Hit Spikes and Engine Sounds

[cegull]

I think the sim could use better engine sounds for inline and radial engines.  A Merlin or Alison inline sounds a good deal different than a Pratt or Right radial for example.  Bullet strikes on dirt should throw up more dusty stuff and those on water could be enhanced as well.  In real life air combat tracers looked like round glowing balls or 'tomatoes' (as Cat Eyes Cunningham put it) and the strikes on the opponents plane looked like light colored smokey puffs with bits of stuffs blowing back in the slip stream.    I think most of todays players have puters that can handle some extra effects and the player immersion effects would be greater also. 

[Chalenge]

I am fairly sure that the sounds are kept simple by default so that people with older systems are not overwhelmed. There is a lot more to it then just that, of course, but that to start with. There are plenty of sound packs to chose from to fix things if you do not enjoy the default audio.

As to effects we will have to wait to see what is under development.

[lunatic1]

you can download sound packs for your engines---and the sparkies you see when bullets hit planes or gv's is fine with me.

[kvuo75]

strikes on the opponents plane looked like light colored smokey puffs with bits of stuffs blowing back in the slip stream. 

hit someone with a >30mm up close and you'll see just that already.

[GhostCDB]

hit someone with a >30mm up close and you'll see just that already.

 

[olds442]

I am fairly sure that the sounds are kept simple by default so that people with older systems are not overwhelmed. There is a lot more to it then just that, of course, but that to start with. There are plenty of sound packs to chose from to fix things if you do not enjoy the default audio.

As to effects we will have to wait to see what is under development.

This is a really incorrect, its more or less they would rather put the time into plane models and physics than hi-fi sounds. The fact that a new user has to rely on a 3rd party to make their game not sound like complete crap is frankly pretty terrible.

The only reason I can see sounds being omitted from the game is for systems with low hard drive space but, for me atleast the sound mix I currently have set up are 153 Mb. A lot of people think sound is magical but it really isn't, its just an AC signal, at the same time any system with capable 16 bit stereo output could play any sound that is 16 bits and stereo. I doesn't mater how "simple" or "complex" the sound is because in the end all sounds are the same complexity and the only thing which makes them distort is the amp, DAC (Digital to Analog Converter) and then what the user is listening to them on. Going onto that example the idea that game sounds could cause a system to run slower is simply incorrect. Sure on an unoptimised sound engine it could but miles is pretty well regarded.

And its quite funny because in game the system still has to preform all the 3d calculations of where the sound is at relative to the listener and yet you never see this complained about (this is true even in mono outputs).

And let me edit this, yes more sound files would infact cause a slow down because the system would have to index more of them and thus use CPU time on it. But to be honest the 3d positioning would take much much more CPU time than simple indexing.

[Skuzzy]

This is a really incorrect, its more or less they would rather put the time into plane models and physics than hi-fi sounds.
<snip>

This is quite incorrect.

And let me edit this, yes more sound files would infact cause a slow down because the system would have to index more of them and thus use CPU time on it. But to be honest the 3d positioning would take much much more CPU time than simple indexing.

This is also incorrect, on all counts.

[olds442]

Then please explain to how aces high differs from almost all games. You never see any other game not come with proper sounds for objects with in the game for reasons other than licensing or simply wanting to put work else where.


Also it is correct to say what makes a sound file more demanding on the CPU to play is the bit resolution, the sample rate, the length of the sound file, and any up sampling/down sampling that needs to take place. So based on the fact that:

*All sounds with the same bit resolution, sample rate, length, and assuming no up/down sampling (OS process anyways) are equally complicated
*Playing these sounds is a small task for any CPU that is newer than a pentium 4
*Each plane would have a class which would play the respective sounds that plane uses (assumption, not sure if done like this but a reasonable guess)

Then we can conclude that the order of events of the game playing the sound for 1 plane would be:

*Locate sound file to be played (Game process)
*Load file from HDD if need be (OS process)
*Play said sound file (Game process)
*Return (Loop)

So the only thing that slows down the sound file would be the indexing of more sound files and then playing them possibly at the same time. One has to remember that modern for modern CPUs this is an a very easy task. Sound cards used to have on board RAM and processor for playing sounds (this is around the 2005 era) but this was phased out as modern CPUs can play multiple sound files just fine.

[Skuzzy]

Modern sound cards still have their own processor and RAM.

[guncrasher]

Modern sound cards still have their own processor and RAM.

in other words why buy sound cards with no ram or cpu when most mobo's have their own sound, right?



semp

[olds442]

in other words why buy sound cards with no ram or cpu when most mobo's have their own sound, right?



semp

Sounds cards should be bought because one wants better sound not because of better FPS. A external USB DAC+AMP combo will provide the same thing a sound card does with out all the buggy drivers and silly EQs. I personally still use a sound card because they have a good price to quality ratio.

[Chalenge]

So, olds, you think that it is just as easy for a computer to process a 36kb wave file as it is a 1.4MB wave? I mean if compute cycles aren't important why is it that modelers have to go through LOD reduction? Why do texture artists have to provide mipmap levels? And the tell-all is why is there a limit on the number of sounds that a game can handle at one time? Why is it some onboard VIA chips (for example) can handle only 16 voices, while a top-of-the line card can handle 128? It's not hard drive limited I can tell you that!

[guncrasher]

Sounds cards should be bought because one wants better sound not because of better FPS. A external USB DAC+AMP combo will provide the same thing a sound card does with out all the buggy drivers and silly EQs. I personally still use a sound card because they have a good price to quality ratio.

no what I meant was dont get a sound card that doesnt have a cpu or ram.  it's a waste of money.  get those who have their own cpu and ram.  they cost the same in most cases.


semp

[olds442]

So, olds, you think that it is just as easy for a computer to process a 36kb wave file as it is a 1.4MB wav

No remember what I said about the complexity is dependent on sample rate, bit resolution, and time? Assuming we are sticking to 1 file type the only reason a file gets bigger or smaller is dependent on those 3 variables.

I mean if compute cycles aren't important why is it that modelers have to go through LOD reduction

Are we talking about CPU cycles or GPU cycles, GPUs for the most part handle graphics and are extremely different beasts than CPUs.

And the tell-all is why is there a limit on the number of sounds that a game can handle at one time?

Simple, its engine dependent and the design must consider what they want to put their money/time and in some cases processing power. Yes if you have 128 different sounds it will take more processing power than 16 sounds. But fancy this, a modern dual core super scalar out of order CPU running at 3ghz would be MUCH better at processing sound files than a 100 mhz single core VLIW DSP. Sure they are different workloads and the DSP would have a better instruction per cycle but its running at a crawling 100 mhz compared to the 3000 mhz CPU.

It simple math:

DSP can:

*Process a max of 8 instructions in an in order software pipeline
*Run at 100mhz
*Bit width of 16-32 bits
*Execute 1 thread at a time

Dual core CPU can:

*Process a max of 3 instructions in an out of order hardware pipeline
*Run at 3000mhz
*BIt width from 32-64 bits (Or 128-256 bits with vector streaming instructions)
*Execute 2 threads at a time (or 4 threads with hyperthreading)

So how many instructions per second can these two processors do?

DSP: 8 instructions * 100,000,000 cycles per second (hz) * 1 thread @ 32 bits

Instructions per second: 800,000,000 aka 8 million instructions per second (MIPS)

Dual core CPU: 3 instructions * 3,000,000,000 * 2 threads @ 64 bits

Instructions per second: 18,000,000,000 aka 18 billion instructions per second (MIPS)

So

Sound cards DSP: 8 MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second)
Computer CPU: 18000 MIPS (Million Instructions Per Second)

18000-8= 17992

So with a sound card installed the CPU would do 18000 MIPS and without one it would do 17992 MIPS

Not that big a difference.

EDIT: and if you don't believe my numbers I will gladly compare real world DSPs (that are used in sound cards) and CPUs (that are used in an average comptuer) of any model you chose

[Chalenge]

It's not engine dependant. It doesn't matter what the variables are if the size is larger it takes more room, time, and thus cycles. It doesn't matter whether its CPU or GPU, cycles matter. You save process time where you can, which is why you bother to reduce complexities where you can. When HTC made things use standard sounds the complexity was reduced to a minimum. No, it's not engine dependent, it's processor dependent. Like I said some onboard chips can handle only 16 voices, while the better soundcards can handle 128. If it depended on the engine alone then you would have zero voices, because the engine cannot play sounds alone. And a CPU alone will not do it. You can upgrade an old 780i system to a rocking Titan, but if the CPU is still an E8400 then the game isn't going to run any faster. However, switch out from a standard VIA chipset to a SB ZxR audio card and you will instantly have better sound. No, your frame rate won't increase (maybe a little), but you will probably get fewer audio anomalies in heavy traffic. Speed up the CPU to an i7 but use a 5400 rpm hard drive and you still have a bottleneck.

This is why they make audio cards, rocking video cards, Xe hard drives, and water cooling.