Increased competitiveness in FPS with audio muted?

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WilyKit

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Any else play better with their audio muted or just playing faintly on their headset while not wearing it, or is it just me?
 
I often play music, and find I perform better as I'm more relaxed. Muted, though? Nope.
 
As I understand it the way our brains work the time from visual or audio input to hand motion is always faster from an audio cue vs. visual even if you are super highly trained visually you should still react to sound 10-50ms faster if not more.

You may enjoy the game more with less stimulus, but you should always actually play better with sound.
 
Yeah, I leave the game sounds on even when playing music.
 
I do play without sound and usually am same as with sound in my game. It depends on how long I have been playing the said fps.
 
Advil said:
As I understand it the way our brains work the time from visual or audio input to hand motion is always faster from an audio cue vs. visual even if you are super highly trained visually you should still react to sound 10-50ms faster if not more.

You may enjoy the game more with less stimulus, but you should always actually play better with sound.
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But that doesn’t take into account game audio latency which is much higher. It also does t account for your response times when processing multiple stimuli


View: https://youtu.be/okIpbu1tp_A?si=2mMFsE53qemPLN_e
 
I think it varies from person to person. I know at fighting game events (where every frame matters), headphones are a big thing. Some people bring their own, some people play music, some people don't wear any and like to hear the crowd. That's even at the absolute highest level and in games where audio cues can matter a whole lot.
I have a friend whose performance in nearly any game goes through the roof while he's talking on the phone. He says it's because it keeps him from overthinking things and it allows him to simply react. Even in games with lots of audio cues. I've witnessed it and am a believer.
 
Ragenrok said:
Nope, many of my kills come from hearing foot steps in game, audio is way to important in shooters for staying alive.
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Yes, I do miss out on some kills due to that but not many. I’m typically always moving so someone sneaking up on my six doesn’t typically happen. I should also add, this is mostly in COD. In BF, I play with audio on. That game is far more dynamic and winning require more then just a good K/D. I need to know if a teammate needs a revive, or ammo, etc etc.
 
Your brain will adjust so that audio cues line up with visual cues. Your brain will LIE to you about when it receives the information, to match your expectations. This can be good or bad, depending on the situation, and whether it delays the visual cues or just makes you think the audio cues happened later.
 
There are games like Fortnite that have accessibility settings for deaf people where it adds a bunch of directional indicators on screen to show where the shooting is coming from.
And it helped so much people would turn it on even if they weren't deaf. So the developers actually have it turn off game sounds when you have it on.

Apart from games that have hearing accessibility enhancements you're at a disadvantage having sound muted in any sort of competitive FPS. You are handicapping yourself below your potential.

It would be better in the long run to fix your focus issues so whatever it is about the sounds doesn't distract you. Those skills would also transfer into the rest of your life.
 
Pro tip: In games with proximity chat, start loudly chewing into the microphone. It will absolutely trigger and paralyze anyone with misophonia (joking, it isn't that serious) to that sound. Or pick at your nails. That would also drive me insane.

Weaponize the audio

But yeah, turning off audio can increase my focus and help me react faster to enemies on screen. It depends on the noise and whether it is useful or not. I play for fun though, not competitively, so I keep settings on despite it
 
WilyKit said:
Yes, I do miss out on some kills due to that but not many. I’m typically always moving so someone sneaking up on my six doesn’t typically happen. I should also add, this is mostly in COD. In BF, I play with audio on. That game is far more dynamic and winning require more then just a good K/D. I need to know if a teammate needs a revive, or ammo, etc etc.
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Funnily enough BF6 was the game I was picturing as I wrote my comment, sound is very important in that game to me. I could see getting by in a game like COD for sure with no sound, but it would probably drive me nuts lol.
 
Omg I have to do that. I'm going to blast chewing smacking sounds as loud as I can for the entire game in arc raiders. People will lose their minds. 😂
 
Depends on the game, if i need to hear foot steps and where players are, nope need audio...

I do remember back in the day playing quake arena and some other FPS i could get away with music playing as well, but just below the game sounds I needed to hear...
 
I play very well with no audio but I prefer the audio for the immersion.
I recently checked my FPS and it was only 80-90, messed with DLSS but it was really choppy.
I decided to try minimum settings and it gave me around 200 fps and it feels much better,
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No way lol. For FPS sound is extremely important. The directional sound from weapons and abilities is critical with all the chaos in a 12 person or 64 person map you can't see everything going on you need to literally rely on sound to know what's going on around you.

That being said if I'm playing casual I usually have www.bassdrive.com playing in the background 🔊
 
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WilyKit said:
But that doesn’t take into account game audio latency which is much higher. It also does t account for your response times when processing multiple stimuli
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I will never understand why competitive games don't offer an ASIO output option. If you have a good soundcard you can get exceedingly low audio latency with ASIO, like 1ms or less depending on how low you can set the buffer. Now obviously not everyone has an ASIO compatible soundcard, and even if you do, it may not have very good support, but given the money gamers spend on other shit I can see plenty who would be willing to buy one. For example an RME AIO Pro, one of the lowest latency cards out there, has (at 44.1kHz) a converter latency of 6 samples, a safety buffer of 16 samples and an adjustable ASIO buffer that can be as low as 16 samples. That's just 38 samples, or about 0.9ms of latency. Now you might not be able to run it with a buffer that low and not have audio issues, but even at 128 samples, which is dead easy for them even under heavy load (it's what I use my USB RME interfaces at and it is never an issue in Nuendo), that's only 3.4ms.

Pro audio has long cared about low latency for recording situations, this is a very well solved problem. I don't know why it seems like no games have hopped on board. Sure, for many games it isn't of any relevance, but for the competitive types I can see people liking it.
 
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Axman said:
I used to play FPSes at the entry level of professional gaming, and if you aren't using your ears, you are handicapping yourself.
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Used to do that in counterstrike and source. In pubs I would keep music on. In scrims or anything serious, heck no to anything but game sounds and voice.
 
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This is something that varied for me. I've often had really good matches with sound off. But most of the time I will do better with sounds. Foot steps and other sound cues are important. Only reason I'd turn sound off is if I need to hear something else or be alert. Otherwise, why would I minimize my experience? Play the game for your enjoyment, and I assume hearing the sounds will add to it. Or if you enjoy without sound... just turn it off. Whatever you enjoy most.
 
this match was half with the audio off since I was on a phone call while I was playing,
Screenshot (265).png
 
Unless you're an absolute god and haven't died in a fps game in over 3 years and 3,000 matches later, put the headphones back on.
 
Eshelmen said:
It’s sarcasm. Unless you’re playing flawlessly, turning off audio is just voluntarily losing information.
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But I’m playing better with less information is whet I’m saying at least in COD and was asking if anyone else has had similar experience.
 
I used to play shooters with music and it actually does help me play better... somehow.

but in BF6 using DTS:X headphones i can tell where people are pretty well, so i'm not using music. But i wonder how i'd do if i played it like BF4...
 
About 2 beers in me and my reflexes and focus are fantastic! half a beer more and I'm throwing keyboards cuz these dang kids play too much and are too good!

Call of duty honestly music helps a lot and how I prefer to play. I think it isn't so much of a more or less information as it is getting your mind into a better state of focus.
 
What's competitive games are you playing where sound isn't a huge part of knowing what the hell is going on
 
Back in the CS:S days I was accused of cheating quite often.
I had 7.1 surround sound. I could hear people sneaking up on me and the slight sheath sound of a knife.
 
hity645 said:
Back in the CS:S days I was accused of cheating quite often.
I had 7.1 surround sound. I could hear people sneaking up on me and the slight sheath sound of a knife.
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haha had this happen in bf6 2 days ago. Using a shotgun for my weekly challenge and I kept killing this one dude that was trying to constantly rush around at full sprint. I could hear him from a good distance, made it so easy to crouch and jump out blasting. Of course after 4 deaths to it I was the "cheating hacker", some people refuse to understand how much sound gives you away in games lol.
 
Sounds like a skill issue if you're performing worse with more sensory information that should otherwise only help you. 😜
 
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