rF2: Tatuus News - Game Update & Development Road Post is Here!

[Paul Jeffrey]

The rFactor 2 November Development Roadmap is here!

Studio 397 last night published the latest development roadmap blog posting detailing the current progress of rFactor 2, and as well as some nice insights into the state of play with regards to projects the studio have been involved in of late, the new post also contains a much anticipated update on the Tatuus licencing agreement – including news of six new models coming to the sim!

rFactor 2 continues to receive plenty of much needed attention from Studio 397 as the Dutch based development team look to enhance the title further than the original intentions of creators Image Space Incorporated, and the latest round of updates that form part of the ‘Development Roadmap’ for November are again very, very encouraging news for fans of the sim.

Further fleshing out of the first party content with cars from the likes of British Formula Three, Toyota Racing Series and USF2000 are indeed welcome news, as is confirmation that the new UI and Competition structure is still very much under development.

On the graphics front, the upgraded shaders work continues at a pace, as can be seen by a nice collection of some very pleasing looking WIP screenshots that come with the roadmap update yesterday.

As an additional bonus for rF2 fans, yesterday also marked a new small build release patch, the updates for which can be seen below:


30.11.2018 Update Notes:

Note: Server Admins must update all dedicated servers.

• Added controller profiles for direct drive wheels: OSW Simucube and SimSteering.
• Fixed an issue where tire heat history was reset after a driver swap.
• Support for the Logitech G29 and G920 was added, fixing some long outstanding issues with these wheels.
• Fixed a small loophole that would allow you to circumvent fixed setups.
• New feature added: Ability to set maximum steering wheel rotation in software

November Development Roadmap:

Good evening, morning, afternoon or whatever it is in your corner of the world! With clockwork precision we present you another roadmap update for your favorite racing simulator. And although we are getting closer to the holiday season, we are by no means slowing down! With the release of build 1112, we have a few other updates for you that we’re sharing this month, in anticipation of some bigger surprises next month. Let’s kick this month off with some events, the first one happening this weekend.

McLaren Shadow Semi-Finals
We’re really looking forward to the McLaren Shadow semi-finals, especially with some rFactor 2 regulars taking part. Each of the drivers will be competing across a number of different titles, including rFactor 2, so check out the semis this weekend!

You might want to set yourself a reminder so you won’t miss the live broadcast:

rFactor 2 at Interclassics
January 11th to 14th, rFactor 2 will be present at Interclassics 2019, Maastricht, where we will have two full-motion rigs running the simulation. To match the theme of the event, we will be running the McLaren M23 at the classic Monte Carlo track. On top of giving you this classic beast to drive during the event, we will also organize and broadcast a full race, featuring ten more high-end simulators located at the nearby Adrenaline Xperience center. During the whole month of December, a special promotion will allow you to do extensive sessions in all three historic McLaren cars at a very attractive price. During these sessions, you will get professional feedback on your performance based on telemetry data. The ten best drivers that month will get an opportunity to race against Bono Huis and Xavier Maassen during Interclassics.

VIVE Pro McLaren Limited Edition
As you may have seen our partners announce already, roughly a week ago, we’ve collaborated with HTC and McLaren to bring a special version of rFactor 2 to the VIVE Pro McLaren Limited Edition. This version of rFactor 2, which allows you to race some classic McLaren racing cars on different tracks, has special “driving” support for the VIVE motion controllers. That means if you own this VR headset, you will be able to experience driving these cars as if the controllers were the actual steering wheel! As far as we know, this is a world first for simracing, and we are proud to bring you this innovation!

Build 1112
Right before the holiday season, we bring you an update to our build with a few fixes and some new features. We made the following changes:

• We added the ability to set the maximum steering wheel rotation “in software”, even if your wheel drivers don’t support that. This is described in more detail below.
• Supporting this new feature, we added controller profiles for direct drive wheels: OSW SimuCube and SimSteering.
• We fixed an issue where tyre heat cycle history was not correctly transferred after a driver swap.
• Support for the Logitech G29 and G920 was added, fixing some long outstanding issues with these wheels.
• A small loophole was fixed that would allow you to circumvent fixed setups.
  

Server administrators must update all dedicated servers because we bumped the version number due to small changes in the multiplayer protocol.

Software Wheel Rotation Explained
We have added the option to set the maximum rotation of the steering wheel “in software”, so we can adjust the rotation per car even for wheels that don’t support setting the rotation in their driver. This means that current owners of various OSW and SimSteering wheels can now finally enjoy the correct rotation without having to manually set it outside of rFactor 2. The system works as follows: In order to use this new system, you have to explicitly turn it on in your Controller.JSON file (which you can find in your UserData\player folder). The line you’re looking for is called “Steering Wheel Software Rotation,” and if you don’t see it yet, please make sure you have updated to build 1112, run the game once and exit it again. The line defaults to “false,” and you should change that to “true”. The next step is to go into your wheel driver and the rotation to the maximum value it supports, up to the maximum rotation of 1440 degrees that rFactor 2 supports. Then you go back to your Controller.JSON and set the “Steering Wheel Maximum Rotation Default” to the same number of degrees you just configured. If your wheel actually does support us reading the maximum rotation, you can alternatively set “Steering Wheel Maximum Rotation from Driver” to “true” so we will read whatever you set from the driver. We do recommend setting it to the maximum value in the driver, as we can only make the rotation less in software, not more. Finally we have a value called “Steering Wheel Bump Stop Harshness,” which acts like a spring constant and defines how harsh the buildup of counter-torque will be when you go over the maximum rotation for a car. We recommend starting with a value of somewhere between 20 (soft) to 50 (harsh), but this really depends on your wheel and personal preference. For SimSteering and OSW, we added some profiles to our default set as well. You might want to give those a try as they are already setup for this new feature.

In summary, these are the new parameters in the Controller.JSON:

• Steering Wheel Software Rotation – Defaults to false, but must be set to true to enable this feature. When it is set to false, this feature should be fully disabled.
• Steering Wheel Bump Stop Harshness – A configurable value ranging from 1.0 to 100.0, which acts like a spring constant that determines how much counter-torque will be applied if you steer beyond the maximum range.
• Steering Wheel Maximum Rotation from Driver – Whether we should attempt to fetch the maximum steering wheel range from the wheel driver, assuming the driver supports this.
• Steering Wheel Maximum Rotation Default – The value of our maximum steering wheel range when there isn’t a wheel driver available that we can read this from or when “Steering Wheel Maximum Rotation from Driver” is set to false. Values from 40 to 1440 are supported.

Work In Progress
Our competition system is currently being integrated into the new UI. We want to make sure you end up with a seamless experience when joining any competition sessions. At the same time, we continue to extend the core system, making it more plugable and adapted to all kinds of competitions. Some of you might have participated or seen our latest community event, where we ran a simple competition. Expect us to do more of those as we finalize bits of the system and put it through some early access testing.

First off in our early access testing, we will be hosting a short Holiday special, planned between Christmas and New Years. Also, to kick off 2019, we will be hosting events regularly in Q1. Plenty of races and plenty of options to beat your friends – and perhaps even us at S397.

Last month we showed you some early shots of Nordschleife. The team is working all out to complete the track and all track side objects, which is a lot of work given the length of the track and all the different twists and turns. We’re confident that we can show you more updates in the new year!

For the past six months, we have been working extensively on a new material system. You may recall that we showed you some early previews of the McLaren 650S at SimRacing Expo and in a subsequent roadmap update, and we are very excited to tell you our artists are currently starting to work with the system and providing us with feedback on making it even more artist-friendly as part of an effort to start using these materials on our content. We’re not done yet, but at this point we believe we have a very solid foundation to work on as we’re fixing bugs and pushing this system. Just to whet your appetite, here’s a few more shots of the McLaren 650S.

You also deserve an update on the Tatuus license! We are still building these cars, and we can now confirm we will have no less than six different models:

• Tatuus USF-17, which is used in the USF2000 championship and can be seen as the successor to our existing USF2000 car
• Tatuus F4-T014, which is driven in various F4 championships globally.
• Tatuus MSV F3-016, also known as ‘British F3’, is driven primarily in the UK and at Spa-Francorchamps.
• Toyota FT50, as used in the Toyota Racing Series
• Tatuus PM18, as used in the Pro Mazda Championship.

• Tatuus F3 T318, used in the Asian F3 Championship as well as the upcoming W Series.

Winter is coming...
Looking forward to bringing you some very cool toys to play with this Christmas!

rFactor 2 is available exclusively for PC from Steam now.

Check out the rFactor 2 sub forum here at RaceDepartment for all the latest news and discussion with regards to the simulation. You can take part in lively debates with fellow rFactor 2 fans and take part in some great Club and League racing events..! Head over to the forum now!


Like what you see here at RaceDepartment? Don't forget to like, subscribe and follow us on social media!

 ​

 

[Oldzeb]

Work In Progress
Our competition system is currently being integrated into the new UI. We want to make sure you end up with a seamless experience when joining any competition sessions. At the same time, we continue to extend the core system, making it more plugable and adapted to all kinds of competitions. Some of you might have participated or seen our latest community event, where we ran a simple competition. Expect us to do more of those as we finalize bits of the system and put it through some early access testing.

First off in our early access testing, we will be hosting a short Holiday special, planned between Christmas and New Years. Also, to kick off 2019, we will be hosting events regularly in Q1. Plenty of races and plenty of options to beat your friends – and perhaps even us at S397.

For the past six months, we have been working extensively on a new material system. You may recall that we showed you some early previews of the McLaren 650S at SimRacing Expo and in a subsequent roadmap update, and we are very excited to tell you our artists are currently starting to work with the system and providing us with feedback on making it even more artist-friendly as part of an effort to start using these materials on our content. We’re not done yet, but at this point we believe we have a very solid foundation to work on as we’re fixing bugs and pushing this system. Just to whet your appetite, here’s a few more shots of the McLaren 650S.

Here is the most important for this simu "the competitive online" very long to implement but the most important for the players!! and cleaner graphics for a beautiful retransmission (necessary if S397 wants to enter the esport) like GTsport or even Iracing or the races in TV camera are very well done!

 

[Spinelli]

Believe I know what you're looking for and I think you already have an answer to that question stated as "never".

Not sure what you mean. I'm looking for the same thing I look for in all racing simulations...continuous improvement of the, take a wild guess...simulation.

Sound engine doesn't need overhauling other than providing triggers (ala Raceroom) and features (surround).

That's like saying a graphics engine from the 1990s doesn't need overhauling other than providing triggers for shadows and such. You're oversimplifying things and not giving credit to how deep and complex sound is

Good samples correctly mixed is the brilliance that you're seeking.

That's like saying just mix very nice textures and you'll have the fantastic look you're looking for in a graphics engine. You cannot just "cut and paste" beautiful, high-res textures in a videogame from 1995 and expect it to look anywhere near as good as a game in 2018. Think of sound samples in a sound engine as textures in a graphics engine.

AC showed that just switching sound engines doesn't improve the sound.

You can hear way more dynamics at play when listening to an Assetto Corsa race in TV/trackside cam view. There's much more being done with that sound engine.

The limitations in sound reproduction are how many voices the hardware supports and how much CPU time can be devoted to processing the sound without introducing lag to physics, graphics, or sound. Guess which one gets the lowest priority?

Sound from the early or mid 2000s could have 128 voices and I think RF2 even supports 64 which is almost certainly more than enough. The amount of voices are the last thing that needs updated.

rF2 does support reverb, but most modders(*) ignore it.

That's like saying "videogame x supports shadows" or reflections. Shadows and reflections on their own can be extremely simplified like in 1990s videogames all the way to extremely complex shadows and reflections like in some new and future games with the ray-tracing technique. Reverb or any sound characteristic is no different.

rF2 supports throttle load in the mixing & samples (and has since the days of F1C, if not SCGT), but, again, the modders have to use it.

I know it does and has since the very early days I didn't just mean "play x sound clip at x throttle load" (and mixing). I didn't mean in such a simplistic way.

Yeah, but I don't drive YouTube videos.

Lol. The point I was trying to make is that you can listen to something that's only stereo and it still sounds amazing and quite realistic. Whether someone records real life with surround or not does not affect real life physics and how sound is produced and behaves. Real life youtube videos don't sound like synthetic, simplistic sounding videogames, they sound like something from reality - surround sound or not. That's all I'm trying to say

Also, since I'm fun at parties, I have to point out that 100 % of real life videos (or gaming or any other videos for that matter) are not surround sound (unless you use some sort of HRTF or binaural recording to encode some sort of surround information into a stereo audio track), since YouTube doesn't support surround sound at all.

I know it's off-topic but I remember doing 5.1 surround sound speaker tests on youtube...HRTF/binaural would be amazing. It blows me away how this was used in some audio records in the 1960s and 1970s and barely used since. Using Creative sound cards with CMSS-3D technology is amazing when setup correctly.

As they probably should, because that reverb is horribly implemented (I'm sorry, but it is) with its instant on/off switching and no variations in intensity.

Good point. But some people seem to be content with just being able to tick a box and say "yes, we have reverb." I mean reverb itself depends on environment, on materials of environment, shape of environment, etc. The way it rolls on, rolls off, it's intensity, which audio frequencies it changes and how, some reverb can introduce damping to certain sound frequencies, and so on and so on. If we want to just "cut and paste" some uber simplified reverb into a game then we're barely doing anything different from games from the 1990s and even 1980s that had some super simplistic reverb triggers in certain moments/areas.

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

You can hear way more dynamics at play when listening to an Assetto Corsa race in TV/trackside cam view. There's much more being done with that sound engine.

Maybe, but the average Joe won't notice a difference, which I think is why sound engine development in games has stagnated. People were few years ago complaining en masse how rF2 has poor sounds and how its sound engine needed to be updated (I remember this especially with the Nissan GT500 release).

But lo and behold, the day the GT3 and GTE packs were released, complaints quieted and suddenly sound engine wasn't a problem anymore. AFAIK all that was changed was that these new DLC packs used better sources for sound samples and possibly some better mixing, all while still using the same old Miles sound engine.

 

[whip]

Here is the most important for this simu "the competitive online" very long to implement but the most important for the players!! and cleaner graphics for a beautiful retransmission (necessary if S397 wants to enter the esport) like GTsport or even Iracing or the races in TV camera are very well done!

the competition system is going to be like raceroom, hotlaps, not like iracing

 

[Will Mazeo]

the competition system is going to be like raceroom, hotlaps, not like iracing

Wrong. You can look for a talk about ratings in one of the roadmaps

 

[Spinelli]

Maybe, but the average Joe won't notice a difference, which I think is why sound engine development in games has stagnated. People were few years ago complaining en masse how rF2 has poor sounds and how its sound engine needed to be updated (I remember this especially with the Nissan GT500 release).

But lo and behold, the day the GT3 and GTE packs were released, complaints quieted and suddenly sound engine wasn't a problem anymore. AFAIK all that was changed was that these new DLC packs used better sources for sound samples and possibly some better mixing, all while still using the same old Miles sound engine.

Maybe for some people but other people such as myself don't feel the same. Again, putting in better sound samples is like just putting in better textures in a graphics engine - nothing is technically changing. Anyone with half an eye can still tell that graphics engine is still the same and just as limited as from before the better textures were popped in.

Imagine an arcade racer never touched anything in their physics engine but every year or 2 increased the physics refresh rate (eg. 100 Hz, to 400HZ, to 750 Hz, to 2000 Hz, etc.). Imagine they kept trying to pass that off as physics engine improvements when it's still the exact same arcade physics only with those identical arcade physics updating at 2000 Hz instead of 400 Hz?

Or imagine a game character looked unrealistic in the way it walked and so you wanted to make it look more real. I wouldn't just paste in a new pre-rendered walking animation (the sound sample) because that new animation will still look wrong when the character does different things (stops walking, turns fast, transitions to a run, walks on an uneven surface, etc.). What you really should be doing is coming up with a new or updated mathematical model (audio engine) of how that character's legs / body parts move and interact & react with it's environment. Get my drift?

The only times I've heard audio improvements in a simracing title that made me say "wow, something is different, the audio sounds slightly more organic, more complex and dynamic" was when iRacing and Reiza made audio engine updates around 7 or 8 and 1 or 2 years ago respectively. I've never had that same feeling from simply improved audio samples - once you're used to the cool new sample, it's just as repetitive and inorganic sounding as the previous sample - and that makes sense because the underlying sound "mechanics," the sound modelling/processing isn't changed with just new samples.

 

[Marcel Offermans]

Just FYI, build 1110, released last April, also contained some improvements to the sound engine, adding more engine and transmission samples for example.

 

[John-Eric Saxén]

Maybe for some people but other people such as myself don't feel the same. Again, putting in better sound samples is like just putting in better textures in a graphics engine - nothing is technically changing. Anyone with half an eye can still tell that graphics engine is still the same and just as limited as from before the better textures were popped in.

Yeah, but that's exactly my point. Anyone with half an eye can quickly spot differences in graphics engine, but same is not true with audio. If this was really the case, audio development would have continued in games. The reason graphics development is 90% of focus in games these days is because people are quick to point out graphics improvements/worsening. Even games that were deemed fine 2-3 years ago have now started to look "old". You can confirm this easily by reading RD forums, Steam reviews, etc. For every 99 persons who complain about graphics there is only one that complains about audio.

I didn't play AMS when the sound engine was improved, but I remember when Assetto Corsa moved to FMOD 3 or 4 years ago. There was lots of hype, but end result was meh, almost no change at least in cockpit sound. The main problem with Assetto Corsa was poor/limited sound samples, which they later improved. FMOD made subjectively almost no difference.

 

[Spinelli]

I agree John, it's graphics that sells probably over 100x over sound. But blindfold two people and let them listen to a videogame and then a real life video and almost any one - well, I'm guessing - should be able to identify which is the videogame and which one is real life ESPECIALLY if listening from trackside / TV cam. A small percentage of people may make a mistake if listening from cockpit view with good and/or lots of samples.

The sound engine improvements I'm discussing doesn't make nearly the difference in cockpit view as it does in trackside/tv cam view. For cockpit view, I agree with most of you that working on new models and core audio engine improvements would be quite the waste of resources at this moment and rather to just focus on better audio samples, more audio samples, and surround sound. I was talking more for trackside/tv cam though, as I LOVE watching replays and watching live sessions (online) from trackside areas. Actually, sometimes I even play using TV cam mode. I'll play with a keyboard and steering assist @ high or full. I used to do that in Grand Prix 2 - actually that was almost the only way I played Grand Prix 2, lol! People thought I was crazy and sometimes didn't believe I was actually playing, haha!

Watching from trackside / TV cam view is why physics-to-graphical representation (not just physics "under the hood" but how they are translated graphically) and the audio engine are such big deals for me. If speaking from just purely a cockpit point of view, I wouldn't have much to complain about and would agree with what many of you are saying: "focus mainly on better samples, more samples/layers, and surround sound".

 

[Oldzeb]

for sounds the standard should be R3E for all

 

[tlsmikey]

The competition system is way too premature in my opinion. There are fundamental things about this sim that have to be addressed long before they start going down the competition road.

-graphic performance (particularly at night or in rain)
-FFB consistency across cars (specifically the merc in gt3, LMP3 and radical when compared to the amazing GTE cars)
-color palette/shaders (looks very dull/blue-ish compared to any other sim out there in stock form)
-tracks (Nordschleife is great, but the S397 track content is lacking)

 

[Emery]

I was talking more for trackside/tv cam though, as I LOVE watching replays and watching live sessions (online) from trackside areas.

Ah, that explains your views quite well. My concern is cockpit immersion rather than spectating. Get the cockpit quality up to snuff and then later, when there's time or a great idea, then upgrade the trackside cameras.

 

[Emery]

Not sure what you mean. I'm looking for the same thing I look for in all racing simulations...continuous improvement of the, take a wild guess...simulation.

You have a particular, often-voiced, minority view of how cars react graphically. It's been stated often enough that Spinelli is nearly a synonym for that view. I was thinking you might be looking for changes in that area.

 

[Emery]

Sound from the early or mid 2000s could have 128 voices and I think RF2 even supports 64 which is almost certainly more than enough. The amount of voices are the last thing that needs updated.

Ha-ha! The number of voices is absolutely a limiting factor! Try turning down the number of voices in rF2 with a full grid of cars and see if you like the result...

With 128 voices, the maximum that were ever supported in hardware, you can't have more than 32 cars being voiced because each car will use 4 voices minimum (exhaust, tires, gear whine, and maybe turbo or reverb). Now subtract out dynamically allocated voices for ambient atmosphere, collisions, spotter/engineer, pit jacks, airguns, etc. and you're quickly running out of voices. Dynamic allocation can help prioritize which sounds get played and which ones are dropped, but the richness of the sound atmosphere diminishes.

AC and Raceroom and rF2 and pCARS 2 and AMS have chosen to prioritize presenting certain sounds/effects, but you can be assured that they've done so at the expense of other sounds in the total atmosphere.

 

[Oldzeb]

S397 wants to embark on the esport so it takes a good retransmission to go on the net, you have to improve the graphics and the sounds of the TV view are mandatory!

 

[Spinelli]

Ha-ha! The number of voices is absolutely a limiting factor! Try turning down the number of voices in rF2 with a full grid of cars and see if you like the result...

With 128 voices, the maximum that were ever supported in hardware, you can't have more than 32 cars being voiced because each car will use 4 voices minimum (exhaust, tires, gear whine, and maybe turbo or reverb). Now subtract out dynamically allocated voices for ambient atmosphere, collisions, spotter/engineer, pit jacks, airguns, etc. and you're quickly running out of voices. Dynamic allocation can help prioritize which sounds get played and which ones are dropped, but the richness of the sound atmosphere diminishes.

AC and Raceroom and rF2 and pCARS 2 and AMS have chosen to prioritize presenting certain sounds/effects, but you can be assured that they've done so at the expense of other sounds in the total atmosphere.

Yes but what I'm talking about is regardless wether there's 1 car or 20 cars. Sounds are not nearly dynamic enough even if there's only a few voices being run.

You have a particular, often-voiced, minority view of how cars react graphically. It's been stated often enough that Spinelli is nearly a synonym for that view. I was thinking you might be looking for changes in that area.

Lol, not only graphically but purely physics-wise as well. It wouldn't be a minority view if people actually watched a video of how a car actually behaves using planet Earth physics, lol.

 

[Case_]

The point I was trying to make is that you can listen to something that's only stereo and it still sounds amazing and quite realistic.

Yeah, but my point was we're not simply watching the games play, we're playing them, so ideally, we need more from sound than just to "sound nice" (though that is certainly a priority as well), and surround sound can be crucial in that it provides you with accurate sound positioning, making you more aware of the cars around you and their position.

Also, be careful calling YouTube video sound "realistic", as that's a pretty slippery slope to step on. One big issue, for example, and often very overlooked, is that the microphones used for onboard videos are often pretty bad and don't represent the sound one would hear in the car IRL (similar to how onboard cameras struggle to represent what human eyes actually see through the windshield, especially when it comes to night racing and similar more challenging scenarios), which sometimes leads to games catering to people expecting the "YouTube video" sound instead of actual IRL sound, which to many people can sound very "wrong" because they expect something else completely, and there are other aspects of what is considered "realistic", for example is what you would hear without a helmet realistic, or is it what you hear *with* a helmet... So yeah, not as simple as it might seem.

HRTF/binaural would be amazing. It blows me away how this was used in some audio records in the 1960s and 1970s and barely used since. Using Creative sound cards with CMSS-3D technology is amazing when setup correctly.

Well, there's easy answer to why binaural audio is not used - it is very impractical to implement to an interactive presentation like a videogame, compared to using it on a static recording, because you can't really tie it to a free moving camera/vantage point. Plus it would require a completely separate sound recordings using the artificial head, and for people not compatible enough with the artificial head that was used for recording, it would likely still not sound very good.
And as for HRTF, well, we have quite a wide selection of them available in the form of virtual surround technologies. And if you take the time to choose the one that is right for you (which differs between people), then the end result can be very good with no additional work from the developer. I love virtual surround (and my videos usually have some sort of virtual surround applied, though I tend to switch between them a lot). But the game needs to support surround sound for this to work... And there are also things like Dolby Atmos, but it's similar to why CMSS-3D was rarely used to its full potential (before MS killed it by removing HW audio) - it is a proprietary technology that needs direct support from the game, and in case of Atmos, it's also expensive to both implement and use.

 

[Spinelli]

I agree with most of what you said but when talking about youtube videos, I was talking about external car sounds. You can listen to external car videos on youtube and easily tell it's real life and not a videogame.

Maybe I misunderstood you but CMSS-3D still works as long as you have a CMSS-3D capable soundcard and the game supports normal (not headphone) 5.1. Set the game as well as Windows to 5.1, set the soundcard to headphone (not 5.1), then enable CMSS-3D and it takes care of the rest. Some games do have their own built in HRTF like Battlegrounds unknown so you definitely wouldn't want to enable CMSS-3D in a case like that.

I think you'll like this :

"Example: OpenAL HRTF implementation

1. True 3D audio (3D positional audio, 3D spatial audio) allows blind location of the sound source in 3D space, e.g. 'the sound is coming from my 8 o'clock, 60 degrees high'
2. True 3D audio is achievable on regular stereo headphones!
3. You can enable true 3D audio for any game using OpenAL right now!
4. Vast majority of games offer fake 3D, i.e. not 3D, implementations like 5.1, 7.1 surround, which is essentially 2D panning. Even implementations such as Dolby Headphone or Creative CMSS-3D are inferior!

To put it bluntly we're being shafted with poor in-game sound implementations inferior even to some technologies available (and widely used!) in late 90's

"

source: https://forums.eagle.ru/showthread.php?t=122517

Aureal's 3D tech from the 1990s was better than many games today in 2018. It really is sad how little audio is looked at even from developers making games where sound is a big part of the experience (war games, racing games, etc.). What Aureal 3D was doing in the 1990s was amazing but Creative killed them with suing battles for apparent patent infringement and that was the death of Aureal as well as their great sound tech. Gotta love Capitalism.

OpenAL HRTF, Rapture 3D, and Aureal 3D are old technologies yet vastly superior to 90% of 2018 game's audio. Even EAX 5.0 did things most modern games don't do. It's real sad.

 

[Case_]

Maybe I misunderstood you but CMSS-3D still works as long as you have a CMSS-3D capable soundcard and the game supports normal (not headphone) 5.1. Set the game as well as Windows to 5.1, set the soundcard to headphone (not 5.1), then enable CMSS-3D and it takes care of the rest.

Yes, but used like this, it just works as a regular virtual surround solution, it is not able to utilize the elevation data or the more precise 3D positioning capabilities it was meant to be using in the first place, those required HW audio support (which was removed from Windows by Microsoft in Vista I believe and now more or less added back with Win10, but by now CMSS-3D has technically been deprecated for years, last Creative soundcard that supported it was Titanium HD I believe). And used as a regular virtual surround solution, it is lacking IMO, as it "colors" the sound way too much and there are (again, IMO) far superior virtual surround solutions available.

 

[RichardHessels]

Ha-ha! The number of voices is absolutely a limiting factor! Try turning down the number of voices in rF2 with a full grid of cars and see if you like the result...

With 128 voices, the maximum that were ever supported in hardware, you can't have more than 32 cars being voiced because each car will use 4 voices minimum (exhaust, tires, gear whine, and maybe turbo or reverb). Now subtract out dynamically allocated voices for ambient atmosphere, collisions, spotter/engineer, pit jacks, airguns, etc. and you're quickly running out of voices. Dynamic allocation can help prioritize which sounds get played and which ones are dropped, but the richness of the sound atmosphere diminishes.

AC and Raceroom and rF2 and pCARS 2 and AMS have chosen to prioritize presenting certain sounds/effects, but you can be assured that they've done so at the expense of other sounds in the total atmosphere.

You would never hear all 30 cars at the same time, or the gear grinding from a car 200 meters away. It's dynamic voices/layers. So you hear the sounds that are around you and have the highest priority. About 32 well recorded and positioned samples should be enough to make a great sounding stage.
And on top of that, all racedrivers wear ear protection for a very good reason.
So if you would simulate foam dampers in the ears, inside a helmet you would not hear much.
In a formula car you actually only hear you own engine, the car right in front of you, but the thing you hear most is windnoise.