Explosions randomly very loud.

Hello.

I'm having an issue with explosions occasionally coming through much louder than normal to the point of being very uncomfortable to hear. Here is a video demonstrating the problem.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ieWY2ZjH3eM

Here are my Audio settings in game.

This is the only related ticket I could find (it is closed however) - http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=9676. Unsure if it's exactly the same problem I have.

Might be worth mentioning this didn't occur in Arma 2 or any other game.

Hoped the patch may have addressed this, but it's still happening. Getting pretty irritating.

Made a ticket - http://feedback.arma3.com/view.php?id=15185

Another vid -

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7GV0lI4G_T8

The exact same thing happens with smoke grenades. Stand near the smoke for some time and the volume goes up instantly. Very irritating.

Yep just tested and there are some weird issues. I've wondered that something is wrong with the sounds sometimes. I threw smoke, I was near it for some time. Then I turns 180 and the smoke volume gets huge boost. With normal grenades I don't get that big difference between sounds and the difference I hear are very likely just different sound samples.

/Hmmm the sound level increase with smoke grenades seems to happen when the smoke is running out or it was just coincidence that happened two times in a row. It scared the hell out of me both of the times :D I'm using dev build.

I've noticed this with other sounds than just the explosions. Sometimes a gunshot 50m away sounds like I fired it myself. Very random though.

/Hmmm the sound level increase with smoke grenades seems to happen when the smoke is running out or it was just coincidence that happened two times in a row. It scared the hell out of me both of the times :D I'm using dev build.

I remember some real life smoke grenades getting louder in the end. Don't know if it's intentional or just some side reaction. But I don't think BIS is trying to simulate that.

Hi guys, thanks for your input, anything helps ;)

I've been continuing with this and made an interesting discovery. I thought I'd try lowering Arma 3's volume in windows volume mixer to a fairly low value like 5 (from where it is normally at 30) and then adjust for the decrease in volume in Arma's sound options. Now, I could reproduce this issue pretty much consistently just starting the game, going into the editor and lobbing a few grenades which would give off really amplified explosion sounds and some that weren't. But with this little volume adjustment it at least seems to stop that from happening.

I can only hazard at a guess that the volume setting in windows is conflicting with Arma 3's and perhaps is causing sounds to 'double' (or something like that) in volume.

Hi guys, thanks for your input, anything helps ;)

I've been continuing with this and made an interesting discovery. I thought I'd try lowering Arma 3's volume in windows volume mixer to a fairly low value like 5 (from where it is normally at 30) and then adjust for the decrease in volume in Arma's sound options. Now, I could reproduce this issue pretty much consistently just starting the game, going into the editor and lobbing a few grenades which would give off really amplified explosion sounds and some that weren't. But with this little volume adjustment it at least seems to stop that from happening.

I can only hazard at a guess that the volume setting in windows is conflicting with Arma 3's and perhaps is causing sounds to 'double' (or something like that) in volume.

The only thing I could think of in that regard would be the built in Windows communication volume lowering feature.

http://superuser.com/questions/490323/windows-lowers-volume-because-of-communication

I generally always disable that because I've had funny things happen because of it.

Hi Windies,

Thank you for the suggestion, however it is already set to 'do nothing'.

Well, for what it's worth we are all noticing an array of sound issues still in the game. Granted it's come a long way from alpha. There are still oddities with surround stuff for many of us on our servers (true or emulated). And we indeed hear the same db level issues. Our current thought process is that the surround issues might account for many of the volume differences being heard (ie.. not all channels firing at correct levels, and or some channels just not firing). My rear and center channels seem to fail me most often. Whether its a vehicle sound, gun shot, reloading and seemingly whatever else. It is random and fairly rare I suppose considering how many sounds get played in a session.

That being said a couple other things I noted while reading the thread here. In the video it seems to me that the frags are actually a lot quieter than they should be at that range. I think what you are defining as blown out is actually normal. At least for me, nades are usually audibly loud at that range. My in-game effects volume is around 25%.

Also regarding the smoke grenades, I've tossed a few dozen M18's over the years. They do get very loud as they burn out. I personally thought that was a nice touch, and is fairly spot on. So most likely intentional. Would imagine it might confuse some people though.