Sounds: is it a hardware issue set to be resolved for the PS4? or what?

I'm pretty certain it's the way they record and implement the sound, rather than a hardware issue.
 
Even industry people have mentioned that ram is a likely obstacle for better sounds in Gran Turismo on PS3, such as Digital Foundry:
Gran Turismo 6 still delivers the best GT experience to date with more content, features, and details than any instalment before it. There are still weak spots, including somewhat spotty AI and less than remarkable engine sound reproduction (we can't help but think that the RAM requirement alone rules out the mooted audio patch, but let's hope that this is coming)
 
Wow how informative.
Too bad other PS3 games run on the same RAM and cars sound absolutely fine.

Like I said, Kaz thinks the sounds "are too good".
 
Wow how informative.
Too bad other PS3 games run on the same RAM and cars sound absolutely fine.

Like I said, Kaz thinks the sounds "are too good".

Didn't he say something like "GT is realistic, people only got used to exeggerated sounds in other games..."?
I don't remember the exact wording, please correct me if I'm wrong.
 
So when people say it's the hardware, are they also saying that a closed circuit racer is using more RAM than a fully open world game like GTA5, which has a huge amount to process in the background and lots to display on screen at the same time? GTA5 also has dynamic lighting and weather to deal with, and much more.
 
These threads are going round in circles with the same topics and discussions that have been on the normal board for weeks/months/years. I don't really get why they're even open for us to post to, surely they'd be better locked for only Kaz to reply to the original question?
 
Wow how informative.
Too bad other PS3 games run on the same RAM and cars sound absolutely fine.

Like I said, Kaz thinks the sounds "are too good".
Like I keep having to repeat... ;)
  • Other games have fewer cars, and fewer types of cars on track at once. How many unique car sounds are in a Formula 1 game?
  • The only comparable game, Forza 4, restricts the quality samples to the car the camera is focused on. And Forza 5 is essentially running on the equivalent of a beefy gaming PC with 16 times as much ram. But also has many fewer cars than Forza 4.
 
So when people say it's the hardware, are they also saying that a closed circuit racer is using more RAM than a fully open world game like GTA5, which has a huge amount to process in the background and lots to display on screen at the same time? GTA5 also has dynamic lighting and weather to deal with, and much more.
This closed-circuit racer is not using more RAM than GTA5, it's using the exact same amount; all of it, and it uses it in very different ways, that's what RAM is for. They are entirely different kettles of fish, here are a few reasons.
- GTA5 was made by a team of 1000+ people, in 4.5 years, with a $265,000,000 budget and loads of hype, which may or may not be affecting people's judgement.

- GTA5 is a complex open world game, yes, that is why it has very simple vehicle physics, less detailed vehicle models etc. to compensate for RAM spent elsewhere

- GTA5 runs at half the resolution and half the frame rate of GT6, all the better for throwing more fancy effects in.

- GT6 has adaptive tessellation! Adaptive tessellation is serious business.

(had to edit the post because I had accidentally left my last point as white text)
 
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This closed-circuit racer is not using more RAM than GTA5, it's using the exact same amount; all of it, and it uses it in very different ways, that's what RAM is for. They are entirely different kettles of fish, here are a few reasons.
- GTA5 was made by a team of 1000+ people, in 4.5 years, with a $265,000,000 budget and loads of hype, which may or may not be affecting people judgement.
- GTA5 is a complex open world game, yes, that is why it has very simple vehicle physics, less detailed vehicle models etc. to compensate for RAM spent elsewhere

- GTA5 runs at half the resolution and half the frame rate of GT6, all the better for throwing more fancy effects in.
- GT6 has adaptive tessellation! Adaptive tessellation is serious business.

The above is true, and it goes to show it's how you use what's available. I worded my post poorly, I think it's amazing what Rockstar achieved and what the console is capable of. With a lot more going on, even GTA5's car sounds are 'better', as are many other, more comparative, racing games running on the same hardware.

In my opinion, the slight bump we had in resolution from GT5 to GT6 was unnecessary and that extra oomph and memory could have been used to improve the sounds instead (or uphold a more stable frame rate).
 
Of course if the sound were a RAM related issue, some cars wouldn't sound perfect while others sound terrible. It's not like some cars sound good sometimes, but while racing in a pack the sound goes away, we're talking about sound accuracy right?
It's a question of what the cars sound like in GT, and has nothing to do with RAM. Some are accurate, others are not. Add 60GB of RAM to the PS3 and put exhaust on a Mustang and it still sounds like a 4 cylinder, because that's the sound programmed in the game for it.

Don't be silly.
 
Of course if the sound were a RAM related issue, some cars wouldn't sound perfect while others sound terrible. It's not like some cars sound good sometimes, but while racing in a pack the sound goes away, we're talking about sound accuracy right?
It's a question of what the cars sound like in GT, and has nothing to do with RAM. Some are accurate, others are not. Add 60GB of RAM to the PS3 and put exhaust on a Mustang and it still sounds like a 4 cylinder, because that's the sound programmed in the game for it.

Don't be silly.
If you want accurate sounds they will definitely take up more RAM, not because of an increase in bit depth, but because of an increase in the amount of samples used per car. Currently, most cars make nice (and often quite accurate) sounds at idling/very low revs, but the sound fades into a different, usually less desirable/accurate one at higher revs. Real cars obviously don't sound like that, they don't simply rise in pitch, there are many other changes in sound along the way.
 
If you want accurate sounds they will definitely take up more RAM, not because of an increase in bit depth, but because of an increase in the amount of samples used per car. Currently, most cars make nice (and often quite accurate) sounds at idling/very low revs, but the sound fades into a different, usually less desirable/accurate one at higher revs. Real cars obviously don't sound like that, they don't simply rise in pitch, there are many other changes in sound along the way.

Witness Ferrari 512. Great rendition at low rev, incredibly lacking winding out. Playing devil's advocate, one may posit lack of depth in reproduction fidelity. Having that said, I'd like to hear a clip of the reference reproduction to compare with my woefully lacking equipment.
 
I'm pretty certain it's the way they record and implement the sound, rather than a hardware issue.
I agree with you man, how can they else implement sounds for the new DLC cars and stuff they probably record it as they did with the Hudson
 
I'm pretty certain it's the way they record and implement the sound, rather than a hardware issue.
Or, consider this, that they may record very good sounds, but can't implement them as well as they want to because of hardware issues.
 
Of course if the sound were a RAM related issue, some cars wouldn't sound perfect while others sound terrible. It's not like some cars sound good sometimes, but while racing in a pack the sound goes away, we're talking about sound accuracy right?
It's a question of what the cars sound like in GT, and has nothing to do with RAM. Some are accurate, others are not. Add 60GB of RAM to the PS3 and put exhaust on a Mustang and it still sounds like a 4 cylinder, because that's the sound programmed in the game for it.

Don't be silly.
I think you're conflating several issues.

The sound fading out in packs is due to the dynamic range compressor. Use a setting other than "Living room"; it's not ideal, since it could do with a dynamic source volume mixing scheme (which is a mechanically, if not theoretically, trivial extension of a pyschoacoustically-metered LoD system intended to control a virtual sound channel selecting mechanism, which itself is required to add more sources on finite hardware; the game desperately needs more sources) in addition to the limiter / compressor, but it's a start.

The RAM issue is perhaps old-hat now, but the comments about different games using resources differently is very pertinent - the smoke, shadow and texture quality are all memory issues that other games don't suffer from, for instance.
I used to maintain that RAM was (part of) the issue, but the Hudson uses more than twice as many samples as the other cars, and the Red Bulls play samples as well as that glorious new exhaust "simulation" at the same time. So the issue is more likely that the "completely new sound generation method" has been that long in development, and always intended to be implemented sooner rather than later, but kept slipping.
However, the addition of more sources requires more buffers, which requires more RAM. Remember that people are having issues with sounds not initialising / dropping out when playing; this is potentially indicative of dynamic buffer allocation problems.

The perennial accuracy issue was at first a coverage problem; they just didn't have enough unique material to cover the range of variation they were presenting in GT1 already. Now it's more an issue of attention, I'd wager, since the focus has been the new method; that method can, in theory, give the range of variation for free, according to physically-informed rules.
 
Or, consider this, that they may record very good sounds, but can't implement them as well as they want to because of hardware issues.

I really don't think so. It's not a Gameboy Colour, it's a PS3. There's other games with *better* sounds on the same platform, so hardware cannot be an issue. If they can run 1080p movies in GT6 they can run a sound clip from a real car.
 
I really don't think so. It's not a Gameboy Colour, it's a PS3. There's other games with *better* sounds on the same platform, so hardware cannot be an issue. If they can run 1080p movies in GT6 they can run a sound clip from a real car.
:banghead:
Different game using the hardware for different purposes.
Like I keep having to repeat... ;)
  • Other games have fewer cars, and fewer types of cars on track at once. How many unique car sounds are in a Formula 1 game?
  • The only comparable game, Forza 4, restricts the quality samples to the car the camera is focused on. And Forza 5 is essentially running on the equivalent of a beefy gaming PC with 16 times as much ram. But also has many fewer cars than Forza 4.
 
I'd really take Griffith500's posts into consideration, because he has actually done some work in this subject and is up on the tech and requirements involved.

PD is doing something in the sound area, but it's not all there yet, and may not be for the PS3 as Griff mentioned above. You have to consider that the PS3 really is being pushed close to the limits, and you can't do that too much or you end up with crashy games. Especially with a complicated architecture like Cell.
 
I think you're conflating several issues.

The sound fading out in packs is due to the dynamic range compressor. Use a setting other than "Living room"; it's not ideal, since it could do with a dynamic source volume mixing scheme (which is a mechanically, if not theoretically, trivial extension of a pyschoacoustically-metered LoD system intended to control a virtual sound channel selecting mechanism, which itself is required to add more sources on finite hardware; the game desperately needs more sources) in addition to the limiter / compressor, but it's a start.

The RAM issue is perhaps old-hat now, but the comments about different games using resources differently is very pertinent - the smoke, shadow and texture quality are all memory issues that other games don't suffer from, for instance.
I used to maintain that RAM was (part of) the issue, but the Hudson uses more than twice as many samples as the other cars, and the Red Bulls play samples as well as that glorious new exhaust "simulation" at the same time. So the issue is more likely that the "completely new sound generation method" has been that long in development, and always intended to be implemented sooner rather than later, but kept slipping.
However, the addition of more sources requires more buffers, which requires more RAM. Remember that people are having issues with sounds not initialising / dropping out when playing; this is potentially indicative of dynamic buffer allocation problems.

The perennial accuracy issue was at first a coverage problem; they just didn't have enough unique material to cover the range of variation they were presenting in GT1 already. Now it's more an issue of attention, I'd wager, since the focus has been the new method; that method can, in theory, give the range of variation for free, according to physically-informed rules.
If you're trying to tell me that the PS3 can't produce a V8 engine sound, this post isn't worth replying to.
It's been done, just not by PD.

My point is that (some of) these cars don't sound right "ever". It's not from other processes, or anything else going on, the sound emitted from the engine while driving is stupidly inaccurate.
I know that it can be accurate, because other games pull it off.

I don't need to be a technician to then decisively conclude that GT could also have this same sound, from a technical perspective. Because it's already been done.
 
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