Sound quality

[Eyefinitys]

I (and several of my friends) have long noticed that the sound quality in Doom BFA is lower.
Just launch the game from the standard .exe file, Doom3BFG.exe, listen to the menu music and the sounds of button presses and menu navigation. Then exit the game and immediately launch DoomBFA.exe. The difference is very noticeable. The sound feels like the bitrate or frequency has been reduced. In other words, it sounds downright worse. Even though the difference is only in the .exe file. What's causing this deterioration in sound? And is there a way to fix it?
Are there any settings in the cfg file? Or is this a specific implementation feature in Doom BFA?

[MadDeCoDeR]

Hi, for one thing BFA uses OpenAL-soft instead of XAudio2. Which means that it no longer can use the internal VUMeter XAudio2 was using, but also it means that you can configure some things about the audio from the oalsoft.ini (Windows) or oalsoft.conf(Linux). Both of those files must be alongside the .exe file (not inside any other folder). Also it should have some comment out sample rate configuration that you can toy around with if you want

[Eyefinitys]

RBDOOM-3-BFG also use OpenAl, but sound quality is similar in original bfg and rbdoom3bfg, but in Doom bfa even in the menu, a huge difference in sound quality is instantly noticeable.

It looks like something is broken in the sound settings in Doom bfa, which makes it sound worse than the original Doom 3 bfg and than Rbdoom3bfg at the same time.

I'll repeat myself: launch the original Doom 3 bfg exe file, click through the menu and listen to the music for about 30 seconds. Then exit the game and immediately launch DoomBFA.exe. The sound is as if it is playing through 20-year-old speakers, or as if someone recorded the sound with a bitrate reduced by 2-3 times. I would believe that the problem is with OpenAL, but then why does DoomBFA with OpenAL sound worse than the original Doom 3 bfg, while RbDoom3bfg, which also uses OpenAL, sounds 100% the same as the original Doom 3bfg, which uses XAudio2? It seems more likely that there is some kind of sound-related bug in DoomBFA.

No one paid attention to that error with creating bimage files since the days of Doom BFA 1.3.2. And it was only recently fixed. I think there's something similar going on with the sound here. Some kind of bug that no one notices. By the way, the sound is also messed up in Doom bfa 1.3.2. I haven't tested older versions.

[MadDeCoDeR]

I barely notice any difference. Aside from the lack of some bass.

[Eyefinitys]

comparison.zip

Maybe this will make it more noticeable. I recorded the sound of pressing buttons in the menu in RbDoom3bfg and Doom bfa and saved it in FLAC format so that the sound compression would not remove the difference and it would be easier to hear.
Now you can play both files in turn and immediately notice the huge difference in the sound of pressing buttons in the menu. The difference is exactly the same in the game and for all other sounds.

It looks like the alsoft.ini file is to blame. If you remove it, the sound returns to normal...

Without this file, the sound in the game becomes completely identical to that in the regular Doom 3 bfg and RbDoom 3bfg. I don't see the point in tweaking the settings when you can just remove this file altogether. I distribute my Doom 3 bfg mod localization bundled with the Doom bfa port, and a dozen people with different hardware complained about the terrible sound. Someone even streamed their playthrough of the game, and the sound was terrible there too. The conclusion is that for a large number of people, the default settings from the alsoft.ini file significantly reduce the sound quality. It's easier not to use this file at all than to try to find settings that will work for everyone.

[MadDeCoDeR]

That's odd. Then again I might have set something that doesn't work well and didn't notice. It's mostly setup hrtf for OpenAL and enables hq-mode decoder and eax support.
I guess toying around with it might show you where the problem is.

Edit: You can also try to add those two lines in it under [General]
frequency = 96000
period_size = 512

[Eyefinitys]

frequency = 96000
period_size = 512

It doesn't change anything

replacing
stereo-encoding = hrtf
to
**uhj**
make sound better
**basic**
also works

HRTF mode is broken. Not only for me...

[MadDeCoDeR]

Well I guess you are right acording to this: kcat/openal-soft#1142

The Issue though is how good the other 2 options for sourround audio