No, you can't make your engine louder. But do not fear! Here's my Tip Of
The Day:
Lower the sound of the other cars!
The sound of the other cars was the reason I had a hard time getting
through the first corners (I found out it wasn't due to the well known
slight framerate drop at the first corner 'problem'). More than once I
drove too slow and lost a lot of places because of this, and also more
than once I slipped out of a corner when other cars were around me
(also later on in the race) because I was accelerating too much. On top
of that I always felt irritated and pushed by hearing cars coming up
behind me, as if the we're going to overtake me, while in (sim)reality
they we're still 1.6 sec. away!
Well, here's how it goes.
In the F1RS\CPA\dll directory you'll find a file called Snd_cpa.ini.
You've got to change the following parameters:
SXD_DIST_SATUR=5
SXD_DIST_FADE=75
The SXD_DIST_FADE option is the most important: this one determines the
distance at which another car can he heard (or to be more precise: at
which distance the other car's sound will fade in or out). The default
setting is way too high: when you're on pole position, a number of 75
will let you hear all cars around, up to the one at the back of the grid
(it seems)! No wonder you can't hear your own engine anymore. (And
maybe, as I said before, the computer has a hard time producing the
sound of 22 cars, hence the framerate drop at the beginning of the
race?) Two cars in your neighbourhood is enough to make it impossible to
hear your own engine. Lowering this to a very low number will do the
trick, but then you may not be able to hear a car coming up behind you
until he's beside you.
SXD_DIST_SATUR seems to change the overall volume of the other cars. But
lowering this from 5 to 1 isn't enough. Especially if you don't alter
the FADE setting: being able to hear all 22 car engines will still make
you deaf.
I found out (after a lot or restarting and quitting) the following
setting work great on my computer:
SXD_DIST_SATUR=1
SXD_DIST_FADE=15
Now I can hear my own engine at all times. At the start it's still noisy
around you, but that's realistic. And when a car comes up behind you
during the race, you can hear it in time to be able to cut him off (or
let him pass, if you're very polite). I did some testing and found out
that my average grading after a few corners in a race is higher now,
than with the default setting! Just fiddle around a bit with these
numbers, and you'll see your performance will get better. And you're fun
with this great game will increase!
Jeroen van Engelenhoven