Quote from Electrik Kar :

Surround sound seems pretty ideal for racing games...

Maybe if you're blind it would make it easier

I can't see it being any real help, though, well maybe if you're blind it would help a lot . We have stereo already, so (bearing in mind you have the sound of your own car in the equation too, we don't want the weird effect of the volume of your own car being turned down when there are others nearby, like I noticed in Forza)...so if you hear a sound on the left, and you can't see a car in front of you, the sound is alongside or behind you on the left. If you hear a number of sounds on the left, and only see one car, then there is probably one behind or alongside you on the left. Easy.

What I would much prefer, slightly OT, though, is no more disappearing cars when you look away from them in replays. The sound they make disappears too, and then when you look back to them they take an annoying instant to reappear. Thank god it doesn't happen whilst playing, spoils replays sometimes, though.

Quote from sinbad :

I think you're right, I doubt you can get much more information than the current stereo sound provides, because of all the other sounds involved, and the way that exhausts tend to be pointed backwards, which means that not much sound is being fired forwards to your ears - well not enough to drown out your own car's noise crisply (assuming all cars are making the same amount of noise) phew long sentence.

I don't really see what the problem is anyway. Stereo is fine. If the sound is on the left, and you can't see a car in front of you, then it's definitely coming from behind you on the left. There would only be the least bit of value to it in multiple car pack racing, and in those situations I'm even more confident that it would be very hard to distinguish the direction each of the many many sounds is coming from IRL, since the cars in front would be much more audible than the ones behind.

On a bike it very much depends on how loud a noise your own machine is making, and how fast you're going. If there's someone with a loud bike behind you, you can hear them quite accurately (side to side) at lower speeds, but only if they're pretty close, and it's certainly not easy once the speed builds.

As much as I agree with some of the points here I don't think it is a viable reason why LFS cannot or should not support surround sound. It's as though you are making excuses. If it is technically possible why not implement it? At the end of the day you have the option to make LFS a lot more realistic.

When you are in your own car sounds arent only to the left and right of your ears are they? Sounds come from all over, and I think this would be a valuable addition to LFS...

If realism is the aim, then 5.1 (or more) isn't really needed, as real life sounds on tracks don't come at you like sounds from a surround system, but more like from a stereo system.

Quote from ajp71 :

nK Pro doesn't have surround sound either

Of course it does.(at least the scazzato sound system is 5.1) And it works beautifully.

I can tell exactly where an opponents car is in relation to mine without having to look left or right, leaving me to concentrate on the corner, rather than worrying about flicking my view left or right to see how far along side he is.
Anything that gives you additional information in sim racing is all good in my book.

5.1 should come as standard with all sims/games.

now I know why you turn towards me

Quote from tristancliffe :

If realism is the aim, then 5.1 (or more) isn't really needed, as real life sounds on tracks don't come at you like sounds from a surround system, but more like from a stereo system.

I'm still on the fence about that argument, but even if that true, 5.1 sound would allow a much more life like soundstage, whether you get certain information from it or not. All kinds of sounds approach from many angles; vehicular cues notwithstanding. Cockpit reverb would probably be really affected by 5.1 sound. I don't know if we have any reverb done for the car itself right now or not; if not then it would probably add a lot to the sound.

Quote from tristancliffe :

Is it really that important? Can you really hear the cars around you? I've never noticed it in reality - my own car on a track is too loud (with earplugs), and drowns out every other car. The F1 car might be different, but I certainly wouldn't expect to be able to hear where other cars are around me. You can just here that they are near.

Well, i have, but I drive in a modified road car on the track and have my windows down a little so yeah, i can hear where other cars are.

I know what you mean though, it's not a clear defined sound, especially wearing a helmet it's quite muffled, but there is a worthy addition in this.

I honestly would love it if i could notice when cars are behind just to the left or right, i don't care if it's not perfect, just so i can hear them.

I don't know about noisy racecars buffering everything else to nothingness, but if we got extra tire sound volume for realism's sake, we ought to have 4/4.1 surround to differentiate each tire's feedback.

You can hear from behind your own engine (in FZ or RAC for example), you can hear a horn, you can hear a car hitting your back (and then you can hear your rear bumper rubbing the tarmac,) or your side, you can hear which wheel is blown... of course surround is realistic, other thing is what sound you can hear from each speaker. Why are you guys only thinking on others engines noise? Surround is something that exists IRL

It's not just reality, or we'd be modeling drag caused by bugs hitting the windshield. What we're after is the things worth modeling, in a cost effective measure.
Hearing each distinct tire's grip, as sound is supposed to substitute for real life's seat of the pants feeling, is a detail worth modeling in LFS.

definately no need for 5.1, however 4 or 4.1 could possible, maybe, be ok. One benifit of using 4.1 over 4 is you could use the 5th channel for a shaker, instead of a sub. And that way viabrations the car is experincing can be sent through the 5th channel. However that would be a very big task for not much increased realism in return. As has been said earlier though, while it may be possible to to give lfs 4 channel sound, how much of a difference will it make? If you can hear a car, however you can't see a car, then it's not in front of you. Yep thats right it's behind you
I know it may be a hard concept to understand but trust me it's true

If this was a commercial game, then yes i could see the advantage of coding 5.1, because then you can say that on the box and people that didn't have a clue would think that it's great!

Front - engine
Right front -right wheel
left front - left wheel
left rear - left rear wheel
right rear - right rear wheel

hell, just that would make me happy

As i've now got a 5.1 system i'd change my opinion and say +1, but tbh even with 2 channels I could work out where the cars were (not sure how, though!).

It would be nice, but this is the sort of thing that should come with multi-threading.

Quote from TheChad :

...If you can hear a car, however you can't see a car, then it's not in front of you. Yep thats right it's behind you ...

As I said before, other cars engine is not the only thing you hear when racing, so that´s not an excuse for -1

I wouldn't mind being able to hear each tire making it's own noise...

...or being able to hear when someone hits my car from whichever direction they might come...

...there's many more good applications to 5.1 than just engine noise from other cars IMO. But what do I know? I've never raced in real life - so that might all be useless.

Quote from TheChad :

If you can hear a car, however you can't see a car, then it's not in front of you. Yep thats right it's behind you
I know it may be a hard concept to understand but trust me it's true

Since you're attracted to hard concepts, here's another brain rattling concept for your ponderings: is the car beside you or behind you? I suppose it's asking too much for you to be aware of the fact that front/rear imaging works -GASP- just like stereo imaging! Wow!

The point is real life does not have a 2 dimensional soundfield, neither should a simulator. I don't care about the limitations of a helmet and ear plugs. If you want to replicate that then wear them in front of your monitor for all I care, and then your physical appearance can match the stupidity of your unduly arrogant post.

OK, here's another gallon of gas to throw in the fire.

I've noticed that in many games, turning on Hardware Audio when you have a compatible card (like my Sound Blaster Live!) yields a noticeable improvement in performance! At least try and get the audio done in Hardware, at least as an option, so that us who are not graced with overclocked Core2Extremes and AMD X2 6400+ machines can gain some benefit with having a Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Gamer.

Quote from Impreza WRX :

OK, here's another gallon of gas to throw in the fire.

I've noticed that in many games, turning on Hardware Audio when you have a compatible card (like my Sound Blaster Live!) yields a noticeable improvement in performance! At least try and get the audio done in Hardware, at least as an option, so that us who are not graced with overclocked Core2Extremes and AMD X2 6400+ machines can gain some benefit with having a Sound Blaster X-Fi Extreme Gamer.

Not really news there mate, it's quite clear you can increase performance by having a seperate sound processor instead of having it done by the CPU itself...

If LFS could make good use of my 64mb of Xram... that would be cool

In my experience programming in OpenAL is pretty easy, and it gives you surround pretty much for free (except for people with those cheap nforce motherboard surround sound chipsets). Obviously I don't know the software architecture of LFS, but the hardest part would probably be setting up the 3D positions of all the sounds, which could require remixing of the sounds themselves. I for one think that being able to hear each tire from a different speaker would be pretty useful. None of the ISI sims have surround sound (due to a poor decision made long ago to go with the miles sound api), but netkar does and of course so does gran tourismo 5 prologue, and it definitely improves the sense of immersion and presence. Saying you don't need surround sound is like saying you don't need texture maps or shadows. Yeah its technically true but not having them would hurt the experience.

But hey, I don't know what the programmer is spending his time on instead of adding surround sound. I just think there should be more discussion since I think this feature should be high on the list at the very least.

i agree and disagree with a lot of what ive read here.

i just bought lfs s2, and im, not dissapointed but i was hoping it would have 5.1 sound.

5.1 is almost something standard today, every game has it, movies have it, there is even music that is 5.1.

i think there is no excuse for not having support for this, even mediocre games have that and lfs is not one mediocre game, is a great simulator.

for the ones that do not believe that 5.1 should be implemented in the game, have you played ANY racing game that has it? not only simulator, or any game at all in 5.1? i cant believe some of you say "stereo is the same" , "the ears are stereo"

quote from wikipedia:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ear

Human beings localize sound within the central nervous system, by comparing arrival-time differences and loudness from each ear, in brain circuits that are connected to both ears. This process is commonly referred to as EPS, or Echo Positioning System.

another quote.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surround_sound

The three-dimensional (3D) sphere of human hearing can be virtually achieved with audio channels above and below the listener. To that end, the multichannel surround sound application encircles the audience (left-surround, right-surround, back-surround), as opposed to "screen channels" (center, [front] left, and [front] right), i.e. ca. 360° horizontal plane, 2D).

the brain is a very powerfull thing and it will perceive position in the sounds, is how we are.

i think is common sense to know that with 5.1 surround sound the impact in realism is more than HUGE

and it doesnt matter if windows down, helmet, loud noise.

the sound waves will be there and you will perceive it.

sorry for my bad english

My point was that although human ears can detect the source of sound quite accurately (given good conditions), and although lots of other games have it, when you are racing in real life I defy almost anyone to tell, from sound alone, anything other than what side and how close a car is. Thus left and right (stereo) is actually sufficient to provide a totally realistic driving experience.

Other games have it not because they need it or benefit from having it, but because they can, and because it's another thing to tempt players with - LFS has no need for suc petty marketing tactics.

i totally disagree, its obvious that you dont use sound alone to drive, but 5.1 sound will enhance the realism to a much higher level.

im no racer in real life, but i have ears and i can tell you, it is not the same in stereo, it is not sufficient to provide a realistic driving experience, why? because when you drive you are using your 2 ears and your brain, and that tells you about the position, not exactly but surely accurate enough, imagine the brain is the sound DSP.

when the sound is muffled because of other factors then the sound waves travel by the bones, and you can hear it too, the same happens hearing underwater but to a much greater level because sound waves travel faster in water than in air.

back to the point, you dont drive from sound alone, but you are not deaf while you drive, i know you can drive listening to music without actually hearing anything from the outside, but for realism it has to have surround sound, at least 4.0.

other games may have sound only for a selling point, but rest assured that there are some GREAT games that actually use surround sound and is f*** great.

have you played gt legends? the sound in that game is so great, sound from inside the car in center channel, outside noise in the other speakers, simply AWESOME.

if lfs had surround sound it would totally be something worth it.

and by the way, lfs is not free, i mean, coding time should not be a issue since we are paying for the game.

I do race in real life, and I can assure you that stereo is plenty sufficient to simulate aural awareness in a noisy racing car with a helmet and the racing environment.

Yes, I have played GT Legends. It was rubbish. The nasty sound samples were vomit inducing.

I also own a 5.1 setup, so lack of equipment is not my reason for opposing it.

Quote from tristancliffe :

blah blah blah

You're right. You really only need 2 channels to give enough information to race.
However, we are in an age where simulations have evolved into more than just training. They're for entertainment, too. The more sounds and information being fed to the "driver" the better.

For the record. I normally can't hear other car around me on the track, either. What I hear is the sound of my car reverberating off of other cars and trackside objects. This might be different when similar cars are on the track at the same time. I usually have one of the few stripped out, unmuffled cars at the track events I attend. The few occations that I have race cars around me, I can hear a bit of them as they approach, and more as they are along side and in front of me.