbing, phaseshift, compression/limiting, and much much more. Acoustics that simulate the human head and ear, so it sounds believable and 3D even on 2 speakers. This stuff you hardly ever read about in detail in game advertising but all those acoustics make the game sound IMMERSIVE as if you are right there standing and hearing all of it live.

Sure JSRS and soundmods sound great but that's pre-recorded sounds, effects and scripting, etc, another topic.

I find it more difficult to enjoy Arma3 because of this all.

Stuff like: Stand in a spot somewhere in arma3. Listen to the ambient sounds (wind/rain etc). Now turn around in a circle. Notice that the ambient sounds are not 'tied' to the in-game world. They stick to your ear -turning around with you- instead of inhabiting a in-game location.

[jumpinghubert 49]

I remember the environment sounds of the xam mod in armed assault. Most things were located.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Hmm. With JSRS 1.5, sounds were located as well. Besides that, zeep, your absolutely correct. Still today, in Arma 2 and 3, you can have someone reload beside you. If you turn to hear where someone is reloading, the sound of that reload will stay in the headphones where you originally heard it. In other words, you hear it to your right, when you turn right to pin point, it will still sound like it is to your right.

[mr_centipede 31]

If you turn to hear where someone is reloading, the sound of that reload will stay in the headphones where you originally heard it. In other words, you hear it to your right, when you turn right to pin point, it will still sound like it is to your right.

Well, for me at least that wasn't true... if I hear it on my right and turn my head and see the guy that's reloading and the sound seems to come where it's supposed to come from. Maybe that 5.1 bug tonci been reporting about. I use a headphone (Philips SHP something) and SoundBlaster recon 3d pcie for sound card

[progamer 14]

Well, for me at least that wasn't true... if I hear it on my right and turn my head and see the guy that's reloading and the sound seems to come where it's supposed to come from. Maybe that 5.1 bug tonci been reporting about. I use a headphone (Philips SHP something) and SoundBlaster recon 3d pcie for sound card

What bug? I tend to have problems locating sound with my 5.1 headset.

[Tonci87 163]

One Aspect of the 5.1 Bug is that some sound channels don´t get utilized at all leading to muted or distorted sound if it comes from a specific angle. Also some sounds are unbalanced across left and right channels. That may very well lead to you not beeing able to tell where the shooting is coming from if you use 5.1 or 7.1.

And quite frankly this is unacceptable. BIS knew about those problems sincethe early Alpha but they haven´t taken a single step to fixing them, they didn´t even aknowledge that the problem exists. There is not other game on the market that has broken 5.1/7.1 Sound.

[CaptainAzimuth 714]

Not shooting, reloading. It is only the reloading sound. Maybe they have fixed it though, last time i'd played something major like Tee Times, or Wasteland is when i had that glitch. Though, maybe its fixed, i will check later on.