Assetto Corsa V1.9 Sound Preview Video

Paul Jeffrey · Oct 11, 2016

Kunos Simulazioni's Sound Designer and Official Technical Support officer Luca Sodano has shared a pretty epic new video, showcasing the work in progress sound update to Assetto Corsa, due to form part of the next major patch for the title.

Coming in at just over five minutes in length, Sodano shows off the impressive improvements made with the Fmod tool across a number of cars. The video (seen below) takes in a on-board and replay cam footage of the Lamborghini Huracan GT3 around the legendary Nurburgring Nordschleife circuit.

Assetto Corsa (beta) - Fmod 1.08.12 internal testing (WIP) - AI cars Video

The video, shot as an audio level peak test during internal testing for the new build, features 23 AI cars and achieves a 15 % Fmod usage average percentage, peaking at a maximum of 24%.

Audio in Assetto Corsa has come in for criticism from some corners of the community, with some players even going so far as to create their own Fmod sound packs to download. One such pack, made by well know community member Fonsecker, covers no less than 35 cars across three releases, creating a must have package for many Assetto Corsa players (download here). However the team over at Kunos have been working hard to address some of the know weaker areas of the audio experience in recent builds, and the new preview once again shows some impressive progress. Still not quite on the level of acknowledged industry leaders RaceRoom Racing Experience, the new preview does offer up a considerable improvement over the current offerings from the studio.

Release date for the latest build of Assetto Corsa has not yet been confirmed by the studio, however stay tuned to RaceDepartment for all the news as it happens...

The Assetto Corsa sub forum at RaceDepartment is the best source of mods for the sim. Check out our substantial archive, take part in the Modding Discussion forum, join the discussion and consume the latest news. If that isn't enough, head over to the Racing Clubs and Leagues section to find yourself some epic online racing!

Looking forward to the sound update? How do you think AC compares to its rivals in the sound department? Let us know in the comments section below!

Amplified · Oct 12, 2016

Alex72 said:
And you know that the FMOD update is just what they show in the video and nothing else, how?

Facepalm a la grande.

EDIT: That goes for everyone else who keep saying this is a minor update but really knows nothing about it. Of course we know you dont know jack s**t, you just want to typically spew crap over the title per usual.

Because i am talking about the part which we are 'hearing',that the video is showing of. Of course the fmod version update in itself is a part of the coding process. But its general bug fixes and enhancements of the main audio framework and nothing new we haven't seen since the older versions yet. What we are hearing in the video is possible since day 1 we had the fmod system in AC available to us. Newer versions will just net us more performance,optimizations some new features and that's about it.

Good thing i do know pretty much about it and could show you all of it if i wanted to. And no its not spewing crap. I described what was/is necessary to fix said 'problems' in 5 minutes, it is not rocket science and i have known how this works before fmod was even implemented to AC.

By the way, who is we? It might just be that some people do know that i know jack ****

Yapci · Oct 12, 2016

Really waiting for a SUV sounds preview. That would cover it all the haters

Radu Oros · Oct 12, 2016

To calm everyone down a bit, here are Luca's messages after this video.
" "
Just a word before drama or "rumors/I heard that/someone said" start:

- Yes, modders need to check their work (and many of them asked us to update fmod), but this time we'll provide the new project way before the public release, so they can prepare their work and just check volumes once the new version is out. This gives modders the chance to improve further their own work too;

- No, we didn't rework every single car sound set, it would require 2 years.

Long story short, we reworked the whole logic behind the FMod integration and this led to a better overall sound experience.

- Changelog is HUGE, we hope you appreciate our effort. Benefits are obvious, performance are improved and you can hear "things" now that were hidden in the mess before;

- Consistence was our primary purpose. Sound must work as expected on all platforms and with different speakers configurations. We are still testing but feedback is definitely positive.

--- Another message (question: I guess upshift/downshift will be simulated :-€)
(answer from Luca)
No, we have some good ideas about it and the related transmission wobbling for racecars, but this would mean rework ALL the cars and add new parameters to Fmod. No time available. As said, our first purpose is consistence, so bug fixing and all those things that were there but didn't work as expected. Features will come at the right time.
" "

Shaun Clarke · Oct 12, 2016

Blimey said:
minor update in a year, good progress

But as you said, a minor update that breaks all MODS, including BTCC, Dallara, Ginetta, UK MIni Challange (not out yet, still working on it) Mazda787, URD mods, I could go on....Good progress? begs to differ on that one

Radu Oros · Oct 12, 2016

And this is from AC forum.

"Skid is still very WIP. This test was aimed to check overall volume (with all volumes set to max in the options), cars pass-by from track cameras and distance attenuations. Now you can distinguish every single car and not the usual mess of the previous version with many cars involved. Still finetuning though."

"Now the stereo spread is VERY noticeable. In the previous version, with stereo speakers configuration the spread was basically non-existant for opponent engine sounds, covering player's car sound too."

"The funny thing is that we didn't touch the samples (i.e. the 500 EsseEsse is still netKar like

). But you got the point, everything is crisper and clearer, because there is a huge code overhaul behind that, not only a new project design in the Fmod Studio. I'm sure modders will like that."

So I don't think this was a 5 minute job and a short fix.

Shaun Clarke · Oct 12, 2016

I'm sure modders will like that.

Yeah like a hole in the head, like they spend so many man hours already and then have to do it all again, oh yes, I am sure the modders will love that

Radu Oros · Oct 12, 2016

Fordman said:
Yeah like a hole in the head, like they spend so many man hours already and then have to do it all again, oh yes, I am sure the modders will love that

How much would you spend to update your sound project? And how much will Kunos spend to update the sound for every car?

Blimey · Oct 12, 2016

Fordman said:
But as you said, a minor update that breaks all MODS, including BTCC, Dallara, Ginetta, UK MIni Challange (not out yet, still working on it) Mazda787, URD mods, I could go on....Good progress? begs to differ on that one

I said it as a joke, people shouldn't take me seriously.

Ben Lee · Oct 12, 2016

Most of the sound modders for AC have given up or moved onto other stuff. It's only really Fonsecker now who is producing consistently good work. One of the other guys who's work I really loved (NeverKrash), his mods no longer work sadly.

Pablo Cortes · Oct 12, 2016

Radu Oros said:
And this is from AC forum.

"Skid is still very WIP. This test was aimed to check overall volume (with all volumes set to max in the options), cars pass-by from track cameras and distance attenuations. Now you can distinguish every single car and not the usual mess of the previous version with many cars involved. Still finetuning though."

"Now the stereo spread is VERY noticeable. In the previous version, with stereo speakers configuration the spread was basically non-existant for opponent engine sounds, covering player's car sound too."

"The funny thing is that we didn't touch the samples (i.e. the 500 EsseEsse is still netKar like ). But you got the point, everything is crisper and clearer, because there is a huge code overhaul behind that, not only a new project design in the Fmod Studio. I'm sure modders will like that."

So I don't think this was a 5 minute job and a short fix.

i posted that on the first page... just shows pple dont really read through this (not you Radu but people making assumptions out of their bum (can I say bum?) )

Blimey said:
I said it as a joke, people shouldn't take me seriously.

cheers to that laddy!

Radu Oros · Oct 13, 2016

Ben Lee said:
Most of the sound modders for AC have given up or moved onto other stuff. It's only really Fonsecker now who is producing consistently good work. One of the other guys who's work I really loved (NeverKrash), his mods no longer work sadly.

Several sound modders dedicate more to mods that aren't allowed on forums than to mod kunos content. For example Amplified that commented here. I remember his thread from ac sound forum, and the only few sounds he modded for game cars it sounded practically like the car already in game.

Chris · Oct 13, 2016

Well... That was fun.
Thread cleaned of OT.

Caton XII · Oct 13, 2016

Since the beginning, I ask myself the same question about the sound design in this simulation..!
When the backfires sounds will be implemented !?

Paul McCluskey · Oct 13, 2016

unreal the whining that goes on when they work too improve things, whats that saying, damned if you do damned if you don't

Slyfrequency · Oct 13, 2016

Paul McCluskey said:
unreal the whining that goes on when they work too improve things, whats that saying, damned if you do damned if you don't

Couldn't agree more, no matter what they improved or implemented, there will always be people moaning and whining because it's not what THEY want.

Monstro · Oct 13, 2016

Ben Lee said:
Most of the sound modders for AC have given up or moved onto other stuff. It's only really Fonsecker now who is producing consistently good work. .

i still try to understand why some of you guys found Fonsecker's mods so awesome...half of the whole sounds of his cars.... simply ....disappeared , low rev engine sounds are not good, brake sounds disappeared as vehicule chassis noise ...(all these sounds are very important btw )
but everybody said " what an improvement mate !" on his review
mmmhhh....what?...where?
what he did to sauber C9 and specially the Ruf cars is horrible for exemple seriously..., 488 GT3 and Mclaren F1 GTR are quite good, that's all.
crackling sounds everywhere, twenty time a lap...with all the cars he made (last update)...like a parasite jack plug noise.
anyway....with all respect of course for Fonsecker and the time spent ( i know that we have to remain mainstream on internet forums in general to avoid fanboys ) that's my 2 cents .

excuse my english ...

Juliusz Baczynski · Oct 13, 2016

RC45 said:
As long as this sound update doesn't break modded cars.

It probably will, like always

Juliusz Baczynski · Oct 13, 2016

Mitja Bonca said:
Can you explain what are u talkin about?

He means:
ok to good < good to better

Or this way

2+1 < 3+1

StefanoCasillo · Oct 13, 2016

Juliusz Baczynski said:
It probably will, like always

that probably happened last time more than 1 year ago. I might be wrong tho.

The fact is (I think we have explained this many times before), FMod is not built with backwards compatibility guarantees, so if we update the FMod version this will break things and there is nothing we can do about it. It's not something we knew when we decided to migrate from our in-house audio engine to it. So every time an update is taken into consideration we also has to evaluate if the improvement (or the fixes) are worth the fact that mods will break. It's never an easy call.
Where we do have control (ie. our code), we always try to maintain backward compatibility.

So to say "like always" is simply a blatant lie... <mod-edit: pointless insults removed>

Juliusz Baczynski · Oct 13, 2016

It's nice to see the development go forward even if it's going slowly, remember the good days when kitrinoskat + me and fonsecker later on started doing mods where you could hear different recordings depending on when the cars was moving towards and passed the spectator. Later on I felt a need to solve the pass by sound myself, (this is like a year back) and when I tackled this challenge it was then that car sounds started to sound real, a perfect example is the 917K mod that I have made.