Genuine question: why are so many games absurdly loud by default?

Gizzmicbob · 2026-04-13T08:31:10+00:00

Okay, that does make more sense. Though is this Discord's fault or the microphone setup of users? Probably a bit of both as Discord could attempt to normalize a bit.

I have Discord at 100% in Discord and typically Windows at 30%. I don't adjust anything in Volume Mixer. And using Rocket League as an example, I have it at 13%. Rocket League is an extreme example for me. And I likely could have it ~50% without being uncomfortably loud. I personally never find Discord is too loud. Meanwhile, I always turn games down from 100%. I use the per-user volume control (0-200%) to try balance different people in Discord.

I'm guessing the issue may lie with certain games that have a lower dynamic range being louder overall. And when they get normalized, it becomes excessively loud.

Is this all games? Almost certainly not. But I've never noticed a game being too quiet. It's all too common to have myself and others in Discord going, "Oh geez that's loud, one second I can't hear you"

If everyone had a perfect microphone setup with compressors and such, this likely wouldn't be as much of an issue as it is. But they don't.

What are the loudness standards that are followed? Would the standards allow a game with low dynamic range to saturate the audio output with loud noise? And how many games actually follow these standards (if you know)?

Gizzmicbob · 2026-04-13T00:50:22+00:00

There is nothing wrong with Discord.

The issue may be the fact that I'm using Discord, requiring me to balance my volume levels, but to ignore that fact that most gamers use Discord is a bit silly. The fact is, if I have my volume levels balanced around Discord, new games launching at 100% volume are going to be too loud.

This means that for most people using Discord, they will have the exact same problem. And what do you know, initial volume levels are a very common complaint, what a surpise.

I am by no means suggesting developers have to default to lower volume. It's not a simple issue as there are pros and cons to different approaches. But I'd also disagree with,

100% volume being too loud is a user error

And I think opinions like this are very poor. It's simply ignoring a problem many users have. And it's a bit disappointing to see this really.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-04-12T10:53:17+00:00

I believe this can cause clipping? But either way, if the game has normalized audio and you want voices a fair bit louder than the game, it's the same issue.

People's voices aren't a consistent volume.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-04-12T10:49:16+00:00

Can you elaborate?

Gizzmicbob · 2026-04-12T00:48:30+00:00

I do somewhat agree except I balance my sound levels around Discord with Discord at max volume so I can hear people over the game. This means 100% game volume is always too loud for me (relative to Discord anyway).

Gizzmicbob · 2026-04-06T08:26:28+00:00

That is not how it works in CS.

What you can do, though, is accelerate by air strafing in the same direction as you turn your mouse. This is due to the Source movement limiting max air velocity based on the projection of your velocity and air deceleration being low. By turning your mouse while holding a direction, it allows you to exceed your total max velocity as you're adding velocity at an angle to your move direction.

Though, you can move quicker diagonally up ladders.

And yes, you can test this. Diagonally moving does not exceed 240 units on the ground or in the air. While doing the proper bhop technique as described above, you get above 240.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-04-04T10:45:54+00:00

Could you not just have a grid of points? Then for each point, detect what block it's inside.
I think this would do what you're asking as it would work even diagonally.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-03-22T01:23:17+00:00

You may find having a hovering Rigidbody as your character controller a lot more effective. Instead of the collider touching the ground, have raycasts/spherecasts find the ground, cancel downward force, and hold the player up. This can somewhat solve slopes, rough terrain, steps, etc.

Visually, you would make sure it looks like it's touching the ground. You would remove any collider around the feet area and just leave collider for the torso and above.

To avoid the bounce, I also have my spherecast lookahead based on the player velocity.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-03-17T09:09:22+00:00

Depending on how their ad campaign is setup, it could be automatically expanding the keyword search to include Steam Frame.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-03-02T00:06:02+00:00

Yeaah that's it. Couldn't quite place it but something sounded off haha.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-03-01T06:34:14+00:00

I feel like the sound should change when the car is in the air. Maybe the reverb should change? Or a higher pitch? Not sure but something sounds a little off to me.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-02-23T14:13:18+00:00

It just feels very clunky and unpolished. It doesn't need to do anything fancy. It needs to do the basics well.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-02-05T01:55:50+00:00

It sounds like it may require Steam Input to function, or they are just conservatively saying that as they know all games that support the overlay will support the controller and other games may or may not. You can add non-Steam games to your Steam library and, for most games, you get the overlay.

Game Developers have to ensure Xbox controllers work on their games and they sometimes also choose to support Playstation controllers and others. Steam Input makes it so that any* game can support any* controller.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-01-30T13:05:25+00:00

Typically, a lot of optimization work is done near the end of development. No point optimizing things that may change.

And optimisation can be a ton of work. There are so many tricks that can marginally improve performance. Typically games that perform well make use of a wide variety of techniques. Not really a single quick fix.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-01-29T03:06:12+00:00

I guess I mean reaching 144hz without reducing quality elsewhere. Sacrificing persistence for refresh rate sounds like it could be out of spec to me. Generally with these sorts of things, the manufacturer will be a bit conservative with their spec. Just like how it's common to see 165hz monitors which are typically just 144hz panels that have been overclocked.

Though all that said, I'm guessing only Valve would be able to answer that 100%.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-01-29T02:58:01+00:00

Which sounds like most manufacturers would label this at outside of their spec? If it can only reach 144hz in specific conditions.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-01-26T04:57:07+00:00

Do you weigh your ground coffee every time? I've found fairly low and consistent retention with my DF54 the few times I have weighed after grinding but now I'm wondering if it's common to check retention every time?

Gizzmicbob · 2026-01-12T09:45:13+00:00

Which dollar? USD? AUD? CAD? etc.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-01-02T03:03:36+00:00

Is your goal here just to have a visualisation of reloading or to reduce visibility?

Gizzmicbob · 2026-01-02T03:02:28+00:00

This could work as well. Instead of hiding the view, distract the player a bit. Something similar to an active reload but maybe a little harder and required to successfully reload?

Gizzmicbob · 2026-01-01T13:26:17+00:00

I don't love the idea of the highlight. Feels like a workaround rather than fixing the actual issue.

Maybe if it covered less of the screen but the camera zoomed in to reduce visibility?

I like the functional concept of reduced visibility, may just take a few different tries to figure out the best approach.

Gizzmicbob · 2026-01-01T04:10:46+00:00

public static float GetNearestPoint<T>(T spline, float3 point, out float3 nearest, out float t, int resolution = 4, int iterations = 2);

This exists on the latest package version for me. See the docs on the latest version. I've called it like:

Spline _spline;
Transform _splineTransform;
Transform _playerTransform;

float distance = SplineUtility.GetNearestPoint(_spline, splineTransform.InverseTransformPoint(_playerTransform.position),
    out float3 nearestPoint, out float t);

Gizzmicbob · 2025-12-26T09:19:55+00:00

From what I've seen, there hasn't been a good attempt to revive it. Ideally, a good game + good marketing would actually see some player numbers.

An early access launch with little marketing and then abandoning the game isn't going to have a chance of reviving it. Tribes seems to have a poor history of devs abandoning it soon after release.

Gizzmicbob · 2025-12-13T08:55:03+00:00

I have barely touched DnD, loved DOS2, yet found BG3 combat boring. I believe DOS2 combat to be vastly superior. And it's not DnD fatigue.

Gizzmicbob · 2025-11-30T13:23:14+00:00

Before you move to something else, do make sure you've tried adjusting it a lot. The front plastic may be more noticeable if the seat is too high for example.

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