It turns out that Forza Horizon 5 will use ray tracing to affect the game’s audio, which is used throughout the world. The game will send out ray-traced audio paths that can detect walls, buildings and ceilings as well. This means you’ll hear the roar of your car’s engine sounds bouncing off of all the buildings around you, and that will change depending on the environment.
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“As soon as we turned it on, it grounded the world in reality,” Strachan said. “It made the world really feel alive. If you’re listening with spatial audio, something like
Dolby Atmos with your headphones on, you’ll be able to hear your car bouncing off the roofs as well.”
“Every material in the game has been set up with a different absorption coefficient, which is kind of an acoustic term which essentially says if it’s concrete it will bounce off more than foliage, which actually absorbs the sound, so it’s really dynamic to the world around you.”
Ray-traced audio will also affect multiplayer modes by using occlusion, as the game can detect where every single car is in relation to your car. If a car’s behind a building, for example, you’ll know not to head directly there as their engine will sound muffled. This means you could choose to cut them off instead, as you’ll be more of their location.