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Parents and Entitled Brother Who Cannot Handle Birthday Parties (+ other stories) LONG - Part 2 of 2
**I am NOT OP. Original post by u/Holden-Position-4 in r/entitledparents******* trigger warnings: violence, child abuse, self harm mood spoilers: frustrating Post 1 linked here Post 5: My spoiled brat brother has finally been allowed some privileges. And he hates them 19 Jul 2022 Since the family intervention, my parents have kept my brother in check. And they are doing ok in terms of making up for years of treating me like crap. They've even promised to host my next birthday, and have my favorite cake with my name on it. My brother did overhear this because my parents had him doing dishes in the kitchen, and he just stopped what he was doing and went right to his room. No fake crying, just a complete shutdown. He still glares at me from his window every time I leave when I come to visit. A little while ago my parents have allowed my brother some privileges for good behavior. Though to my brother they're basically the opposite of anything he'd like. My parents decided that he could have a little fun for good behavior. So my dad dug out his old N64 and Gameboy Color from the 90s. He still had most of his old games for both systems, and also had an old CRT TV to hook them up to. When they were offered to my brother, he just complained that they were old and boring. My dad just said he could suit himself then, and go back to reading. Took one night before my brother was begging to have the old 90s game systems. He used to have many game systems, a gaming PC, and even a gaming chair with bluetooth speakers on it. Now all he has is a folding chair or his bed to sit on when gaming. I came by for a visit around the time he first got the N64 because my parents wanted to have me over for dinner, and I got to see my brother in his room yelling at the old CRT TV while playing Mario 64. He really wasn't happy. Especially since he couldn't even go online to check for guides, walkthroughs, or cheat codes. For the Gameboy Color, I saw he had some Pokemon games, and at least one Donkey Kong. My dad has said that if my brother is extra good by the end of the summer, they'll upgrade him to a Gameboy Advance. My parents quickly realized though that the Gameboy Color would eat AA batteries, so my brother has to use a power cord for it now. And he does play it. Maybe because he used to have a phone in his hands playing app games so much. Because my brother likes cycling, but no longer owns a bike since our parents sold it, he was without an outlet to exercise. My dad found a used exercise bike on FB Marketplace and put it in my brother's room. He also got a used CD player mini boombox from somewhere the same day. So yeah, my brother just rides that exercise bike since he can't go outside unless it's to do chores. And he rides it AGGRESSIVELY! He tunes into whatever music gets him going, and then he rides that exercise bike hard. From the look on his face, I'd call it hate riding. Almost like what you'd expect to see on the face of a vindictive prison inmate exercising in their cell and waiting for the day they can get out and get revenge. I had mentioned this to my parents. And they have the same worries that I do. So my dad started burning CDs with my brother's favorite music that used to be on his gaming computer that they also sold. Each burned CD has ten songs. And he would get one for every week of good behavior. He's only gotten one so far since this started. Not because of bad behavior, but because not enough time has gone by for him to get more. I'm not sure if I'd call my brother's behavior good. He's just not really being bad. I don't hear him complaining out loud anymore most of the time. But I see it in his face. Especially when he glares at me from his window when I get on my minibike to go home. He definitely resents me. But it's not the same look he gives our parents when they aren't looking. He glares at them like they destroyed his life. But if I were to put it into words, he glares at me with envy. Like I have everything he wants. The look just seems to say "Just wait till I'm 18!". I remember having those same thoughts when I wanted to move the hell out after high school. But I made sure I had life plans with the help of my aunt when I moved out. But my brother doesn't know anything about how to do that. So he's probably still thinking of it in the simplest ways a kid usually would. Oh great! Now I'm sounding like a know-it-all! I have tried to talk with my brother. But he doesn't have much to say. I've been stopping by every few days to spend some time with him. We don't speak much because he's gotten very quiet. But he does seem to enjoy having someone to play with since our parents won't. He eagerly hands me a controller every time I'm there. We've mostly been playing racing games like Mario Kart on dad's old N64 in my brother's room. And he gets pretty aggressive while playing. He keeps swinging the controller around wildly with nearly every move he makes, and has even shoved me over a few times when he was losing. I've learned to brace my leg so he can't do that. He had a few light tantrums for losing, but is getting a little better. I've had some Gamefaqs walkthroughs and cheat codes of some of the games he's been playing on the old N64 printed out at the local library and put them in a binder for him. And that's made him be a little nicer to me. Our parents wanted to get some stuff for summer homeschooling for my brother. But I warned them that was probably not a good idea. He's already in an almost constant state of anger. And the goal is to mellow him out and make him more accepting life won't go his way like it used to anymore, not piss him off even more. My dad got angry with me about how he's the father and not me. And that sparked an argument where I reminded him of the things that went on over the past decade. All of the favoritism, all of how I was blamed for so much, even how I had to hide my money at my aunts house because they kept letting my brother try to steal it. I didn't outright say he's a bad parent. But it was heavily implied. He backed off and my mom told him I was right, and trying to force home summer schooling on my brother will not help. That made my dad shut down and he went to drink alone in the living room. My mom has apologized to me repeatedly over her past actions. She says she blames herself because it was her idea to coddle my brother so much, and my did just went along with it. She told me that back then she was never thinking ahead to what my brother would be like as an adult. She basically refused to admit he was going to grow up. So she just kept spoiling him to try and keep him her as baby. My parents have scheduled couple's counseling. But it's gonna be a while before they get in due to the wait period. My dad is pretty obviously not looking forward to it. It's harder to make him admit wrongdoing than my mom. He caved and admitted how much he'd screwed up during the family intervention. But since then he's tried to act like he's just a normal parent. But I've made it clear that pretending that shit didn't happen won't make it go away. And my mom agrees with me. So that's where things are right now. Hopefully my next update will be better. Post 6: Parents let my brother steal from me until I got my aunt involved 16 Aug 2022 I have an update post to make soon. But for now here's one of my past issues with my parents that I talked about during the family intervention not too long ago. Back when I was still a kid, it was very hard for anything to be exclusively mine. And as my brother got older, he craved money for things above all else. He and I both got allowances. Equal allowances. So that was sorta fair. I say sorta because he didn't have to do chores for his, while I did. But that's in the past now because my brother is now having to do all those chores for nothing. My brother always wanted more money though, whether he spent it or not. He loved having new things. But sometimes he'd just save the money instead. Which is odd because you'd think him the kind of kid who'd splurge his savings on the first thing he wants. My brother and I both got allowances of about $25 a month. And I was pretty thankful for it. I usually saved most of my money though. But my brother always wanted more. One day as a teenager I came home to find my room had been ransacked. And the only thing gone was my money. I'd hidden it to try and keep it from my brother, because well...obvious reasons if you readers know what my brother is like by now. I thought I'd hidden it well, but he found it anyway. My mom was home when he did it too, and she acted like she didn't even notice. But there's no way she could not have heard him tearing my room up. I called her out on that during the intervention and she just cried and made excuses about my brother being special, till other family members told her to shut up and own up to it. My room was on the first floor right near the living room. My door was completely in view of the couch. And when I pointed this out back then, my mom just made the "But he's special! He's not like you!" excuse for my brother. I said I wanted the money back, and my mom just made more excuses. And my dad did too when he got home later. So yeah, excuses then and now. Back then I did eventually get that money back because I refused to let it go. I heard my brother screaming as they took the money out of his piggy bank and gave it back to me. And they had the most disappointed looks on their faces, like I'd just robbed my brother. Even though he'd robbed me. But they couldn't tell me off because I wasn't in the wrong, and they knew it. I don't imagine many kids getting in the kind of situations where they are more right about something than their parents very often. A few months later and the whole situation repeated. My brother ransacked my room again and stole the money I'd hidden, again... That time my parents didn't want to do anything about it. And basically said that they couldn't bear to see my brother so disappointed from taking his money. I reminded them that stolen money wasn't his money. And it was really crappy that they were just sitting back and letting that happen. My dad yelled at me to go to my room for saying that. So the next day I rode my bike to my aunt's house and told her everything. She came back home with me and asked my parents if they really let my brother steal from me and did nothing about it. My mom just started whining that my brother is special needs, and she didn't want to make him cry again. And my dad backed her up. My aunt just gave them both that narrow eyed look and reminded them they have two sons, and my feelings mattered too. And what they were doing was VERY wrong. And it meant that my brother would never respect boundaries and would think he can always get away with stealing when he gets older. My aunt asked me openly how much my brother took. I stated the number, which at the time was everything I had, save for the few bucks in my wallet. My aunt gave my parents an expectant glare. My parents tried making a few more excuses. But my aunt had a counter for each one. Finally my parents went into my brother's room. And a moment later my brother was screaming. My parents came back with all of the money my brother took, and practically threw it at me for making my brother cry. My aunt then told them off for acting that way when I'd done nothing wrong, and they picked up all of the money they'd thrown at me and gave a pretty forced apology. My aunt said that she'd be severely disappointed in them if they let this situation repeat. And before she left, my aunt offered for me to hide my money at her house in a lockbox she had. I took her up on that and started keeping my savings over there. My brother ended up ransacking my room two more times looking for money. But I was keeping every cent I had at my aunt's house. My parents actually asked me where I'd hidden it, and I refused to tell. Then I asked why they wanted to know so badly anyway, and my dad instantly got defensive about it. My mom calmed him down and they didn't ask again. Since he couldn't find my money in my room, my brother figured I must have hidden it somewhere else. So he started tearing the house apart one room after another. And who was made to clean up the mess? Why yours truly of course. My parents started to blame me for the whole situation. But when I asked how I was at fault for not letting my brother steal from me, their only counter was that my brother had special needs. I swear, they used that line with me thousands of times. That was something else I heavily berated my parents for in the family intervention. The final straw came when my brother ransacked our parents' bedroom. My parents had a small suitcase safe that they kept some cash in. And my brother locked himself in their room, then took the whole safe and started bashing it around on stuff to try and get it open because he couldn't find the keys. By the time my parents were able to get the door open by breaking it open, my brother had destroyed the room. And he never got that safe open. He just sat on the floor clutching it and crying about the money inside it. My dad was so angry that he turned red. And the actually started yelling at my brother and grounded him. A very rare sight for me to see back then indeed. Then my parents forced my brother to help clean up the mess. After that my brother never ransacked mine or my parents' rooms looking for money again. But he'd still go rooting around every time he got an idea where my savings might be. So I started acting like I was giving hints by repeatedly going into certain places while he was watching. He ransacked the backyard shed, dug a bunch of holes in the yard and under the back porch, and even ransacked the attic. My parents really hit their breaking point with the attic and grounded my brother again. They never figured out I led him on either. My parents did eventually figure out I was keeping my money at my aunt's house. And they didn't argue with my reasoning for doing it. But either my brother overheard, or one of them spilled the beans to him, because the next time we visited my aunt, my brother tried to hunt for the money. But my aunt yelled at him to stop, and my brother would just sit on the floor and cry. This happened a few times and my aunt bluntly stated she'd press charges for any damages if my brother ransacked anything, and also kept a digital camera on hand to record anything if need be. My parents heavily scolded my brother to stop looking for my money. It wasn't his, and he can't have it. Cue more screaming and crying that he wants it like a three year old, even though he was seven at the time. Then my brother said he didn't want to go to auntie's house anymore. So my parents visited less. My aunt visited us a lot more than we visited her anyway. I was pretty much able to keep my money away from my brother till after I moved out. He's never managed to steal cash from me again. His classmates at school were another story. He was caught looking through the backpacks of other kids many times. And he was forced to return stolen stuff, and then sent home, where he'd cry to mom and dad, who then tried to have words with the school, who berated them on letting my brother think what he was doing was ok. They had to teach my brother that it's no ok to go through other people's stuff. And I actually heard him say "But I wanted what they had" a few times. This excuse got used again when my brother stole an envelope with birthday money from a cousin during their birthday party. He tried to stuff it in his shirt and walk out with it later. But the cousin noticed it was missing, and I suspected my brother right away and pointed everyone to him. He ended up crying and thrashing when my dad found the envelope hidden in his shirt. We left that party early. Post 7: My mother mentally broke 22 Aug 2022 This is not an update I was hoping for. And before anyone makes assumptions from the trigger warning, read the post in full. My mom was secretly letting my brother have other privileges back while my dad was at work because he kept begging her. Why? "BeCaUsE hE's SpEaCiAl!" My dad was holding to keeping my brother accountable. But my mom just couldn't do it and started letting my brother have his way again behind everyone's backs. And my brother kept demanding more and more from her once she started giving him what he wanted again. My mom bought a used Switch with a copy of Zelda BOTW and let my brother play it in secret. And was letting him online with his laptop that was supposed to have been taken away unless needed for school work. My brother demanded mom replace some of the things they sold, and called her some horrible things when she said she couldn't because dad would notice. This repeated over the course of several days, and my brother started to get violent. And mom finally hit her breaking point. She outright slapped my brother across the face as hard as she could, and then had a complete mental breakdown where she resorted to self harm. She ended up calling my dad to come home early, because she kept hurting herself. He rushed home and found my mom literally beating herself, and he had to make her stop. She's never done anything like this before. My brother was in total shock and freaking out about it. My dad blamed my brother and whooped his ass raw. He'd spanked me a few times when I was a kid. But I heard from dad later that he'd really wailed on my brother while calling him an ungrateful brat they did everything for. Then took away the Switch my mom had been hiding for him. My mom had to be taken in to the ER, and then had to be held for a psyche evaluation. She was found to be so heavily stressed that her anxiety was through the roof, and had to be hospitalized. I saw a picture of my mom that my dad had taken before she was taken in for the psyche hold. She had two black eyes, and her face was swollen. And she'd ripped some of her own hair out. My dad implied she'd done more to herself. But I didn't see. However my dad begged me to come over and watch my brother while they were away. Because he was afraid my brother may do something insane too after everything that happened. When I showed up, I found my brother huddled in his closet and crying. He wouldn't say much to me, other than small apologies. And he jolted if I even so much as touched him. I ordered his favorite pizza on my dime and had it delivered. It's barbecue chicken with stuffed crust. It coaxed him out of his room and we ate dinner in awkward silence. I played Mario Kart on the N64 with him for a while after that. And he eventually broke down sobbing. He asked me how bad of a person he really was. I hesitated in saying anything at first. But I told him. I said it wasn't his fault for being raised spoiled because that was on our parents. But he is getting older and can't put all the blame on our parents anymore. I said he himself was entitled, violent, blames others for all of his faults, steals from people, and was in need of some serious counseling. My brother cried some more and asked me to leave the room. About an hour went by before he came out and we talked in the living room. My brother asked me what it was like being an adult. So I told him about the responsibilities I have in working a job, paying for gas, rent, utilities, etc. And how much I usually had leftover each month for anything else. He was pretty shocked because no one had ever explained adult life to him like this. And I remarked that he'll be there soon enough in a few short years. My brother said he wished he didn't have to be an adult. He likes having his way and gaming all he wants. But then admitted that he knew I was going to say that was wrong. Which I nodded and said he was correct. I remarked to him about how little I got compared to him growing up because he had to have everything. Which is why I took lemons and made lemonade any way I could. Like how I hid my money at my aunt's house. And how I was afraid to keep nice things because he always wanted to take them away from me. This heart to heart lasted until we saw dad pull his car in. My brother bolted back to his room before dad came in the house. When I saw my dad, he really didn't look so good. He looked like he'd been crying, and was a complete mess. He apologized to me in tears and said he's finally truly starting to understand how awful of a parent he truly is. And couldn't believe he was blind to it for so long. We hugged, he cried some more, then he spilled his guts to me about everything that happened. I've never seen him cry so much. It's been well over a week now and nearing two. And thus far my mom hasn't returned home yet. I'd hoped that if I waited this long to post about it, my mom would have come back. But wherever she is right now, she's still there. My dad won't say anything more about what's going on. But I think my mom might have been labeled a danger to herself, and has been institutionalized. Otherwise I think she would have been home by now. My brother has calmed down a lot. And he does the chores dad gives him without complaint. Dad also gave him back the Switch mom had bought for him, and said not to eff things up this time. Because if he wants all of his privileges back, he was gonna earn them one by one. Yesterday I talked with my brother over the phone while dad was still at work. And he says he's afraid of dad now. But also said that dad hasn't even so much as raised his voice to him since the day mom went mad. He admitted that he still wished things could go back to how they used to be. He misses all his electronics, his games, and his bike. I asked dad about the bike, and he said he'll get him another one in time. But for now he's just too worried about mom to even think about that kind of stuff. I'm kind of at a loss how to move forward here. Obviously I know that my family is messed up, and need support in a variety of ways. I am starting to feel sorry for my brother. But at the same time I know that he needs this lesson to move forward in life. But I did not agree with dad spanking him the way he did. I haven't said that to him. Nor do I think I ever will unless he does it again. Which I'm not so sure he will since he regrets it immensely, and my brother is starting to understand how to behave. But I still feel really mixed up over the lot of this. I knew getting my family change for the better would be drama. But I didn't think it would be at this level. **Reminder - I am not the original poster.*\* Marked inconclusive because not everything is resolved or positive. submitted by /u/opinionswelcomehere to r/BestofRedditorUpdates [link] [comments]
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r/BestofRedditorUpdates |
opinionswelcomehere |
Dec 6, 2022 |
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Analysis: Assassin's Creed highlights a very concerning trend regarding how game audio is being poorly handled.
Updated @ 11:28 AM CST 2022/01/29: Sadly Ubisoft have admitted that the low bitrate audio cannot be improved because it is not feasible. It apparently requires an overhaul of their audio system from the ground up, likely induced by engine limitations. It also implies that any future AC game using the same engine will suffer the same consequences. Updated @ 11:55 AM CST 2021/08/06: The official thread has been split into multiple topics, for the benefit of isolating all the individual audio problems people are experiencing. Here is a link to the updated thread covering low quality audio Updated @ 10:00 AM CST 2020/12/01: Thanks to the attention of my support thread on the Ubisoft Forum, Ubisoft have finally acknowledged that there are audio problems. They are urging users to reply with further information Updated @ 11:55 AM CST 2020/11/20: I had no idea this thread would resonate with so many of you, please excuse the pun. You have my sincere thanks for the reactions, comments, recommendations, corrections and affirmations. TL;DR summary The audio quality throughout the AC series has been progressively getting worse. This post analyses Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla, exposing the fact that heavily compressed low bitrate 24,000 Hz audio is utilized across all three titles. Origins and Odyssey was less noticeable because it mixed higher quality 44,100 Hz ambient environment sounds with low resolution 24,000 Hz combat, character and UI sounds. Valhalla was recently discovered to be the worst offender since it uses 24,000 Hz audio across the board. The aim here is to provide a technical explanation, cross-comparison and to raise awareness of this bad trend. Audio is a fundamental immersive component of any AAA video game, and should be presented with the same level of quality that you would expect within the film and TV industry. Introduction This started out as a technical analysis of the in-game audio present in Assassin's Creed Valhalla, but it has since evolved into a topic of a wider scope; if you haven't played the past three AC games, Pandemic notwithstanding, let me be the first to tell you that we are in a predicament. The idea of this thread is to not only educate, but try and prevent a problem before it becomes more of a problem. Since this is a technical subject, there will be references to sample rate, bit rate and codecs, but I feel like it is more common knowledge these days, especially due to the rise of content creators, or anyone who regularly deals with MP3 and video files. Admittedly, there is much to talk about regarding Assassin's Creed, especially if you're of the opinion that the series died after the 2nd/Brotherhood or 3rd game. Set that conversation aside for a moment, grab a squeezy ball, punch a pillow, and let's talk about how Ubisoft are starting to set a horrible trend for in-game audio. So I caved in like many others, gleeing at the prospect of virtually visiting my homeland as an axe-wielding maniac, and decided to pre-order Assassin's Creed Valhalla after thoroughly enjoying my time eliminating the cultists from Odyssey. On launch day during my first playthrough I noticed something that sounded eerily familiar. I game using a pair of Mackie MR624 studio monitors, or if I feel like giving my neighbours a moment's rest, with my Beyerdynamic DT-770 PRO headphones. The audio I was hearing sounded muffled, or in layman's terms, a bit like listening through a pair of tin cans that were accidentally dropped into a cup of earl grey. Analysis Enough was enough, I put my investigative cap on and started by first extracting the audio files using Wwise-unpacker, and proceeding to analyse the files using Adobe Audition. I discovered that the SFX are saved at a 24,000 Hz sample rate, with a variable bitrate that peaks at around 70 kbps. Yes, mystery unravelled, it really is that bad. Those of you who do not fully appreciate this technical blunder, might better appreciate it if I put it this way. Visually, it is the equivalent of removing 50% of the colours in a painting, and leaving smears where the details are. Here is a screenshot of my analysis. Looking at the Frequency Analysis tab, you can very clearly observe a frequency rolloff at around 11000 Hz. The low bitrate issue is also not just limited to the PC release. It is affecting all platforms. This is an unusually strict choice of compression considering that the English audio and SFX only take up 4.5 GB of hard disk space. Standard CD audio is at 44,100 Hz (DVD standard is 48,000 Hz), and those are the two sample rates that nearly every streaming service, sound device and operating system are designed to work with. Now, you may have heard people say "Oh, but your ears cannot hear above 20 kHz, so the missing detail is irrelevant". Unfortunately, there is complexity surrounding this issue that the statement fails to address. Firstly, when you take a 24,000 Hz sound, the highest audible frequency will be 12,000 Hz. This is already 8000 Hz lower than what the human ear can detect. When frequencies are missing from the original sound, it also negatively impacts the entire representation of that sound. The more you remove, the more hollow and less defined it becomes. Are you curious to hear the difference? Side by side audio comparison This morning I recorded a YouTube video to highlight the differences between 24,000 Hz and 48,000 Hz. Technical analysis of the poor quality audio used on Assassin's Creed If you'd rather hear a lossless version of the presentation, you can download the audio file here. Alternatively, you may also download the individual sound files used for the basis of this comparison: ¹sounds_sfx_3369_high_quality & ²sounds_sfx_3369_low_quality To help provide an even more visual description of the issue at hand, here's a comparitive study of sample rates performed by a reputable audio company. The Nyquist theorem It has been over ten years since I last sat in an audio theory class, so I'm likely over-simplifying the technical details of this theorem. Any feedback would be greatly appreciated, and in addition, I would highly suggest reading an external official scientific resource. The Nyquist theorem describes this better. Named after a Swedish-born American electronic engineer who worked on the speed of telegraphs in the 1920s, the Nyquist theorem states that a waveform must be sampled twice in order to get a true representation. The sampling frequency must be at least twice the highest signal frequency recorded in order to be effective. Here is a table showing the Sample rate vs. Highest Frequency. Sample rate Highest Frequency 22,050 Hz 11,025 Hz 24,000 Hz 12,000 Hz 30,000 Hz 15,000 Hz 44,100 Hz 22,050 Hz 48,000 Hz 24,000 Hz As a result, if the highest frequency a human can hear is around 20,000 Hz, then 40,000 Hz is the lowest sampling rate you can use to accurately represent any sound that a human can hear. If you are listening to a recording of "bad audio", but to you it sounds acceptable, the issues are probably one of the following: Bad equipment: headphones, speakers or an improper sound configuration. The highest frequency of the sound in question was one half of the sample rate used. Your hearing is damaged or has deteriorated naturally with age. By the time we approach 40 years old, most of us will not able to discern individual tones above 15,000 Hz. If you would like to test your ears, try this Human Hearing Benchmark. As a safety precaution, only perform this test at a medium or low volume. Even though the highest frequency our ears can detect is around 20,000 Hz, the sound frequencies that exists beyond our hearing range (overtones) greatly colour and impact the sound we hear. Therefore when we record digital audio and cut out those frequencies above 22,050 Hz with a high pass filter (we have to use a filter or else they would cause aliasing or noise in the sample), we are actually changing the original sound that we were trying to record. If you raise the sample rate, the recording will be more accurate. The trade-off is that it takes up more storage. Partly sourced from another post. ScienceDirect overview. This theorem is still used today to digitize analog signals, nearly 100 years after Nyquist was an engineer at Bell Laboratories. Oi mate! Don't take me for a mug. This is when I had a revelation, realising that this issue has been slowly getting worse and worse with every new Assassin's Creed title released. The games are getting bigger, and sacrifices are being made as a result. I first noticed it with AC:Origins, but because some sounds are higher quality than others, it masks the issue to an extent. Let me clarify further. Both Origins and Odyssey have high quality stereo ambient background sounds that are bounced to 44,100 Hz with an average variable bitrate of 241 kbps, but then you have all of the mono UI, voice, interaction, footstep and fighting sounds that are bounced to 24,000 Hz, all lacking any convincing spatialization, unceremoniously resulting in a bubbling cauldron that is extremely disconcerting to the trained ear. I say trained, but if you take a minute to search online you will discover that gamers, including some gamers with hearing impairments, picked up on this very quickly and early on. Why? We care about sound. To summarise how Origins and Odyssey attempts to mask the issue: Even though certain frequencies are missing from non-ambient sounds, the detailed ambience and music in the background compensates psychoacoustically for what is missing. Valhalla sounds worse because it sacrificed more, and it does not have any high quality ambient sounds. There are far too many links to post, so here's only a small subset of threads that I hand picked, all complaining about the same thing. First up, Origins. ¹Really poor audio quality for voices ²I can't get into origins because of the bad audio quality ³What's up with Assassins Creed Origins audio? ⁴Audio quality is so bad for AC Origins ⁵Terrible Audio Quality Origins Does it get better with Odyssey? Not exactly. ¹Terrible audio ²Audio quality for Odyssey ³Anyone experience poor audio quality with Odyssey? ⁴Audio quality is so bad ⁵Does the audio sound weird for anyone else? Aaaaannndd Valhalla. ¹Why have no critics mentioned the terrible audio? ²Has anyone notice the weird audio quality in the recent AC games? ³Assassin's Creed Valhalla audio is the worst of any game I've played Audio is terrible in AC valhalla ⁴Bad audio in the game ⁵Assassin's Creed Valhalla audio is still bad and horrid ⁶Terrible sound on PC. It's also worth noting that these games support DTS Digital Surround. This can be confirmed by observing the DTS logo printed on the disc itself. DTS audio bit rate values can be 1.5 Mbps 48/96 kHz, 16/24 bits (or with DTS-HD the bit rate can be 4.5 or 6.144 Mbps for encoded data), but due to the heavily compressed nature of the audio files in-game, it is not fully taking advantage of what this technology has to offer. The Why? My first question was: is the sacrifice of quality an attempt to try and cram as much in to meet a specific distribution criteria? I've spoken to a few people within the gaming industry personally about this, and the general consensus seems to be: Yes. Please pitch in here if you've had any first hand experience dealing with this. Realistically, it should only affect products within the physical realm, such as trying to compress the game in order to fit it onto a 50 GB (dual-layer) Blu-ray disc. Digital media does not suffer from this limitation, can be downloaded at our convenience and is much cheaper to distribute. If they provided the sound at 44,100 Hz (CD Quality) with an average variable bitrate of 128-192 kbps, as an example, similar to the quality you would expect from streaming a song on Spotify, you would see the total size of the in-game audio increase from its heavily compressed 4.5 GB to approximately 9-12 GB. At a minimum it would be 9 GB since we are doubling the sample rate. Still not very large, but it would be a light and day difference for sound quality. If you're curious to experiment with file size estimations, here's a neat audio filesize calculator. Is there a solution? The idealistic solution would be to re-export all sound effects and voice using a sample rate of 44.1 kHz, with the OGG quality parameter set between -q 0.4 and -q 0.6. They could then deliver this as a compulsory patch or a free regional high quality sound pack DLC. Popular games such as Skyrim, Fallout 4, Middle-earth: Shadow of War, Call of Duty: Warzone, Monster Hunter: World and even Ubisoft's own Watch Dogs 2 have all received DLC addons that increase the quality of the game experience. Final thoughts Is it acceptable to allow such a fundamental aspect of a game to suffer a significant loss of frequencies in order to meet that distribution criteria? Absolutely not. This sets a neglectful precedent and one that not only severely destroys immersion, but attempts to normalize poor quality sound to the masses. Here's another question for you. If you bought a Blu-ray box set of your favourite show or movie trilogy, would you be satisified knowing that they replaced the lossless DTS-HD 5.1 audio with muddy, tinny, anti-climatic explosions worthy of being peer-traded on KaZaA and Limewire? (I was born in the 80's so please excuse the reference). Consumer expectations within the film and gaming industry aren't that different, VR is evolving and the lines are blurring with every new AAA title. We are starting to expect the same kind of treatment: Detailed facial micro expressions, lip syncing, motion capture, in-game characters based on the likeness of real world actors and actresses, quality voice acting, and dare I say it, high quality sound effects, more commonly referred to as Foley within the film industry. I do not game in one room with a sub-par home media center, and watch films in another where my favourite monolith shaped speakers sit in each corner. If they were sentient and had a mouth and a stomach, I would expect vomit on the floor every time I embark on my journey with Odin. Instead, I have to deal with my audio producer brain punching my cochlea from the inside. Final, final thoughts Oddly many of the official reviews of AC:Valhalla I have read so far completely fail to mention the audio issues, and this is concerning. The issues are so obvious that they must have either purposefully omitted the critique, have sub-par sound systems, or couldn't care less. I remember back in the day when video games magazine reviewers took pride in providing a detailed opinion of sound effects and music. Fond memories of reading Zzap!64, Amiga Power and GamesMaster back in the day. How do you guys feel about it? To me, the $60 price tag is a bit of a kick in the teeth, and I feel that Ubisoft should really have audio technicalities down to a T. Is this what we are meant to expect for a title with a AAA budget? Am I crazy for writing or caring this much? Ubisoft could learn a thing or two from the guys and gals responsible for Middle-earth: Shadow of War. They released 4K cinematics for free, along with higher quality in-game assets. We deserve to optionally download HD quality assets for Assassin's Creed, especially since there are many gamers among us that invest a great deal of time and money into our home cinema set-ups. Here is a current thread following this topic on the Ubisoft Player Support Forum: Audio Issues: Bitrate / Dynamics & Balance / Muffled Sounds / Stuttering / Volume etc. | POST HERE If you read this all the way to the end, thank you. Let's hope that the trend of heavily compressed audio dies hard. On a side note, since I've had a few people ask: I'm a music producer and songwriter on the side. Software dev by trade. Gaming, music and audio means everything to me. Recommended listening and current favourite soundtracks. Links provided where appropriate. Katana ZERO Original Soundtrack by LudoWic and Bill Kiley Castlevania Symphony of the Night by Michiru Yamane Arcanum by Ben Houge Halo 2 Volume 1: Original Soundtrack The Floor is Jelly Original Soundtrack by disasterpeace Anything from the Final Fantasy series, especially if it's by Nobuo Uematsu. The FFVIII Remake is great if you prefer orchestrated works. Mark Morgan's work, especially Fallout since it was the first PC game I ever played Michael Hoenig's Baldur's Gate II theme (wish it was longer) The criminally overlooked Street Fighter EX Plus Alpha Original Soundtrack by Shinji Hosoe, Ayako Saso and Takayuki Aihara. Sakura Mankai is my ringtone. Assassin's Creed Original Soundtrack of course. Favourites are II, III, Origins, Odyssey and Valhalla. Dark Souls, Demon's Souls and Bloodborne Divinity Original Sin 2 by Borislav Slavov as well as Larian's earlier games with Kirill Pokrovsky The incredible jazz music by Jerry Martin from The Sims 1 Westworld Original Soundtrack submitted by /u/captainstarpaw to r/Games [link] [comments]
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r/Games |
captainstarpaw |
Nov 19, 2020 |
United States