Does this game lack directional audio?

[Understandout]

I think it's a pretty common feature in games that the sounds you hear will be louder when you're facing the source. So if a character speaks, looking at them will increase their volume level and looking away will decrease it. In fallout 4, it doesn't seem to work that way for me.

 

It became most apparent to me when someone was crying for help, yet I couldn't for the life of me find out where it came from. The sound did get louder the closer I got to the source, yet without the audio being influenced by my direction, I just couldn't find that source. I circled around a good ten minutes before giving up. I'm using stereo audio by the way, so I'm not talking about surround sound at all.

 

Can anyone confirm that Fallout 4's audio isn't influenced by which way you're looking? Any chance we could see a mod for this?

[dazzerfong]

It is for me: however, sounds aren't affected much when travelling through walls. In addition, height is also missing, which is a bit shame.

[Radioactivelad]

There are tickboxes for dialogue lines in the CK, the most commonly used one being "Treat As Dialogue."

 

I assume they're used to give sounds Priority over others, so that say, even in the middle of a warzone, you can clearly hear what an important character is saying.

[zanity]

The sound system in FO4 is astonishing primitive- but don't blame Beth- this has been a trend in gaming for years now.

 

Much of the blame lies with Microsoft- who have NEVER provided a sound, input, or video playback API of any sophistication. APIs that appear to have promise are depreciated by Microsoft on a regular basis. Recall a few years back that PC games mostly lost the ability to map extra mouse buttons cos MS had changed the rules. It took some time for support of extra buttons to become common again.

 

AMD built an astonishing sophisticted sound processing system into its latest APUs and GPUs- but that has NEVER been used properly in even one PC game. Nvidia- in the (paper) launch for the new Pascal chips has annouced a new GAMEWORKS sound library that may improve things in the future.

 

Here's a clue for the clueless. The game itself used to allow the user to identify their sound set-up (5.1, 4, 2 or headphones), but Microsoft BANNED this, and told game devs they must INHERIT the desktop sound settings. Because of this, a game can't even know for certain how to craft basic disrection sounds- so take the simplest approach of sound attenuation by distance- and a primitive quad or stereo mix system.

 

PS a side effect of MS ruining directional sound is game devs paying much more attention to enviromental sound effects- which have improved exponentially over the last few years.

[BlahBlahDEEBlahBlah]

The sound system in FO4 is astonishing primitive- but don't blame Beth- this has been a trend in gaming for years now.

 

Much of the blame lies with Microsoft- who have NEVER provided a sound, input, or video playback API of any sophistication. APIs that appear to have promise are depreciated by Microsoft on a regular basis. Recall a few years back that PC games mostly lost the ability to map extra mouse buttons cos MS had changed the rules. It took some time for support of extra buttons to become common again.

 

AMD built an astonishing sophisticted sound processing system into its latest APUs and GPUs- but that has NEVER been used properly in even one PC game. Nvidia- in the (paper) launch for the new Pascal chips has annouced a new GAMEWORKS sound library that may improve things in the future.

 

Here's a clue for the clueless. The game itself used to allow the user to identify their sound set-up (5.1, 4, 2 or headphones), but Microsoft BANNED this, and told game devs they must INHERIT the desktop sound settings. Because of this, a game can't even know for certain how to craft basic disrection sounds- so take the simplest approach of sound attenuation by distance- and a primitive quad or stereo mix system.

 

PS a side effect of MS ruining directional sound is game devs paying much more attention to enviromental sound effects- which have improved exponentially over the last few years.

I'm not sure I'd agree that it's an industry wide horrible down-slide in quality, but I fully admit I haven't played every game out there.

Of all the games I have played and so can be used as a benchmark...this game is just bad (in that respect)!

 

I cannot count the times I've heard the dog barking, try to find him and he's nowhere in sight.

Or a supermutant that sounds right on top of me, but is 2 floors away. =/

*Tick* of a trap, subsequent turret activation, and no idea which way to turn in response...I've run 'towards' (the general direction of) the turret accidentally!

Distant fighting...somewhere?

A vertibird...somewhere?

Sneaking...OMG sneaking. Effectively sneaking without knowing where an unseen enemy might be when he/she kicks over a can? Largely given up on sneaking anyhow, so I guess I don't really care.

 

...anywho. Thought I might find a mod, but it seems that without outside support, there won't be much luck there.

Edited May 7, 2016 by BlahBlahDEEBlahBlah