What Happens When Forza Wants To Put Your Car in an Iconic Racing Game

[-]

JALbert@reddit

Turn 10 doesn’t just record the exhaust note, it actually takes a car, and puts it on a rolling road so that it can get the sound of the engine as it’s under load, running up and down through the gears, accelerating and braking. Multiple microphones are aimed at different points of each car to pick up the nuances of the sounds it makes.

Man I feel like there's a lot of cars in Forza that don't sound like they really do.

[-]

JossSomm@reddit

That cant be true. Every exhaust has the same "bop" sound and cars sound more closer to white noise. They dont have low-end at all or a good overrun, all the same pop sounds.

[-]

It’s your speakers. These are very likely recorded on multiple channels to maintain clarity of the noise (engine bay, exhaust, echos off walls, from directly behind the car, the sides and in front), and those compress to shit when playing on a traditional two-channel stereo speaker. The lows, mids, and highs all get crammed together onto just two channels when they’d been engineered to have their own separate speakers—lows from a sub, mids from speakers, highs from tweeters. As a result, you get that garbled nonsense and it sounds the same.

[-]

JossSomm@reddit

Yes, some engine sounds may be good but we have 700+ cars and a lot is shared or really low-quality. I have pretty high end headphones too, you can make good engine AND exhaust sounds without having to ask your player base for high-end audio gear to listen to it in an arcade game, come on.

Drive ANY car and let off the gas in high revs, its the same fucking exhaust pops on every car.

[-]

samcuu@reddit

They use those recordings as reference that they can only replicate digitally to a point. They can't just put the actual sound recording in the game.

[-]

lowstrife@reddit

The end result is still an incredibly synthesized result in a LOT of cases. The iconic stuff sounds iconic, but stuff gets really muddy below that.

I wonder if what was done here, which is taking a base game and then using generative AI to totally transform it:

https://x.com/stillgray/status/1842003657010905204

Could also be done to audio. The stuff we're seeing like google notebook is super impressive. I see audio being a lot easier to achieve than video will be as well, the above video is probably 5 or 1% of realtime and we're years away from it being able to be rendered at 30 or 60fps in realtime.

[-]

watduhdamhell@reddit

I think the future will consist primarily of AI tools generating engine sounds that are nearly identical to the real thing, just like people's voices are being almost perfectly replicated with AI tools now.

[-]

abattlescar@reddit

Well, the thing is that audio can also be generated quite realistically with little overhead. Look at what angethegreat is doing with his engine simulator.

He's making a game engine that takes the parameters of any given engine: cylinder size, compression, exhaust diameter, etcetera and turns it into sound based on fluid mechanics. It's damn good. Now, he's adding mechanical sounds. Effectively, it could be simulated better than straight-up recording the engine at various points.

Here's his latest update, his videos are a little dry and technical, but you can hear the basic simulation at 1:25.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qj5F_s3veiU

[-]

BroKick19@reddit

Holy shit that clip is eargasm

[-]

handymanshandle@reddit

There’s a reason there’s so much focus on masking what your brain or ears aren’t likely to pick up on when it comes to lossy audio compression. Our ears are, by and large, quite sensitive to gaps in information, and this especially becomes true with a nice set of headphones or speakers. Audio is only one component of an incredibly large game with a bunch of cars, and while the samples on their own aren’t all that far off from their real-life counterparts, the end result may not be what you’d expect or want.

[-]

abattlescar@reddit

What's your point? Are you agreeing that AI audio generation is bad?

[-]

DaOne_44@reddit

Brother did you just share a tweet from Ian Miles Chong

[-]

lowstrife@reddit

The account isn't relevant. I just searched for the video when writing the post and that's the one I happened to choose.

[-]

brippleguy@reddit

Wait, why can't they put audio recordings in a game?

[-]

time_to_reset@reddit

It needs to be dynamic and respond to what happens in the game. An engine under 90% throttle at 5,000 rpm sounds different from the same engine at 5,000 rpm at 75% throttle etc. You can't realistically record that for every car and every exhaust in every condition and stitch all those recordings together on the fly. Some level of computer generated audio is needed to make it work.

[-]

Jclarkson50@reddit

Back in the early days of Gran Turismo, which has had the worst engine and tire sounds of any racing game, they showed a BTS video of them modeling cars. For the audio, they had a car stopped and they were recording the revs at every Rev range. It seemed like noy very effective since we drive in games at full throttle most of the time.

I wanted to love the LFA in gt7 but it sounds nothing like the actual car. I'll take a recording of the sound than what thwy offer now.

[-]

KSW1@reddit

Musicians sample instruments with MIDI all the time, and are able to map a range of outputs. My drumkit has no end of kick drums available, different beaters, muffling options, mic placements, and all of them sound different.

Now, are they exactly 100% the literal sound in every scenario? No, but it's responsive. If I kick harder, it doesn't just play louder, but plays a sample of a louder kick drum than if I just tap it.

This sounds like a lot of work, but if they've already gone through the effort of recording every car from start to stop with however-many mics, that's exactly the dataset they've built.

[-]

--BlueHat--@reddit

That’s not true. Plenty of games use looped samples that are blended together and pitched up and down. Every Assetto Corsa game does this. You definitely don’t need to synthesize engine sounds

[-]

pogoturtle@reddit

That is not true. Look up AmaFmod Asseto corsa.

It's a dude that does sound mods for Asseto corsa literally by just using yt videos

[-]

Automatic-End-8256@reddit

According to the tour guide at the Peterson who supposedly also works at Jay Leno garage, they do a lot of the recording for video games there because he has such a large variety of cars

[-]

hundredjono@reddit

Man I feel like there's a lot of cars in Forza that don't sound like they really do

The cars in Forza haven't sounded good since Forza Motorsport 4

That's the only Forza where you can actually hear a muscle car chop when idling when you upgrade it to the max

[-]

alwaysmorelmn@reddit

This is a thing that most people don't understand about the fidelity of any perceptual experience: no matter how much effort is put into recording the phenomena, none of it matters if the thing reproducing it at the other end isn't up to the task.

This is especially true with audio reproduction. The speakers you use to recreate the sound have their own characteristics based on the physical limitations of their construction. So even the most perfectly faithful recording where every frequency recorded at a 96kHz sample rate is the exact perfect decibel up to 24-bit depth, if the speakers you're using to listen back to that recording are subpar and can't replicate the full frequency range or offer a very skewed frequency response (deviated volumes of different frequency levels that's a result of the materials and engineering used) it's just not going to sound right.

All of this input effort is really only for those fanatics who are willing to research and invest in the equipment necessary to perfectly reproduce the signal that's been meticulously recorded, and that is a very very very tiny fraction of the consumer public.

[-]

JALbert@reddit

I worked for a company that recorded audio for games, I'm aware of all that. I'm not looking for some absolutely perfect reproduction, I'm talking about things like cars that have crackles and pops on upshift from the factory don't have them in game.

There are immaculate recreations of the dashboard of cars I've driven in game, but engine audio frequently feels very generic.

[-]

UncleBensRacistRice@reddit

Yeah its a surprising amount of effort for a usually pretty poor result lmao

[-]

Marshall_Lawson@reddit

yeah the engine noise in FH5 was super disappointing especially because pretty much nothing happens at low revs, it pretty much gets muted

[-]

Time_Astronaut@reddit

Yeah this is straight up dishonesty, cut and dry lying.

[-]

jawnlerdoe@reddit

It’s documented they’ve done this for a long time. You can watch it on YouTube. They don’t do it for every game, and I do agree some cars don’t sound accurate.

[-]

Time_Astronaut@reddit

95% of the cars sound nothing like the real thing and they're infamous for re-using sounds between cars and engines. If they do it for 1/20 cars it means nothing, half of the sounds sound like god damn samples.

[-]

VonFeinstein@reddit

ALL the car sounds in Forza are built using samples, that's how dynamic engine and exhaust noises work. Whether or not they mix the samples well is another question.

The copying and pasting of sounds definitely is a problem, but I don't think the article is being dishonest. They are using recorded samples as the base of at least most of their car sounds.

[-]

reddegginc@reddit

[Case in point.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OdmKaZ6dslA)

[-]

RipCurl69Reddit@reddit

My sister's late FIL was contacted by Polyphony to record the sounds of his Ford RS200 for Gran Turismo (I believe 4) and only because, as far as I'm aware, Ford didn't have a car available at the time.

He's somewhere in the game credits, god bless you Tom, you absolute legend.

[-]

jspeed04@reddit

Thanks, Tom!

[-]

DeTomato_@reddit

Nice insight for the behind the scenes of how cars are rendered for Forza. Shame on Ford for their reason of not providing their car.

[-]

Fofolito@reddit

Ford had no incentive to arrange anything. As the article mentioned the 2024 model year ends the car's production and 2025 see's a new model introduced. From Ford's perspective they don't want to hype a car going out of production because it could interfere with the publicity they want to direct to the new product.

[-]

mygawd@reddit

They approved the license though. If they are OK with it going in the game seems weird they wouldn't accommodate the photos

[-]

Caboobaroo@reddit

Circa 2008/9, my good friend worked for a high-end auto repair shop with a dyno, just down the road from Microsoft. They used their dyno and his 05 Subaru STI for vehicle noises for one of the Forza Motorsport games (I have it, but it's escaping me which one at the moment). The number of microphones they had in the donor room was crazy, probably 40 or so.

I worked at another auto shop in the same complex around that time, and I can remember them bringing in a 1964 Ferrari GTO LHD to record. When I heard it spinning up on the dyno, I came running. That'll be a memory I will never forget!

[-]

horhaygc8@reddit

A couple years later they recorded my 05 STi, probably at the same shop, and began using its sounds for modified Subarus. It was recorded during a demo day for journalists but after the demo they continued recording because they liked what they were getting.

https://youtu.be/lPX4iXSA-4U?si=dRQUD35sgWvlv8B0

[-]

Caboobaroo@reddit

Yup, Dyno Authority. My buddy (Dunkin on NASIOC) worked there. I was also doing alignments for NASIOC members at the time.

[-]

horhaygc8@reddit

Ah NASIOC, those were the days. I never really clicked with the NWIC but I learned a lot from the forums in general. One thing I learned: Stay away from “Proven Power Bragging”

[-]

Caboobaroo@reddit

I went to a few weekday meets at Mill Creek, but when you show up with an old modified GL, most of them would give you weird looks. I was friends with a few of them, but I was never in the "GD" crowd.

I went on a fun run with Jason Hall and a few guys that found out that even though the old GL wasn't fast, it would stick with them in the corners!

[-]

horhaygc8@reddit

I had a similar experience when I was driving an 89 RX Turbo and the 2.5RS and early Bugeye WRXs were out. Sure, the EA82T wasn’t threatening the EJ guys in the straights but it was plenty quick in the corners still

[-]

Caboobaroo@reddit

Have you ever been a member of the USMB by chance? Did you have your RX in 2007/08? I still have an 89.5 black RX in storage that will be getting an EZ30 because it would be a sacrilege of me to swap my one owner 89 XT6.

[-]

tharussianphil@reddit

Honestly I get the sense they really don't bother with a lot of cars. The RS4 sounded nothing like a stock RS4 or my RS4 which had two different aftermarket exhausts, 1 h pipe and 1 x pipe.

[-]

handymanshandle@reddit

Sometimes I forget how long it takes to make a high quality car model for these games, and every time I see the newly scanned or modeled models, I appreciate the effort that goes into it. While it doesn’t necessarily excuse model recycling for decades, it does at least put into perspective as to why game developers often end up doing it, even if it’s not entirely fitting with a more modern rendering engine compared to when that 3D model was introduced.

[-]

Thomas_633_Mk2@reddit

The alternative to model recycling is what GT has, where the post GT6 cull still affects car count today

[-]

hi_im_bored13@reddit

I much prefer the GT approach. May have fewer cars but the details are incredible, taillights & paint in particular are perfect in GT7.

Forza has been quantity over quality from the start, until the 4th installment that worked out well for them, and it continues to work well in horizon, but the motorsport franchise is mediocre at best these days.

[-]

Thomas_633_Mk2@reddit

Tbh all simcades are average these days, they've lost the plot on making good single player experiences

[-]

Skvora@reddit

Details in a game most play in hood view and where shit moves so fast that you don't have time to see any of them are wasted gpu resources.

[-]

MumpsyDaisy@reddit

I appreciate that they do put those details there though, GT7 might be the best reason there is to buy a PSVR2 headset.

[-]

hi_im_bored13@reddit

It’s as much a car collecting game as it’s a racing game.

Now sadly they’ve made the collecting aspect far too time consuming and it’s impossible for anyone who isn’t unemployed to buy the f1 but it sure does look neat

[-]

Skvora@reddit

Lolwut? 1 hour a week, nets you so much useless free cars to a point where money becomes trivial at best, if we're talking Horizon.

[-]

hi_im_bored13@reddit

Was taking about GT, not horizon.

Horizon gives you free cars and the models all look awful

[-]

Skvora@reddit

Gocha! So, the plague of 6 carried over to 7.....damn.

[-]

cubs223425@reddit

My issue isn't so much with recycling, but with how they recycle stuff that is wrong. Turn 10 talked about "but from the ground-up for next-gen" with their latest release, only for people to post cars where the models are physically wrong in the same ways they were 20 years ago. They don't fix or update stuff, and for a game that was given 6 years to release (Motorsport titles used to release every 2 years), what came as the final product didn't come anywhere close to my expectations from a developer who had done better work in almost every other release.

[-]

handymanshandle@reddit

Yeah, I don’t disagree. A lot of the Xbox 360 models feel really disjointed and out of place in Forza Horizon 5 and Motorsport. For the latter game’s case, it really seems like a lot of development went nowhere and they eventually had to restart to get something out the door, which really explained why the launch of it was really half-baked. I played it at launch and it ran very poorly on my rather high-end desktop, although it runs much better now.

[-]

cubs223425@reddit

My primary theory has been that Turn 10 spent a boatload of time on the engine. It's what Playground (the Forza Horizon devs) are also using for Fable, so Turn 10 likely had to pour a bunch of engineering into the ForzaTech engine to accommodate a a fantasy RPG that's never been in the bag of tricks for the engine.

However, I think that's MORE of a reason for them to have been fixing car models. It makes no sense for them to have left so many things unfixed and/or not updated. Like, I really wish they'd go revisit existing cars to introduce new paint colors that the manufacturers added for new model years.

[-]

Flyover____Globalist@reddit

That line about the dwindling number of unmodified STs hit me hard. I sold my stock ‘14 ST a few years ago and every single time I see one on the road I feel a twinge of regret.

[-]

OceanGate_Titan@reddit

I had a stock 28 fiesta st. I do not miss the harsh ride. At all.

[-]

Frohblak@reddit

Yeah, having a new Golf R helps me not regret selling my 2015 FiST in the slightest.

[-]

Skvora@reddit

For, lets genuinely say, 12-14k, used, between FiST, 86, and a Miat - the choice is never FiST.

[-]

GirchyGirchy@reddit

If you're over 6', the answer is FiST.

Or BRZ/FRS/GR86.

[-]

BTTWchungus@reddit

Going down to 16s with more more sidewall makes a huge difference

[-]

LewEnenra@reddit

Best thing I did for comfort was going down to 15s. Using 195 50s currently. Did have 55s before that but when I upgraded to performance tyres couldn't find the ones I wanted at that size so 50 was the choice.

Still way more comfier than my original 17s on 205 40s. Interestingly though the car does feel like it's accelerating slightly slower on 15s

I thought it would be the opposite

[-]

lowstrife@reddit

A friend of mine has his on coils and some pretty thin sidewalls. It's borderline undrivable, I don't understand how he does it. He doesn't even drive in the canyons or do autocross or anything.

[-]

Mightbe_exaggerating@reddit

I have an '18 stock+ ST with 50k miles. I say stock+ because I did remove the sound symposer, change the stock air filter out for a green filter, one step colder spark plugs, and changed the wheels, so just small quality of life stuff. I believe I have the only one even close to stock in my area. Whenever I eventually want an upgrade, I hope I can find someone who appreciates that.

[-]

TheRealPizza@reddit

Hit me up, especially if it’s Tangerine Scream :)

[-]

StanknBeans@reddit

Sums up how I feel after selling a stock minty 240sx a few years ago.

[-]

Lordrandall@reddit

I had a 96 SE. I don’t miss the interior or truck motor, but it handled nicely lowered on R32 GTR wheels.

[-]

StanknBeans@reddit

I had a 92 hatch and that thing was a fuckin blast to commute in, especially in winter.

[-]

Lordrandall@reddit

The interior was much nicer in the S13. Nissan quality went down across the line in the mid-90’s.

[-]

ImperioliGandolfini@reddit

So you’re saying keep my srt4 neon. I am halfway to selling. It’s not my daily but I hardly drive it now.

[-]

RuinedGrave@reddit

I saw a stock 2018 Focus ST for sale recently, and was a bit shocked. You really don’t see them stock anymore.

[-]

SPh0enix@reddit

Ha - maybe that was mine! Sold it not long ago. Loved the damn thing to death.

[-]

tannit@reddit

I had a '14 Focus ST as well. Man, I loved that car. Best do-everything car I've ever owned. Good fuel efficiency, plenty of power, fantastic autocross car, lots of practical storage space, excellent shifter, good enough tech. Traded it for an RS and didn't like it at all. Maybe I'll look for another ST.

[-]

Skvora@reddit

You boys are definitely a certain breed...

[-]

PersiusAlloy@reddit

I had one too! I had a FMIC, catless downpipe with a cutout which gave me the most audiophile orgasm I’ve ever had with that turbo spool and I was on e30.

I traded it in for a fusion sport and I still fucking miss that ST. I did everything with it, drag raced, import face off, auto cross, street fun, cars and coffee back road runs. Man, I thoroughly loved that car.

[-]

CantaloupeHour5973@reddit

Man the sellers regret when you sell a car you loved is real

[-]

PlatinumElement@reddit

Especially when the buyer totals it on her way home and then attempts to claim it your insurance. (My 2-year old Lancer Evo VIII GSR)

[-]

rosesarefuckyou@reddit

I'm with you.

Mone wasn't stock stock, it had the Mountune performance pack that kept warranty here but I traded it for an i30N Sedan(Elantra N for US/Canada people) and was happy to start with.. and then slowly started to miss the Focus It was fun to drive, cheap to run and rock solid. No rattles, decent interior materials, amazing seats for the price. Looking back I liked it way more than the N and had a lot more fun with it for whatever reason. I wish I'd either saved the money or bought an SA Focus instead.

Ended up getting rid of the N for a "nicer" car after only a year because it just never hit the spot. When I(rarely) find myself on a good bit of road I still wish I had a fun car to wring the neck of, but it's the Focus I actually miss.

[-]

Skvora@reddit

What happens when a racing game about Mexico is made without a SINGLE 93 Sentra, and then removal of racing itself?

A disastrous launch is what happens.

[-]

HoveringPorridge@reddit

The one that always baffled me was the game set in the UK didn't have a single MG Rover car throughout it's entire lifespan, yet the one set in Mexico has got an MGR car???

[-]

Skvora@reddit

More like, 90% of roads in "Mexico" will absolutely wreck any semblance of sport or racing suspension let alone carbon wheels...

[-]

ErectChin@reddit

jumps 1900ft in a V8 Subaru *
shrug *

[-]

lazyperfectionest@reddit

The Nissan Tsuru is in the game

[-]

Gerarghini@reddit

Not at launch but I’m very happy it arrived.

Not happy at them having the game set in Mexico and not having a proper, Mexican-spec Volkswagen Beetle

[-]

lazyperfectionest@reddit

Agreed, the game has far too few mexican spec vehicles in general

[-]

MustangCoyote@reddit

"the car maker felt that there was little point to going to any effort to immortalize the Focus ST"

Wow. Ford doesn't care about the last generation of one of the greatest hot hatches ever made, but they'll glady give us multiple versions of the same generation F150 that'll be forgotten about in 5 years.

Good on forza for giving a shit about cool cars, I guess, since the manufacturer of said cars doesn't.

[-]

handymanshandle@reddit

This happens quite often with a number of automakers and it’s kinda frustrating. Admittedly, I suspect this is a “Ford Europe vs. Ford America” difference, where the American branch of the company is far more willing to scout out a pristine example of a car in their collection or a press car than the Euro branch is, but in any case, it’s a shame. I’d love to see more Volvos in Forza than just the 850R and a couple of newer ones, for example, but from what I understand that hasn’t gone too well.

[-]

rebeccamoreuk@reddit

Please don't put my car in a racing game. I still need it on my way to work.

[-]

pxlzr@reddit

wow didn't know Forza could put my car in Need for Speed

[-]

StraightStackin@reddit

Ford makes weird choices sometimes. My car is the first RS to have AWD but didn't compete in WRC, instead the FWD only Fiesta had an AWD WRC car. Then when the Focus RS was in WRC, all the street cars were FWD 😂

[-]

mr_beanoz@reddit

And so does Toyota. But then, it's more of the cause of the homologation rules back then - they used to do this for the Group A cars, but due to the newer World Rally Car rules from 1997, they don't need to make homologation specials like the Celica GT-Four anymore, which is why you don't see an AWD Corolla... until GR Corolla comes out.

[-]