What’s up guys, Rogue-9 here!
Quite a lot of you have been asking me to explore the various in-game sound and graphics
settings in Rainbow Six Siege, so let’s kick things off by taking a closer look at
the audio settings, specifically the mysterious Dynamic Range setting.
What does this setting really do and can you use it to your advantage?
Let’s find out!
The in-game menu tells us that the Dynamic Range setting allows us to: “Set a dynamic
range mode appropriate for our surroundings and speaker set up.”
Great…
could this be any more vague, I think not.
Google has a much better definition of Dynamic Range; it is: “The ratio of the largest
to the smallest intensity of sound that can be reliably transmitted or reproduced by a
particular sound system.”
Ok, so it’s basically the difference in the volume between the loudest and the quietist
sounds.
This could be a really useful setting to know about, so over to my tests!
Sound is a very important tool in Rainbow Six and I would distinguish between important
noises and distractions.
Things you definitely want to hear are footsteps and other movement sounds, as well as enemy
gunfire or the sound of gadgets going off.
Things that will distract you and cover up other important sounds are for instance the
sound of your own gunfire and explosions.
The in-game settings offer us three different options: Hi-Fi, TV and Night Mode, so how
do these choices affect the different types of sound?
Let’s start out by listening to our own gunshot sounds.
Wow, even without using the measurements from my video editing software’s sound meter,
I think it’s pretty clear that Hi-Fi is the loudest, then TV, then Night Mode.
And this theme holds true across all kinds of loud sounds: the sound of traps going off,
explosions and even your own suppressed shots.
I will have examples of comparisons for all of these sounds for you to listen to in a
bit but let’s first check out the sound of enemy gunfire.
Ok, so even when standing right next to an enemy, the sound of their guns is already
quieter than that of your own but the dynamic range settings will still affect how loud
these sounds will be for you.
But that only goes for when they are really close.
Here is a clip comparing the maximum volume of a burst fired MP5 just one room away.
As you can see, no difference.
But now over to the really important test, how will the Dynamic Range affect sounds that
are already quiet, like for instance the sound of an enemy moving?
Let’s have a listen!
Did you hear the difference?
No, neither did I and the readings from the editing sound meter confirm this.
Syncing up the distances of the footstep sounds is challenging and there seems to be a bit
of variance in volume anyway but as messy as these results may seem, I think they do
clearly show that the Dynamic Range setting has no real effect on quiet sounds.
So that’s awesome and I think I can simply conclude right here before showing you some
more examples of how the different settings affect different sounds.
On Hi-Fi, loud sounds will be pretty loud, with TV they will be a little quieter and
on Night Mode, loud sounds are the quietest.
Quiet sounds are unaffected.
And what does this mean in terms of the best choice for getting an advantage?
In my opinion, loud sounds in the game are generally more of a distraction and do not
really convey any important tactical information.
Instead, it’s the quiet sounds you really want to hear.
So choosing a Dynamic Range that makes the loud sounds quieter but keeps the quiet sounds
just as loud can offer an undeniable tactical advantage and I will therefore be playing
in Night Mode from now on.
I tried to test as many different sounds and distances to try to see if there was maybe
any downside to using night mode but I could not find any.
The only thing is that maybe you will feel as if you are sacrificing on realism in Night
Mode, since the gunshots and explosions are no longer as impressive and immersive as they
would be on Hi-Fi.
But that is the only possible downside I could come up with.
So that’s it.
Which setting will you be using from now on?
Let me know in the comments section below and if you’re still undecided as to which
setting is best for you, here is a cross section of the different tests I ran to give you a
better impression of how the different settings will affect you in-game experience.
And with that, thanks for watching, I hope you enjoyed the video and I will see you in
the next episode!