What does the Sound Quality Slider actually do?

[Meridian.9103]

Hello Anet Audio Team.

First of all i want to thank you for all the nice insights you are giving here in the AFC.

 

Could you tell us, what the Audio Quality Slider actually does? E.g. does it change the amount of processed sound sources and effects? Is reverberation and spatialisation added or altered?

I would appreciate any technical insight you might give.

 

Edit: And is this something that has to be considered by the sound designers?

 

Thanks and keep up your great work.

[DrewCady.8902]

Hey Meridian, it is our pleasure to hang out and talk about the game.

 

Currently the Audio Quality Slider controls two things;

Maximum number of loaded sounds. This throttles how many voices are in memory. This can help a minimum spec computer by lowering memory usage. If you use a higher setting more sounds are cached into memory to ensure you hear as much as possible.

Category voice counts. Each category has a limit to the amount of voices. We use this to help us keep balance with the mix and throttle CPU usage. In lower settings it can remove some of the layered detail. A higher setting keeps all the layers for a full sound.

We as sound designers have access to the the category limit settings. We have not adjusted them in a while but we can get our hands on them if needed.

Thank you,

Drew

[XenoSpyro.1780]

Back in the good old days, sound quality settings actually changed the sound quality.

> @"DrewCady.8902" said:

>throttles voices

>amount of voices.

Not.. whatever this is.

You want to help the low spec? Add in options for <44 khz/bitrate, and disabling reverb.

The setting itself needs more detail too. Instead of a slider, it needs to be a dropdown with popup that describes what changed, like the graphic settings.