Rate Battlefield 3's sound design

What do you think of Battlefield 3's sound design? For me, it's not bad but it's pretty hard to notice where everything is.

 

Dammit, forgot to add a "Good" rating.

 

would have probably said good but went with very good. What do you mean its hard to notice where everything is?

 

By that I meant that it is difficult to pin-point where people or stuff are located just by sound.

 

you're not using wartapes setting right? I think the higher settings causes the sounds to be more echoey and sound better, but harder to locate the shooter.

 

I don't like it that well. You can't hear enemies on foot only friendlies. And there are times when it is difficult to pinpoint direction of gun fire.

 

I think it's one of the very best in the industry. Examples of better sound in a military shooter are hard to come by.

 

arma 2? thats pretty good if i remember.

 

yeah, that's what i was thinking too. but:

1) that's a serious simulator.

2) that was the only thing i could think of

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Among arcade style *fast, fun, instant gratification* types of multiplayer FPS games, I think BF3 has the best sound design out there, and only serious simulators offer anything better. And, even then, the only one I could come up with was Arma 2 if I wanted to be confident in my answer.

And even then, BF3 still sort of wins in sound because they do a better job achieving what it is they set out to do than what Arma 2 achieves what it set out to do.

Arma 2 doesn't have really amazing sound sources for weapon firing, etc. - but they do have a really good sound engine (positional, affectedness based on environment)

Arma 2 sounds: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bn5NB8BJKLU

BF3 and MW3 (MW3 is pretty terrible to listen to in comparison): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nYXqXm_LLHg&feature=related

 

With the right sound setup, it's simply amazing. I also love how sounds are different when indoors and outdoors.

 

sounds are good, but it's damn buggy.

 

yeah definately. Although in those videos, the battlefield 3 one was far to echoey for outdoor firing but still sounds a lot better than mw3. Arma 2 with CSM2 is obviously the most realistic with very little echo etc but again its a sim not a game with hollywood sfx to make it sound more appealing.

 

I like how bf3 handle sounds that are far away. There's a delay on when you hear it after the event depending on distance.

Example:
Exploding gas tank, you see the flash but the sound shockwave occurs a couple of secs later.

 

I dunno. I've blown up things being near and at times it lags in sound. Sometimes I just think audio takes a backseat priority to everything else. Especially when the tower falls in Caspian. You can be right next to it and the sound doesn't come through for several seconds.

 

Are you using that workaround that prevents the sound from cutting out randomly?

 

^ is there a workaround?

 

Yes, is there a workaround?

 

Add to your user.cfg

GstAudio.AudioQuality 4


Or change save profile and find that change 0 to any number between 1-5

 

Thanks Falco. So which is better 1 or 5?

 

BF3 has the best sound of any game. I cant play Metro 2033 because how terrible the sound is in comparison. Close second would be Crysis (both 1 and 2)

 

I don't have a very good headset so I can't even tell the different between them so I did 4 as my compromise.

5 is better and 0 is the worst.