Sound and Audio

[Callaghan 1]

Arma's sound is pretty good, although certain things stick out like a sore thumb.

1. Use of EAX needs to be improved and 3d rendering in general -

More levels of audio 'LOD', a helicopter shouldn't go from being barely audible to very loud, there should be steps in between.

There should be a 'power' value for sound. A tank would be heard from a greater distance than a car, say, so this variable should influence the rate at which the volume is reduced over a distance.

2. Better definition across all audio - the community will always release soundpacks but the need to do this would be reduced if the basic gunshot sounds where improved. Its clear that BI tried to make the sounds the 'hollow crack' that gunfire is, but the shots lacked bass and punch. MG fire was also underwhelming and needs more bass.

3. more and more people have 24bit sound cards these days, think about mabe providing them with 24bit @ 48khz audio options.

4. AI Voices - introduced by the ECP mod in OFP to a fantastic result, made the game immediately better without really changing anything. made battles more intense. Vehicle radio chatter and dynamic speaking.

5. More sounds - aside from the supersonic crack. IMHO, it is absolutely essential that you add convincing SEPERATE sounds for bullet fly-by, shell fly-by, and incoming (vertical) shell sounds as well as distance modifiers to not only change volume but filter the frequency. Example, if I stood next to an artillery gun firing it would be deafening, the sound should cover all frequencies with a bias to the mid-bass to bass; if it was a couple of kilometers away, I would still hear it, NOT just quieter, this is never convincing and a bit cheap. It would be quieter and with the treble and middle frequencies filtered out so all i would here is a dull thump.

In summary, you should apply audio physics to your engine. Simply have a system that filters out the treble and middle 'detail' from the audio as you get further away, eliminating the need for seperate sounds for heliClose and heliFar and so on..

[paragraphic l 2]

I totally agree, it's hard to have the sounds lifelike and actually quite impossible to accomplish as most people have no special audio hardware in their system. But I would really love some more bass and overall more sounds for everything, and especially environment sounds. When I walk through a forrest I want it to sound like that, when I touch a bush I want to hear it.

Best would be if I would know where I'm walking just by sound, same with positioning enemy fire I would have to know immediatly where the shot came from without having to look.

[Trapper 0]

Maybe I'm mistaken, but I'm noticing an audio physic engine since OFP. How realistic it gets is the next question.

When you forced a battle to happen far away on in OFP, the sounds are definitely traveling with a sonic speed delay and they are sounding different. Though I never retried that in ArmA.

And the ArmA helicopter quiet/loud thing is happening because of of audio physics. There will be just one sound and it's modified by the engine whenever the line of sight is lost.

In general it's replicating the situation of a lound sound source suddenly appearing behind a hill or forest quite well. It's not perfect and doesn't make much difference what kind/size of object is blocking.

When it comes to mission making in OFP there already was the possibility to set the "power" of 3d positioned sounds. The value was available for addon editing too but I don't know if it worked. Should be the same in ArmA.

[nikita320106 0]

what about completely new sound engine?

with supporting reverb, pitch, doppler effect? with supporting all x-fi_sound_features? with supporting sounds_change in dependence on distance? with separatly 1_person_sound, 3_person_sound, distance_sound?

[Dwarden 1125]

FMOD would be one of possible choices http://www.fmod.org/

but it's not free + cost of implementing middleware ...

[max power 21]

is fmod superior to openal?

[mrfloyd 0]

hi ,

don know if somebody already mentioned it, but it would be nice

when playing Russian side, hopefully there will be Russians as opponents, not some opfor-bluefor , to hear russian language or at least english with russian accent! I hate those mechanical voices in ofp and arma too!

[Alex72 1]

hi ,

don know if somebody already mentioned it, but it would be nice

when playing Russian side, hopefully there will be Russians as opponents, not some opfor-bluefor , to hear russian language or at least english with russian accent! I hate those mechanical voices in ofp and arma too!

Dont know if you ever check out all the mods and addons out there? This addon will give you voices. English and i think russian. AI talk and scream on both sides. And it works pretty good as they call out contact, need medic/bleeding, scream when hit etc etc.

Link: http://www.armaholic.com/index.php?m=single&id=2368

About this thread. Dont know if its just me but sounds get cut off pretty much for me. Helicopter flying by and at the same time someone shoots - heli sound stops and then comes back when the shooting stops. Think i read that arma uses very litte voices so they cut eachother out when too much. Would be nice if arma2 could get some more voices. I got Audigy2 btw. Dont know if that old card is the limitation or if everyone experience the same thing.

[LastNinja9 0]

Separate sounds INSIDE and OUTSIDE vehicles...

...or just a 'filter effect' put on while inside.