Audio improvements?
RejZoR
Slovenia Join Date: 2013-09-24 Member: 188450Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow
Slovenia Join Date: 2013-09-24 Member: 188450Members, NS2 Playtester, Reinforced - Shadow
I'm wondering, this game plays a heavy note on audio. It's a very foundation for interaction between marines an aliens. If you listen, you have the edge (or if you make sure you don't make noise). But I'm surprised that game with such emphasis on audio seems to perform so poorly. I've heard it's using FMOD which I know is pretty advanced software audio engine, but in NS2 it just feels awkward at times (really old version of FMOD?). Like hearing things through several rooms even though you shouldn't, audio skipping like you're exceeding the 3D audio channels when a lot of things is going on etc. Can you guys update this part a bit, maybe give control over it in the settings (like ability to control number of 3D channels etc). 3D positioning is good, but the rest just seems a bit broken. I'm using Sound BlasterX AE-5. I was using Sound Blaster Z before and it wasn't much different experience. I mean, these cards have 128 3D audio channels which ensure rich sound stages without any audio skipping or interruption. How many 3D channels NS2 even uses with FMOD? Feels like it's only 16 or 24 at best...
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I noticed it after walking around for a bit ingame after a long time. And it seems this positional audio issue has become much worse then before and it was already quite... Weird, for lack of better word
Let's imagine a simple scenario... Say you're moving forward and take a left turn while reloading your weapon. Chances are you still hear your own footsteps going forward for a bit and taking a wider turn than you actually are taking. So you hear your footsteps and reload sounds on your right, during your left turn. Basically, when you stop moving forward (or any direction), you still hear footsteps going forward (or any direction
The same goes for all sounds made by everyone else around you, but in this case the server/client side predictions probably lower this latency with it's prediction code that it's doing to display every other player controlled entity on your screen using that lag compensation magic...
Sidenote:
All the laggy stuff aside, is FMOD actually able to simulate any proper reverb or dampening effect by walls... Like the unsurpassed hardware accelerated Aureal Vortex A3D used to do?
You _need_ to look into your audio driver settings. I had the same problem with my speakers for a while, before I realized it was because it was trying to do a 5.1 setup when I only have 2 speakers and a sub. So any sound going to the missing two speakers would just be silent. Setting it to stereo fixed it for me. I suspect the lag issue must be somehow related, as that also went away when I set it to stereo instead of 5.1.
EDIT: A super easy way to test this out is to open up ns2/sound/NS2.fev, and find the hive drop sound effect (or any other loud and long 3d sound). Move your "ear" around and see if the sound plays correctly, or if the volume randomly drops off with the angle.
EDIT2: Sorry to derail. Back on topic though: my biggest problem with sound in ns2 is how I can hear what's going on in Nanogrid from Marine Start on Veil. Unfortunately, that's a very difficult problem to solve efficiently.
In any case, this has always been an issue, just quite a bit more apparent in the latest builds. Both issues are present when using my onboard Realtek chip or my dedicated Audigy 2 card, with a Sennheiser HD-555 modded into HD-595
At your EDIT2, so I assume FMOD has no inherent support for reverb and dampening based on walls as I asked about in my second post up in here? Right now it looks like all sounds jut have a preset falloff distance, ignoring any kind of geometry.
In MvM I often stop to call out that there's an enemy nearby, then realise I was just hearing my own footsteps.
-> Excuse the blockyness, I was fiddling around with video bitrate and forgot to reset it to what I usually use
Some proof of concept sound testing on a dedi-server, also there are some sound videos, showcasing this issue much more clinical and to the point as you PT lads and lassies should've already seen by a certain community member (not sure if you want those public soooo, I'm not linking or namedropping
Also check out the Onos dying at 4:03 btw, the Onos "train go by sound" kept playing after she was splattered
Can you please expand on this? Which audio issues specifically?
Just one thing I have to mention...
Creative Labs' (EAX) "accelerated 3D audio" is crap, the purest form of crap actually. It's just a bad 3D/surround simulation with loads of echo effects. Also they are responsible for the bankruptcy of Aureal Semiconductor. So please don't mention them in the same sentence as the real Audio gods
Also, software 3D audio simulation is actually severely lacking in the pureness of the audio signal. Having it simulated on a signal noisy CPU is not even in the same ballpark as a dedicated hardware accelerated sound card, let alone able to provide proper Hz ranges and pure Db gain. There is a reason soundcards still exists if you want proper audio in your games, currently Asus Xonar is probably the endboss in consumer soundcard hardware. And keep in mind, they should be positioned in a slot as far away from the noisy CPU/MEM/GPU, or better yet have an external soundcard.
But if the Aureal Vortex A3D still had proper drivers and games supporting it, it wouldn't have any trouble outclassing many of these new pseudo-hardware accelerated cards using the main CPU. Be sure to thank Creative Labs for their patent infringement, causing Aureal to go out of business, due to the high legal costs of the lawsuits. In effect eliminating their only competition through illegal means and a hostile takeover afterwards. Oh and of course thank them for their crappy EAX and the loss of support for these epic cards as a result
Fixing the strange positioning wouldn't have much of an influence though. But hey, I dunno maybe that stuff is so hard coded into the engine that it would require a total rewrite of the sound system as mentioned
The Sennheiser GSX 1000 has the best virtual Surround i ever heard. The Soundstage in combination with an good Stereo Headset (Audio Technica here) is just mindblowing.
Sad thing is that NS2 didnt really support 5.1 or 7.1 and always had issues with these setups.
Thats why i have to use my old Asus Phoebus for NS2 cause this card has more options for stereo enhancement.
You know it is actually really sad, the fact that proper sound hardware and support in games is totally unappreciated in our time and the last thing that is tacked onto most people's new rigs... Even in this thread specifically about improving audio, I'm getting this vibe of "meh sound is good enuf on my hardware"
It's certainly the best NS2's audio has ever sounded to me, which still isn't saying much. :P
" It casts a lineCast from the soundSource to the Listener if the lineCast hits something, the Occlusion parameter gets tweened & vice versa " - taken from the FMOD forums.
That was from someone trying to do low level geometry occlusion in Unity which is written in C++ the same as Spark Editor. I'm no programmer but From what Beige has said and what I've read, redoing all the occlusion parameters would take a long time.
Again it just seems like a sloppy job was done with initial set up of how they wanted to occlude sound.
^And all of this is on a rather simple Audigy 2 even, which isn't even that great compared to proper cards, but still vastly superior to what most people have. But then gain I do have those Sennheiser Headphones...
I've also knew someone that was a bastard in Goldsrc Half-Life DM, Quake and UT, We had some fun with all of us against him at a LAN party (FYI for the youngsters, we used to drag our PC's around to someone's home or garage and have an actual LAN party
TBH that was kinda scary to go up against, even with my well above average "pubstar" skills. Only me and a buddy of mine were able to kill the guy, ending a particular HLDM match in 150 vs 2 kills with 1 vs ~10
Fun fact, we tested him as well. He could even shoot us ~7/10 in a non deathmatch test environment, with his expensive 100HZ CRT monitor turned off
Just goes to show how important proper sound systems are for situational awareness, which is ultimately the most important thing in FPS, especially multiplayer
@Kouji_San I too thought there was no other option than a soundblaster after creative killed A3D. I make music, so was using the Audigy Platinum Ex.
Then I realised for pure sound, and for better sounding music, I needed something even better than creative, so I got one of these 7 years while living in the Tulip Capital:
http://tascam.com/product/us-1641/
It has no 3D enhancements, or any of that stuff, but the sound quality and a quality set of stereo headphones more than makes up for that in games that implement audio well. I am still using it now, and my music also sounds better, even if the quality of the production hasn't improved :P
Hmm, now that we've determened that Spark's Audio systems, to keep it E for everyone...
"needs work"
So dev type peeps who are reading this thread, what can we provide as community members in terms of material/logs/cookies to get this shit fixed and how realistic is this even with Spark's code stuff. And besides coming across as a bunch of elitist audiophile dic meanies <- Almost went PG13 there
Motherboard integrated soundcard pleb here.
Sound is something I have zero frame of reference for, and my setup works for me, so why invest money into something at the risk of it not being worth it? :P
Heheh I don't blame you, however therein lies the problem with marketing for soundcards
But trust me, you don't even have to go super expensive to get a much better sound experience. It's just, if you want epic sound or crackly low noise to signal ratio sounds, lacking any kinds of proper 3D positioning and fidelity. Gotta get a proper headset/phones as well though, to fully utilize a soundcard, otherwise you're indeed left in the "wtf, why did I get this soundcard, I hear no difference" crowd
Just look at my earlier post of what you could be missing in some fancy and humorous anecdotal scenarios
Sound has to be experienced for it to make sense, I guess
But you know what? Maybe I'll look into it, when I have some time.
In the good old days, when games were simpler, there were very few things to clue you in on the whereabouts of enemies, think games like Counter-Strike, no shadows, no rubble kicking around. So the main thing you had to use to find enemies was sound. (Note A3D was basically dead by the time of CS anyway, but it's a game your most likely to have a reference for to understand what I mean.)
People spent a lot of time and effort producing accurate 3D positioning audio, as mentioned A3D were the absolute best at positional audio at the time. Is the A3D option still there in Half-life btw?
Anyway, Creative killed them buy buying them and letting the technology die, and we had to make to with creatives not as good hardware 3d audio. Your on-board system probably has some form of hardware positional audio built into it in thesettings.
With the best audio positioning software dead, and things like shadows and dynamic lights coming into the games, relying on sound, dropped in importance. It tends to only be audiophiles nowadays, those for who sound tends to be more important than visuals, that really become aware of the benefits of good audio in games, largely because they are the only ones who bother with discrete audio and thus experience the game benefit by accident.
For me, sound is more important than graphics in a game. A game with great sounds and bad visuals will keep me entertained longer than a game with great visuals and bad sound.
I believe the latest compatible drivers for the Aureal cards are for Windows 98 SE, so I guess you'd have to run in compatibility mode or actually run on an oldschool PC from the time
Here's Phill with his PC from that era, this actually works as a demo for non-A3D users as well, just slap on some headphones/earbuds etc... Might even convince you @Vetinari. Beware as this might tickle your ears