Forza Horizon 5 Ray Tracing Audio Will be Used in the Game

Forza Horizon 5 was announced at E3 on the Xbox showcase. Since then, new details appear. Forza Horizon 5 Ray Tracing will also use some audio techniques.

Forza Horizon 5 Ray Tracing Audio will be something different

We all know that Microsoft’s upcoming racing title Forza Horizon 5 will feature Ray Tracing. That is no secret. What we didn’t know is that the game will use a method to bring Ray Tracing to audio. It looks weird at first glance but Microsoft and Playground Games has an explanation about how this feature is going to work.

In a new video deep dive by Playground Games, Lead Audio Designer Fraser Strachan states that Forza Horizon 5 Ray Tracing will be an important feature of the game. The graphics were already astonishing on the previous title. So with Ray Tracing, think about what is going to happen. So let’s take a look at what Playground Games say about the Forza Horizon 5 Ray Tracing audio:

Q: Does ray tracing affect anything audio-wise as well as visual (while we’re here)?

Playground Games: It does, yeah. So we have taken ray tracing, and we are using it throughout the world. So actually we’re sending out ray traces to detect walls, buildings, and ceilings as well.

Actually, Microsoft calls the Forza Horizon 5 Ray Tracing audio ”Project Acoustics”. Take a look to the official description of it just below:

Project Acoustics is a wave acoustics engine for 3D interactive experiences. It models wave effects like occlusion, obstruction, portaling and reverberation effects in complex scenes without requiring manual zone markup or CPU intensive raytracing. It also includes game engine and audio middleware integration. Project Acoustics’ philosophy is similar to static lighting: bake detailed physics offline to provide a physical baseline, and use a lightweight runtime with expressive design controls to meet your artistic goals for the acoustics of your virtual world.

You can watch the video around the 26:30 mark to hear Playground Games talk about ray tracing for audio in Forza Horizon 5.