Features

GRID Community Update: Waxing Lyrical.
2008-05-23 10:50:56
Seven reasons GRID’s audio is better than DiRT’s, and some poetry.



Audio in car games is something of a black art, there’s many ways to approach the problem of getting clean, isolated audio of a highly-strung race motor wailing at maximum effect, and over the years the Codemasters audio team has probably tried them all.



And even once you’ve recorded the sounds, there’s a lot that has to happen on the programming side to play them back- We asked our audio programming guru to give us a list of just some of the really quite clever stuff that GRID’s Audio system does to make for a gameplay experience that’s as aurally satisfying is it is visually.



1. GRID takes the acclaimed audio systems used for single-car rally racing in DiRT and extends those to model 20 vehicles racing at once - mixing 760 sound sources for the cars alone, PLUS music, collisions, damage, crowds and many other ambient sounds.



2. GRID uses multiple sets of interactive music, eight layers deep, positioned in surround around the player, adapting to their performance and position in each race!



3. As well as more than an hour of sounds instantly-accessible in memory and mixed on the fly - extending the rich system used in DiRT - GRID seamlessly streams context-sensitive speech and music, as well as other data, from disc as you play the game, squeezing yet more varied audio from the console and PC hardware.



4. GRiD uses well over 100 simultaneous audio filter and reverberation effects to further tailor each sound to its context and player activity.



5. GRID audio systems use sub-bass Low Frequency Effects and controller shocks together - what we call 5.1.1 sound - for crushing impacts and rumble strip feedback that you can really feel as well as hear!



6. GRID now uses Ambisonic techniques for immersive surround on XBox360 as well as PS3. This means all the speakers work together to create realistic soundfields, rather than just picking the nearest one or two for each direction - a difference that really has to be heard to be appreciated - once you've heard Ambisonic surround, typical cinema and game panning just sounds fake (which it is).



7. Almost all the sounds in GRID on PC are in uncompressed PCM format - at last players can hear the sounds at the full quality of our original recordings (especially with X-Fi advanced mixing and effects).



As you can see- things have moved on a fair bit from the days of 8-bit sampling and FM sound cards.



We’ve been running a screenshot competition, and the image heading up this week’s update was last week’s winner by forum user Debaser64.

Click this link to see the entries for the second week for the competition. Each week’s winner gets a GRID t-shirt, so get grabbing; It’s a great way to pass the time while waiting for release day…



In our final item this week, we simply have to give a special mention to forum member XboxGamePad who was moved to write the below words as a tribute to how awesome GRID is;





As I sit here, on the GRID...

I know that I'm ready for the speed,

Ready for the smoke in my face,

Giving the audience what they need.



Whether I'm going down the stretch,

reaching 100 miles per hour,

or hitting the corner feeling the G's

I always feel my engine's power.



I see the checkered flag,

even before I hit the green.

And when I hit the gas,

I already see my own victory.



This is my GRID,

whether I start in first or last,

I'll always end it the same way,

You behind me, me looking back.





There’s really no following that, is there? We'll be sending XGP a T-shirt in recognition.



See you next week, when the wait will almost be over!