[2020] Whats going on with the Audio?

Part of this is being resolved in the next update.

• Implemented a new audio prioritization system in order to reduce occurrences of important sounds being culled due to performance limitations. This results in more controlled and stable behavior for sounds such as vehicles, footsteps and weapons.
• Added slightly more weight to most close range weapon firing sounds, excluding smgs and pistols. The difference is most prominent in stereo.
• Added a new option in the audio menu to change the hit indicator sounds between current (default), original BFV release and off.

I've otherwise shared what Pun found last night to ask if there would be any adverse affects to making the changes he's suggested, and if we can raise the default amounts without having any adverse affects on performance.

Update - Been chatting with the team all week about the original topic that spurned this thread and we've determined the following:

There is a misconception that only 20 sounds are allowed to play simultaneously in Battlefield V, and that changing a setting in a config file will increase that number. The “SoundSystemSize” parameter is legacy from older games that is not referenced and not used in Battlefield V. Changing the value from 20 to 200 will have no effect on the game, the same way that setting the value to 1 will not cause the game to only play one sound at a time. The “AudioQuality” line is equally unreferenced and also has no effect.

Many layers and strategies are used for runtime prioritization that shape the hundreds of “voices” during high action into something more readable and playable. The new prioritization system that will be added in patch 6.2 is in addition to already existing features with the specific purpose of limiting the maximum amount of sounds in such a way that we are in control of what types of sounds remain and which can be culled when things get out of hand. Otherwise, the game would cull sounds indiscriminately in order to bring the CPU load back to acceptable levels. For example, ambient and very far away sounds get culled first, while things like weapons, explosions, (enemy)footsteps, V1s and vehicles always have a minimum of allowed sounds for each type available.

To summarise - it's a redundant config line left over from past titles, changing it does nothing. In 6.2 you're going to see a general improvement on how this behaves however so be sure to chat to us some more about this when the update goes live!

Big thanks to our Audio Director David Jegutidse for helping to clarify and look into this with me!

I've been running this for a good 2 or so months at a setting of 64. Works wonders, sounds much better. No noticeable issues.

Hope you're healing up well bud!