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[RCU005]

I am not an expert in audio, but I do enjoy when movies and games have great sound.

I've noticed that when it comes to visuals there are so many customizable settings for each pixel, frame rate, etc. but with Audio, you are luck of you get a "Home Theater" option.

Most games don't have any indication what of audio it supports (like Atmos). Some games like Hades are just Stereo but there's no indication of that anywhere. Searching on the web, a lot of people thought they were having an issue with their system when playing the game the first time.

Even outside of the games, trailers are mostly now in 4K, but almost none have surround sound (whether in YouTube or inside the console via store). (The trailers for Zelda Tears of the Kingdom are in 5.1 on YouTube)

We should get deep customizable options and indications about the sound in video games. I remember saying we needed deep customizable settings for Accessibility and they are now a reality in many games, so hopefully Sony, Xbox and Nintendo make an effort to improve the audio matter in their consoles.

 

[DryvBy]

Blame soundbars. It's also why people use subtitles.

 

[nemiroff]

That comes with DSP, you don't need it in the game settings. And of course that'll depend on the quality of the audio itself in the game being up to the task.

Edit: I guess I overlooked some important points in your post. My bad... So yes; Indicating what kind of audio the game supports is a good idea. Good audio depends on game software, DSP and hardware working together.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Probably due to lack of need, main reason visuals are customizeable is because of their performance impact. And nowadays, on pc at least, most just use headphones.

 

[Agave]

I think it's because of the speakers themselves

 

[Gamer_By_Proxy]

What used to piss me off is that the spectrum cable boxes support surround sound, but if you just use their app via something like apple tv, it doesn't.
So you'd have to rent old tech to get surround sound. I don't think they ever fixed it either. I don't have them anymore, not sure.

 

[Loomy]

People play on a variety of displays. They generally get audio through TV speakers or "normal" headphones.

It's about prioritizing dev time.

 

[Magic Carpet]

Spend money, time, energy on a a great room sound system, only to ultimately end up wearing headphones when you can find time late at night to play.

 

[simpatico]

The regression in gaming audio between the height of the PS3 generation and now is unforgivable. Sadly, the majority of gamers just don't care. They listen on cheap wireless headsets and the footstep meta has pressured all other audio elements to the side in shooters. It's a plague.

 

[Kuranghi]

Most people are listening on poor quality, limited range stereo speakers and they cant assume the device will downmix the audio properly. Plus time and money.

 

[pqueue]

Don't forget, Microsoft also totally shitted up their audio drivers with Windows 11 creating some ineffective unified default audio driver for all things windows that is somehow less effective and full-featured than Windows 10.

 

[cormack12]

Blame soundbars. It's also why people use subtitles.

You can really hear the skyrim crunching.

 

[S0ULZB0URNE]

Depends on the game and setup used.

PS5 Pro with Atmos enabled BF6 on my (finely tuned)Nakamichi Dragon not only sounds incredible but is a experience.

 

[Signalis]

That comes with DSP

 

[TGO]

Because it's a second thought because most gamers used headsets which at best emulate surround sound.
You wait ever get a audio track as good as a movie one, the sound of a bullet casing bouncing off the floor in the corner or a pebble rolling across the floor.
Those pin point effects etc
There's some exceptions but mostly it's poorly implemented.
I would keep I eye out for MGS4 though when it releases.

 

[Js562]

Blame soundbars. It's also why people use subtitles.

Some soundbars sound super clean with atmos and surround sound. I got the Samsung q990f and that shit is a monster when turned up on the right settings.No need for for subtitles but I always leave them on for everything I play and watch

 

[Edmund]

Some soundbars sound super clean with atmos and surround sound. I got the Samsung q990f and that shit is a monster when turned up on the right settings.No need for for subtitles but I always leave them on for everything I play and watch

I have the same soundbar and it's really really good! Makes gaming and movie watching so much better.

 

[Js562]

I have the same soundbar and it's really really good! Makes gaming and movie watching so much better.

Oh then you already know it's super clear on everything if the content is right. Played Resident Evil Requiem and John Wick and that little subs shakes my living room plus no distortion

 

[nemiroff]

Yeah, I'll try to post when I'm not nutting next time.

 

[Puscifer]

Blame soundbars. It's also why people use subtitles.

This has been happening for years, though. I first started noticing around Max Payne 3 the amount of "stereo" being disguised as 5.1

At some point my set up became 2 really high quality bookshelf speakers and I rolled with it lol.

 

[Puscifer]

The regression in gaming audio between the height of the PS3 generation and now is unforgivable. Sadly, the majority of gamers just don't care. They listen on cheap wireless headsets and the footstep meta has pressured all other audio elements to the side in shooters. It's a plague.

Ok I'm not crazy lol. Good headphones in COD is a necessity, you'll fucking hear an entire rush down and be ready for it

 

[Durin]

Visuals are just easier to market, and people do care about it more than audio.

Audio even when it's amazing and adds to a game people don't even really notice it, and makes being the audio designer a thankless job unfortunately.

I mean look at one of the most popular headphone brands for years, Beats. They literally market themselves around how they look, the audio quality was ass compared to stuff in its price-range, and they even had models that added metal plates just for weight to make the build quality appear "premium" because dummies associate heavier=better. Got a bit better years after Apple acquired them, but literally an audio brand built itself off visual aesthetics.

 

[megal0maniak]

Oh, the camera's on! The camera's been on the whole time huh?

 

[CamHostage]

So, one of the technical reasons you didn't get audio options is because your games already play with sound options maxed. True, they don't always tell you what's supported on the box anymore (which compounds the problem that consoles can have trouble detecting or switching format to Atmos or other higher -end formats; HDR is similarly busted that way,) but if a game does high-end sound, it'll probably do all the generation of fancy effects and audio separation (at least, all the sound features allowed in the sound designers' cut of the memory and resource pool) whether you're listening on a surround system or a pair of airplane headphones.

There's only so much a game's sound system can do and/or be expanded by, at this point. Yes, you can have "ray-traced" audio (more often "raycast" I think, I'm not sure we're getting bounces and refractions much?) where sound samples are affected by the 3d space and acoustic properties of a scene. However, that's not the future, you already have games doing that. Killzone SF and Gears 5 did it last gen, and the PS5 Tempest and Xbox's sound system are already there to do this. Next-gen audio is an on-the-box feature of the console and we already forgot about it.



More could technically be done with audio in games, but it's more likely a design challenge (and thus a budget challenge) to harness it, rather than a system resources challenge. When you expand a project with PS5 Pro, for example, the graphics guys have the physics sims guys and all the other tech departments will get a new overhead to work with, whereas I would guess very little gets added to what audio techs have to work with (unless a new format is added.)

I think things might separate when audio crosses over from sample-based sound effects to realtime/ai-generated sound? At that point, you'll probably need real processing power to generate for example physical glass breaking or procedural gun sounds, and that could require a performance measure

 

[_Ex_]

Because graphics whores far outnumber audiophiles, and developers know that.

 

[CamHostage]

Btw, for those assuming audio in games is just simple wav file triggers, here are two small demos showing the operations that can be done with simple MetaSounds programming using UE blueprints:





These demo tone synthesis, sound modulation and randomization, room acoustics, physical properties of colliding objects, and other tricks of the sound bag.

 

[bender]

Because graphics whores far outnumber audiophiles, and developers know that.

Chasing the audiophile market is where things really get expensive.

 

[DryvBy]

Some soundbars sound super clean with atmos and surround sound. I got the Samsung q990f and that shit is a monster when turned up on the right settings.No need for for subtitles but I always leave them on for everything I play and watch

I refuse to watch a movie with them. It ruins the picture and the attention to details for me.

 

[CamHostage]

Here's another audio demo (from a while ago) showing what it might take to create the next generation of sound.



It's a synthesys system that creates the sound of a can being crushed from a simulation of the folds in its metal surface bending. AI sound may replace this concept with a trained sample that might be good enough in a quickie, but you can see from this sim how complicated sound could get if computers ever get that far.

Here's a other one from about a decade ago as well where cloth sound are similarly generated from the physics of a cloth being wrinkled or blown about or snapped.

 

[Js562]

I refuse to watch a movie with them. It ruins the picture and the attention to details for me.

Oh what subtitles or soundbar? To each their own I understand

 

[skit_data]

These demo tone synthesis, sound modulation and randomization, room acoustics, physical properties of colliding objects, and other tricks of the sound bag.

Cool stuff!
Stuff like this should be more or less standardized in engines, if it isn't already to some extent.
Physical modeling synthesis and additive synthesis have been around for quite a while and aren't that heavy on a modern computer, but I assume it can get pretty taxing on processing power once you start running instances for tons of objects + fx + dynamics etc.

 

[Reizo Ryuu]

blame "clean/minimalist" living rooms, all these people are at most using a soundbar under the tv, nobody invests in actual multi audio sets.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

compared to video, there arent nearly as many audio options that matter
and a system's fine tuning is done in the AVR/processor, not a game menu.

codec, bitrate, etc get automatically maxed based on your hardware's settings/capabilities
almost no reason to manually change those.

but i do love options like in-game music volume, voiceover volume, ambient volume, etc.
having a scale for environment reverb strength would cool.

 

[cinnamonandgravy]

Chasing the audiophile market is where things really get expensive.

god it can get expensive and addicting, and a pain to set up, but its wild to me people skimp on audio hardware

every tv show you watch
every movie
every console, past and present
every video game

they all have audio

upgrading your audio is an upgrade to everything
and its a "permanent" upgrade--your speakers dont become useless like a GPU, your processor may not have the latest codecs (atmos, etc) but thats not required for your speakers to work as intended

 

[CamHostage]

Cool stuff!
Stuff like this should be more or less standardized in engines, if it isn't already to some extent.
Physical modeling synthesis and additive synthesis have been around for quite a while and aren't that heavy on a modern computer, but I assume it can get pretty taxing on processing power once you start running instances for tons of objects + fx + dynamics etc.

Sure, but some of this isn't the "engine", as in a technical parameter of the hardware being utilized to make sound, as it is the sound designer using tricks they've learned along the way.

For example, gunshots used to be just the best recording you could find if a real weapon, captured hot on the mic just at the clipping point, ideally mixing with several additional recordings and randomized so you don't just have 1 repetitive sound for hours and hours of play. Since then though, sound designers have put thought into the acoustics of how gunshot sounds happen, and have divided out elements of the sound to mix: the pop of the firing, the kick of the shockwave, the metallic action of the mechanical device, and the echo of the sound traveling beyond. Mixing those, and then randomizing the mixes, can let them dial in sounds they want and make a ton of variations based on what the gun would sound like being fired multiple times over.

Getting from one sample to several randomized samples to a compound sound effect made of different parts of the same sound does take additional RAM and processing to go get the sounds and play them, and then there's also the modulation of those samples so they're procedurally louder or sharper or faster or whatever trick is used to add variety or sim in environmental affect, but the main work is in understanding the sound coming from the device, not in having a computer revise effects to sweeten it. Maybe AI will be able to better analyze parts of sounds than the experts, but for now, the hard part is in the squishy processor...