Engine Sounds [see post #27]

Forza Horizon Forza Horizon 4 FH4 Discussion
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Does anyone have any idea how much the car sounds in this game differ from FH3 or FM7? I was rather disappointed with the car sounds in those games as I feel they didn’t really sound as high quality or as accurate i.e. the 2.6 I6 TT(RB26, although for some reason they chose to give the Supra the same dreary engine sound) or the turbo noises etc.

In Forza Horizon 2, for example, each car felt like its audio was of decent quality and represented it to a good degree to its real-life counterpart. After playing FH2 for a few days I also noticed the induction sounds from the turbos were more pronounced and the flutter was, well an actual flutter, whereas in FH3 the equivalent flutter was more of a quarter/half flutter, or you could actually hear the BOV which was very quiet imo in FH3 which kind of killed it for me. However I do think they also nailed some sounds for example on the Audi RS5 or the M3 E46, although if you turbo the RS5’s stock engine the turbo doesn’t really sound right in my opinion as the induction sound is bang-on but then it just gives a small chirp if you step off the gas which can get annoying and be a bit of a let down as it could be improved. If you do a sound comparison between the games you’ll see what i’m talking about.

And looking at the E3 gameplay unfortunately it looks like they may have retained some of the sounds, most noticeably was the RB-swapped Silvia that was shown first, which looks and sounds exactly the same as it did in FH3.

Car sounds that require fixes (based on my own experience and the community)
-2002 Nissan Skyline BNR34 - The update gave the Forza 7 soundfile, it now sounds like the Subaru SVX from Forza 6 instead of an RB26 - possibly just revert to the original and modify that.

-1997 Nissan Skyline BCNR33/BNR32 - Same goes for these two^^ (honestly the Alfa Romeo Gulia QV sounds more like an RB26 than the Skyline’s in this game do)

-The Dodge Vipers (bar the Formula Drift) - Somewhat decent in lower rpm’s, sound like lawnmowers anything above say 3/4k RPM.

-Honda B and K series engines (Civic/Integra/RSX) - Decent from the Interior, sound like straight piped mosquitos from the exterior.

-Maserati Gran Turismo S - Uses a Ferrari engine sound? At this point even something like the AMG V8 would sound more accurate… (You should just reuse the FH3 soundfile for the GT-S)

-2017 Ford GT- This was the cover car in FM6, why would you use a completely different soundfile if you had an accurate recording literally 3 years go?

-Pagani Zonda Cinque Roadster - Sounds just a bit iffy in general. Low RPM’s is somewhat okay however as you approach the redline it just sounds weird, kind of like the sound distorts itself in a sense.

-Mclaren P1 - The previous Forza games have mastered this - H2, H3… Had a perfect soundfile since FM5… Yet the sound is just copy-pasted from the 650S/720S so it’s not even nice to drive anymore (seems like a lil’ bit of lazy copy pasting going on here.)

Subaru (pretty much all of them + the Subaru Boxer swaps) - Practically no rumble? Sounds like a built race engine? Whatever happened to the rumble that was previously done so well.

-Alfa Romeo 8C - Sounds like an AMG V8…

-Audi TTS - Uses exactly the same soundfile as the 2016 Civic Type R.

-2017 Ford Shelby Mustang GT350R - Use FM7 soundfile, perhaps use the current soundfile on the 2018 Mustang that’s been added in this game.

-Koenigsegg Agera RS - Uses the GT350R soundfile from FM7? It should be using the same file as the One:1.

-BMW’s 1M, M2 and M4 - All of these use a lightly modified RB26 soundfile from the Skylines… (Which is actually a 2JZ sound, supposedly!)

-Mazda RX7 and the 13B 2 Rotor swaps - The FM7 soundfile is pretty bad… Yet it is reused in this game, even though there was a pretty good one in Horizon 3. Currently the rotaries just sound like angry bees in a tunnel (which is right in a sense, but the sound/note itself is just wrong) - reference Horizon 3.

I’ve also noticed that while some cars do sound decent, for example the BMW Z3 M, they have some weird flanger-distortion sound effect under acceleration or even normal revving. This makes the cars sound quite artificial and that there really is just a computer producing the sounds over the sound of an actual engine.

That being said I do understand that they are working with some new system and don’t have as large a library to create/use sounds from, but hopefully they will manage to fix these problems soon.

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Sadly unless PG come out and tell us, we don’t know. I agree that FH3 had quite poor sounds for the most part. A lot of shared audio between cars especially. In FM7 however the audio improved a lot in some areas and downgraded a lot in others. Engine notes sounded more accurate and less digital but there was an absence of treble and bass making them sound weak. I wish that PG would give us an option to adjust the audio ourselves. For example, allow us to adjust what bass and treble levels the engine has, how loud the transmission sound is, how loud the aspiration sounds like turbo flutters and spool or supercharge whines, how loud the backfire is etc etc.

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The only saving grace with the Silvia sounding as it did in the E3 presentation is that if the car actually had a 2JZ swap.

Otherwise, yeah disappointing with the car sounding the same, but we shall see, PG still have a few months to sort things out.

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I didn’t really feel Forza 7 had fixed the sounds too much, although they were higher quality. an obvious example is the Skyline’s RB26 which honestly sounds like no RB26 i’ve ever heard of before, in fact it sounds more like the Flat-Six engine from the Subaru SVX back in FM6. In my opinion they had no reason to change it as they had nailed it so beautifully in FM6 (no, seriously they even nailed the induction noises). The annoying thing was that your own car will have the awful dreary sound in FH3, however if someone with the same car/engine as you drives past or revs it still uses the same sound as it did in FM6… A few examples are the Zonda Cinque, R34 Skyline, A80 Supra, Murcielargo SV, 2015 Mustang GT etc. just to name a few

So was there any obvious reason i’ve missed as to why they would have changed it?

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From what I heard in the demo, listening to it with a 5.1 speaker set up on my computer, the engine sounds are deep and throaty with back-valve noises more pronounced. You can actually hear there is an improved sound difference if you listen to the demo on Xbox One connected to a surround sound set up from a good Japanese branded receiver.

UPDATE! There is an engine gear sticking issue with the new Alpha Romeo SUV in the game. When shifting in Manual mode, gears 4 or 5 continues to sound even after down shifting 1 and continues to sound when car is brought to a complete stop for at least 10 seconds. This has happened several times with the same car.

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Why Japanese aha!

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Gotta have that 100% JDM sound, bro. LOL

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That dreary sound IS the Supra’s sound. :smiley:

Never had a soft spot for the 2JZ-GTE’s sound. It needs to be heavily modded to sound decent, and then the huge turbos muffle it all.

I just don’t understand how in FH3 they didn’t reuse the R33 sound for the R34. The R33 was a joy to drive compared to the R34. The R33’s sound in FH3 is, in fact, the exact sample used for the R34 in FM6 and sounds amazing.

You’ve nailed it in the head. That’s pretty much what I thought comparing both games as well as their predecessors.

Unfortunately, with The Crew 2 recycling the same V8 sound for everything from a modern Mustang GT to a big foot truck (in the closed beta footage I saw, that’s what happened), there’s really no one able to push T10/PG in this field when it comes to open-world arcade games.

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`Im hoping for more realistic sounding cars. In FH2 we were actually able to hear the cam.

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Yeah, FH2 was also louder in cockpit view. Might as well not listen to music on FH3 while driving either. I noticed while just playing around the other day that FH3 muffles the engine sound when listening to any radio station. This is not the case with FH2 where the car sound is manually set by the player.

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Exactly! Everyone should notice that when you have a Ford bronco or the gurhka, you put a v12 swap and it sounds just like a Lamborghini aventador 2012 LP 700-4 or a centenario but anyway you get what I mean so fm7 had the correct sounds for the Nascar stock cars or like my real life car the lancer Evo X 2008 every horizon game had that car but each one sounded different than the fm5 game which you can barely here the car but according to the top thread the guy is asking a good question and I understand what he’s trying to ask so there is your answer

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I do think most people alsodon’t play the game though a good enough system. Most play it through a TV or poor headphones and it really doesn’t do the game justice. A lot of nuances are lost.

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From the stream, sounds like the R32 has adopted the 2JZ sound from FH3…

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It had a bodykit as well, so it could have been a conversion.

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Whatever the engine sounds like, it almost always becomes a background drone I’m no longer paying attention to in short order.

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Lose the sound lose the soul imo.
It was a very upsetting downtrend going from FH2 into FH3. Not only are some cars worse sounded the soundtrack was a lot worse (subjective of course but l have a feeling many would agree). In addition, tangentially, the exhaust flames became more boring. Somehow FH3 felt more lifeless so l really hope FH4 gets a shot in the arm.
And for the love of god introduce transmission sound on race gearboxes. The whine is the sound of a racecar.

Us audio lovers need to start making more noise over the sounds. Iol

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I haven’t drove them too much in FM7, but for me the worst culprit in downgrade of engine sound in FH3 were the V12 Ferrari’s. Whether they were stock or had exhaust upgrades, they just sounded so tinny and whiny and very digital, something I would have expected from a PS3 gran turismo game. The FXX-K sounded more like the 2.4 V8’s from the 06-13 F1 cars in FH3.

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FH2/FM6 sounds ftw! Hopefully they’ll pull their finger out and get it right again in this as FH3 was a joke for engine sounds.

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I could hear the small difference in the r32’s sound from fh3. It is a very similar sound, but they made some improvements to it. But we’ll never know for sure until we play the game.
Perhaps they’ll use a combination of FM7 sounds and improved FH3 sounds. Only time will tell.

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They did move into a new sound engine. If you compare the chase cam sounds of FM6 to FM7, FM6 is often more accurate but also flatter. In FM7 they mixed tons of different noises to the cars, especially noticeable in turbocharged engines. Also, the lower turbo whistle in the cockpit is actually an improvement in many cars, since there are very few modern cars with really loud turbo whistles. They’re often hidden because the “gearheads” (or whatever that term means) don’t like them.