Dolby Atmos for home theater still sounds a lil weird

until I ‘walk’ my system through 7.1 or 5.1 uncompressed first.

So I’ll load a car. Let’s use a Porsche here since they seem to have the thinnest mixes in this game at the moment. I’m using the 2021 GT3.

Here’s what I hear happening. When I load the car initially there’s less bass ( not sub-bass, bass like 80 - 200hz ) and I hear a upper midrange bump. Somewhere between 2 - 5khz. It also sounds like there’s less dynamic range. At this point I have my Xbox set to Dolby Atmos for home theater.

So what I do to correct this is go to xbox settings. Pick 7.1 or 5.1 uncompressed. Go back to the game. Rev a few times to check the sound difference. Then I’ll go back to xbox settings and pick dolby atmos for home theater. When I get back into the game I don’t hear what I heard initially. What I hear is that DA now has the same characteristics of 7.1 or 5.1 uncompressed.

FH5 used to do this, but it’s been corrected in an update since. I’m guessing that FM is plagued by the same bug. Mebbe hit up PG to see what they did? Idk I’m just tired of having to walk my system through other surround modes to get DA to sound right.

I have to do this every time I change cars. It’s quite annoying.

I highly recommend testing this in cockpit cam. You’ll hear the most difference in this view.

It is absolutely imperative that this is tested on a proper home theater setup. Soundbars won’t cut it. Headphones won’t cut it. An AVR connected directly to Xbox with speakers is a must to test this.

Oof. This needs to be done every time I upgrade the exhaust or air filter on the same car. So now not only do I have to do it when I change cars, but when I change parts on cars.

Seems that any time a sound change is made that this surround mode ( Dolby Atmos for home theater ) goes goofy. Gets REALLY center focused.

Something else I’ve noticed is that the Dolby modes sound completely different compared to 7.1/5.1. uncompressed. DTS:X has a sonic profile similar to the uncompressed modes, but Dolby is just weird. Like it’s trying to do too much or something. This is not the experience I have when I change modes with other types of content like movies and shows and such. I also don’t notice such a huge difference with other games. Cyberpunk, for instance, sounds only slightly different when cycling through surround modes.

It’s only the Forza titles that have a completely different sonic profile when in dolby modes. Weird and, imho, wrong.