Tire squeal

Romus · August 12, 2008, 09:10:48 PM

I feel that the tire sounds are not very informative in iRacing. I'm so familiar with LFS sounds and could not drive at the limit without sounds, but in iRacing I'm pretty confused with sounds. Tires start squealing early in the braking and do that all through the corner. What is it telling me? Am I sliding too much all the time? If I heard that in LFS I would be burning my tires and going very slow, but in iRacing I going slow like a granny if the tires are not squealing.

This is my first disappointment with the new sim. I'm not in love yet, but I've felt the huge potential it has. Tracks are way better than in LFS, it is the detailed track surface that makes them so good. But the sound system in LFS is a lot better.

Yesterday and today I've been doing Solstice on Laguna Sega, that's where these impressions are from.

vobler · August 12, 2008, 09:53:18 PM

If the tire sound is severe there could be a problem with your soundcard drivers. There are some info on that on the forum. But yes the sound are very dominant.

There is some ini files in \mydocuments\iRacing that you can edit.
The file app.ini contains this line:
stereoStreamInSurroundBalance=1.000000
; stereo streams (the engine) in surround mode need a system specific adjustment to match volume with surround streams

Edit the value up or down as it suites your sound card. Some are using 0.3 and some are on 4. And some do not hear any difference.

This setting can balance the engine sound against the tire sounds.

Doorman · August 12, 2008, 09:54:20 PM

As someone who has never been able to tell when a tyre is about to let go, I can't say it bothers me. I do however, have a better feeling through the wheel as to when things are getting out of hand.
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Been sitting here pondering the tyre sounds for a few minutes and have decided that the iRacing sounds are probably more realistic. After all, does a tyre in real life make a louder and louder noise until it reaches it's limit? :g: I don't think so. But of course I'm open to be convinced otherwise.

delanvital · August 13, 2008, 10:42:56 AM

Quote from: Doorman;240947As someone who has never been able to tell when a tyre is about to let go, I can't say it bothers me. I do however, have a better feeling through the wheel as to when things are getting out of hand.
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Been sitting here pondering the tyre sounds for a few minutes and have decided that the iRacing sounds are probably more realistic. After all, does a tyre in real life make a louder and louder noise until it reaches it's limit? :g: I don't think so. But of course I'm open to be convinced otherwise.

Well, some slicks don't even give out much, other than a crisp, low frequency, low volume sound when the tires are dragged on the asphalt, at least that was my experience in that Super Seven I was lucky to be a passenger in...? :g:

vobler · August 13, 2008, 10:15:53 PM

I have some more info regarding the line in the app.ini. It seems that line is active only if surround sound is ticked under sound, simulation.

Even if I do not have surround it works. I do not know if there are any problems with setting it to surround even if you don't have one, but it is easy to find a good balance between tires and engine. Will try a race tomorrow to check.

vobler · August 14, 2008, 07:27:16 AM

After some more searching I found this explanation from iRacing staff:

When the sim is configured for surround sound playback, the in-car engine and in-car wind noise is still played in stereo for a richer sound. Unfortunately, different sound cards play stereo samples at different volumes relative to surround sounds.

In the future, we'll have a nice little config wizard to tune the balance of stereo and surround sounds. In the mean time, there is a setting in My Documents\iRacing\app.ini to adjust this balance, stereoStreamInSurroundBalance. If your engine and wind sound are too low or too high in the in-car view, try adjusting this value.

I think that higher values make stereo sounds louder and lower values make it lower. Grant has a 5.1 speaker setup and has his sound card configured to spread stereo sounds across all speakers. If I recall correctly, he has stereoStreamInSurroundBalance set to 0.4 or something similar to correct the balance.

This setting only applies to the in-car engine and in-car wind sounds when 'Surround' is selected in the sound options screen.

Romus · September 09, 2008, 05:42:03 PM

I just wanted to report that I now like iRacing tyre sounds and LFS feels very silent compared to it.

This like so many other things with different sims takes time to adapt to.

spudgun55 · September 10, 2008, 10:38:36 AM

you are sooo right Romus '' This like so many other things with different sims takes time to adapt to''.

i very much like iracing now(stuck with it and just ignored my negative feelings, i have my ff set just right, all the wingman settings are set to 150(found out through people playing on iracing), this now has the feel i regard as a good ff experiance, but most importently the game is extremely good, i have a rating of 2.85 ,won a race with a few second places in the solstice at laguna so i am really getting to grips with the sim, its so intense, the thought of losing hard earned points is much to bare,

superb stuff:D