Sound settings

Alfieri

Alfieri

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    • Seen Nov 14, 2023
    When you go to the sound settings of your new video game, do you like to max out the volume of the BGM and SFX or leave it as is?

    For me, it depends on the game. Games like Street Fighter, the voices are drowned out by the music so I lower the BGM by 1 and max out the volume of the voices. But in games like Soul Calibur V, everything is loud so I leave it as is. Injustice is a very quiet game so I max everything out and it's still a little quiet.
     
    It depends on the game and situation, but I'll tell you for one thing that it's something you don't miss until it's gone.

    For instance, Asura's Wrath is something of a cinematic game that I would actually love to give the movie treatment and drop its subtitles. The problem is, the music can completely overpower the voices, so subtitles are essential. This is made even worse by the fact that the game prides itself on its intensity and goosebump-inducing action, which is...

    ...If you've ever watched Gurren Lagann or Inazuma Eleven, both of which I pick because of their mastery of sound design, you'll understand why this is a bad thing. In those, music is dynamic, as are voices (and sound effects). For what's happening to really reach out and send chills down your spine, employing such a technique is essential, as the voice acting and the music work in tandem. Asura's Wrath, on the other hand, keeps them static, and the music generally louder than the voices (and, really, if the balance were reversed or audio options present, the static nature of the game's audio wouldn't really be a problem).

    It's a good game, regardless, but some adjusted audio options could do it a lot of good.
     
    I don't touch them. I think I used to keep everything balanced, but I figure now... they probably know what they're doing and don't bother.

    My home audio setup is calibrated, so I shouldn't have to touch the game settings
     
    For me, it also depends. In games such as Call of Duty, I find myself raising sound volume slightly, while sacrificing a bit of music. Games like this require us to utilize sound effects to pinpoint where enemies are, how far they are from you, what kind of weapons they might possibly be using, let you know if they've recently killed any teammates or not, and much, much more; they are a powerful tool.

    In games like Mario, Rayman, and so forth, sound effects aren't precisely mandatory, so I don't believe it's much of a big deal if you lower them or not. Some video games (such as them) do have lovely songs, and while playing those, I increase their music volume a little. In most cases, however, I tend to leave things alone, and not bother.
     
    Depends on the game for me, too. In most cases I just mute the game and run my own music instead. There's a few games that I really like the soundtracks for.. but not many. c:
    However, for horror games and shooters, specifically, listening to the game is often more important.

    With horror games it's more about the atmosphere, but if it has no subtitles I'll usually turn down the other sound options and increase their voices.

    As for shooters, sound is probably the most important thing for me. I can't really see the color red -- I don't want to call it colorblind, but it's very similar to shades of brown for me -- and you know what else is brown in most FPS games today? The rest of the ****ing screen. Unless it's right in front of me, where part of the sky would turn "brown", sound is really important to figure out where I'm being shot from. {XD} So in those I'll often raise the sound effects and lower the music, like Peitharchia mentioned.
     
    I usually just leave it alone. If I find that the music drowns out the voices somewhat in cutscenes, I'll lower the volume slightly, or raise the volume of the voices...or both. I've found that most games achieve a fairly good balance between background music and voice acting on the default settings, although from time to time I do need to change the settings to get that balance.

    If the game has Japanese voice acting, I mute the voices. I don't mind subbed anime, but being forced to rely on subtitles for video games really bothers me...I'd rather have no voices at all than Japanese ones.
     
    Always lowering the sounds in total because when I play a game the sound often is waaaay too loud. Ususally I tweak on them till I got the perfect setting for each game, but the only option I touch with every game is the overall volume
     
    Most of the time I trust the equalization that the developers intended. Except in Minecraft, **** whoever made that music and weather so damn loud >.<

    My friend always turns music down real low and I hate it. especially when he did it on Bioshock Infinite THE MUSIC IS LIKE ONE OF THE BEST PARTS OF THE GAME!
     
    I generally use the following settings:
    SFX: 100%
    Music: 70%
    Voice: 60%

    I hate when games lack a master setting if there's any chance I'll be playing with a friend since I'll want to be able to lower everything globally to 50% on a temporary basis for microphone stuff.
    I also hate when games are equalised so that everything is made to sound similar (by which I mean give or take a whole 20%) to my usual settings when all the sliders are at 100%.
     
    Zeria said:
    If the game has Japanese voice acting, I mute the voices. I don't mind subbed anime, but being forced to rely on subtitles for video games really bothers me...I'd rather have no voices at all than Japanese ones.
    Click to expand...
    Huh, that's an interesting way to look at it.

    I had a similar thought recently in regards to watching or playing pretty much anything in a language other than English. Really, when a game is JP only or something discourages you from playing with voices in your language, subtitles are basically your only way of following what's going on, but when it's in your native, they are (or should be) optional. But theoretically, Japanese voices are superfluous in dubbed or even simply translated games so long as there are subtitles.
     
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