Forza Horizon 5 reveals massive audio upgrade in new gameplay

The great thing about Forza Horizon it is because it brings together so many people. It’s the only racing game that I think my non-motorist friends enjoy. Forza Horizon 5 don’t try to change that; on the contrary, it seems to have got more people talking than ever.

Yet as a person who Is tend to mock and nitpick little things like the fidelity of the car models in the game, the degree of customization that can be applied to them and really just the precision in general, the series has admittedly left me wanting more. It’s very exciting, then, that the audio representation of cars, engine sounds in particular, has been massively enhanced to FH5.

Fraser Strachan, lead audio designer at Playground Games, highlighted the work being done to improve FH5 sound on a studio episode Let’s go streaming which aired on Monday. The complexity of the engine notes can be heard immediately, but before we dive into that, it’s helpful to explain how Playground was able to take the leap it did.

This is thanks to a new technology called “hybrid granular loopback”. Strachan said about 10 to 15 percent of Forza Horizon 4 cars used this method, but with the new game the team was able to apply it to every car on the list. Here’s how he explained it on the feed:

The old method was basically a loopback method that took a car – we put it in a garage and on a bench – and played it at, say, 1,000 rpm, 2,000 rpm, 3,000 rpm. min. And it was a computer that did that, so it was a pretty simulated environment. We would extract the loops and replay them.

So there are a few tricks – they can sound a bit like they’re in a garage, and not really on track. And they can also look a little wrong when the motor rotations don’t match up properly. So with our newer granular synthesis techniques, we’re actually taking the recordings that we put out on track – after driving all the way to the red line and then back down – we break up each of the individual motor rotations into a very small sample. , and we end up with thousands of little audio files that we can play in the game. And the benefit of the granular is that it runs at 90 frames per second, which is obviously faster than our game actually runs.

This leaves the team with a lot more clips, which make the engines more dynamic and responsive throughout the rev range. Vacuums are not. Racing game fans have longed for better sound from every developer since the beginning of time, and Playground has taken those requests to heart. You can hear the results for yourself in the compilation video below, showcasing everything from a Camaro ZL1 to a Morgan 3 Wheeler and a Golf R:

One example among the handful of Shared Playground was that of a Toyota Supra A80. Granted, I don’t have the finest ear for engine notes, and if you ask me to identify a particular car based on the sound it makes on its own, I’ll disappoint you 80 percent of the time. time. But even I can pick up the clatter at idle, the hoarse inline-six of the Supra at full tilt, and how the pop of each flashback has a unique height each time.

This Supra also highlights how far Playground has gone to ensure that certain cars’ sounds evolve as they are upgraded. The blue example in the video actually gets its audio from a heavily modified car that the studio borrowed for the game. Strachan says his team sampled notes from a few different Supras, so the car sounded out. stock – when you buy it or earn it in-game – will be quite different from where it ends up when you change it.

This brings us to another facet of the seriousness with which audio is treated in FH5: audible upgrades. Every powertrain adjustment and even tire size changes will affect the sounds of your car. You can even test how a particular room will change the sound of your car as you apply them. This is how it works, with a Vauxhall Monaro VXR as subject:

You can tell the aftermarket exhaust adds a bit of reverb, the upgraded cams and valves adjust the pitch of the Monaro V8, and the forced induction applies that hiss. It will be music to the ears of many car nerds I know.

There are plenty of examples in this first video of how Playground’s new audio technology will transform the sounds of Horizon’s many cars, so I recommend you listen to them all. Also pay close attention to how a car’s surroundings affect the noise it makes. FH5 uses ray tracing in an audio and visual context, something you can hear in the echo of an AMG Project One as it hugs a canyon wall. So much attention in this medium is lavished on the visual side of things, so it’s refreshing to hear what can be accomplished when the developers apply the same attention and ingenuity to the audio. I don’t know about you, but I just got a lot more excited for Forza Horizon 5.