It's really sad that this sim is so great in some aspects, but just horrible horrible in others. I've been doing sound for flight simulations for many years and IL2 has got to be the worst sounding sim I've ever played. Don't get me wrong, I love IL2 and I spend a lot of time in the P-38 (Which I am pretty satisfied with as well)

But the sounds are just not right.

Have a listen.
Copy and paste the addresses into a new browser window to listen.
This is the sound of a P-38 flyby in IL-2 AEP: http://www.freewebs.com/paradoxbox/p38il2.mp3
This is the sound of a P-38 flyby in real life: http://www.freewebs.com/paradoxbox/p38real.mp3

Pretty big difference.

This is the way a P-38 sounds at about 1000 feet distance in flight in AEP: http://www.freewebs.com/paradoxbox/p38il2extern.mp3
This is how it sounds at the same distance in real life: http://www.freewebs.com/paradoxbox/p38realextern.mp3

Now here's a plane just about everyone is familiar with. The P-51. This is how it sounds flying by in IL2: http://www.freewebs.com/paradoxbox/p51il2.mp3

Now real life: http://www.freewebs.com/paradoxbox/p51real.mp3

(Note that ALL of these real life sounds can be edited to make them sound like they're coming from 5 feet away or inside the cockpit. It's pretty easy to do.)

I chose the P-38 and P-51 because they in particular have pretty unique sounds, many radial engined planes are pretty hard to tell apart from eachother, other than certain whistling sounds that are generated by turbo equipment etc.. But the liquid cooled inline engines of the 109, P-51 and P-38 combined with each of their unique props (Seperating the Merlin Spitfire from the Merlin Mustang) is ABSOLUTELY noticeable!

Why is it, that we have the same 3 base engine sounds for an entire selection of of over 25 inline engined planes!? I am really saddened at the poor use of sounds in IL2 AEP.

There HAS to be something that the community can do, to get this rectified. I know I've seen Oleg say things such as "we need high quality sounds recorded directly from the cockpit" but I assure you, nobody that's been inside a ww2 fighter believes for one second that their AEP fighter is pumping out 2,000 horsepower when they listen to the little lawnmower powerplant in the front of it.

I figured I might as well add MTO P-38 Ace Lee's comments on P-38 gun stability while I'm at it.

http://www.freewebs.com/paradoxbox/acesgun.mp3

Couldn't agree more - it's been my only really serious criticism of the IL2 games. When flying the Spit, for example, I often turn down the sound completely and just watch the flyby sequences instead. It's such a shame that this beautiful bird in flight should be saddled with such a cruddy sound. Same applies for the others you mentioned.
Is it really so impossible to fix this? Couldn't Oleg allow someone else of his choice, perhaps, to modify these sounds if he doesn't have the time or inclination himself? I just hope that BoB gets them right or I'll be really peed off.

Hate to say I agree - the sounds are a little generic.

There's many great things about the sounds in FB, but the engines - all the inlines sound the same, all the radials sound the same ... by country

Pity we cant mod the sounds

Longbow, your flyby sound comparison tests are very impressive. I now realize how crappy the IL2 sounds are.
Where did you get these real P-38 and P-51 sound clips ?

Cyrille
PS: the P38realextern sound is too saturated to enjoy. But it my be a prob on my side!

Uh... Didn't the community requested the sound change to prevent cheating? Or at least prevent people from hearing a plane on their six.

Anyway... exterior sounds were hacked up so that the representation from in side the cockpit was more realistic. I'm not sure if it succeeded because I can still hear engine noise from other airplanes.

The exterior sounds shouldn't even be used. Oleg made several comments on how the DirectX API couldn't work or provide realistic sound transmission. Make your measurements and comparisons from the cockpit position.

Ain't that the truth!!

The measurements from inside the cockpit are even worse. Inside the planes they sound almost exactly the same, trying to tell a P-51 apart from a P-39 or P-40 by sound alone is pretty useless. I know Oleg said it's an external limitation, but believe me it is not. I have coded sound engines using visual basic that sound a LOT better than what we've got in IL2. The DirectX sound system is very complex and a LOT can be done with it. Not to mention he could just sidestep that whole thing and program his sound engine to handle sound manipulation by itself. It would not take much CPU time at all to shift engine pitch sounds when diving or increasing power, or to fade in/out new sounds (Like the Combat Flight Sim series). A simple generic sound for single engined fighters could be used for AI or other multiplayer aircraft, with no processing done to it other than stereo panning and pitch shift. These are things featured in most other sims, but not IL2 FB.

Once upon a time on Hyperlobby a bunch of folks were discussing sounds. They found it "realistic", then my download of a real Bf-109 video finished, so I played it.

OMG. IL-2's sound is crap

Well, at least you can hear the "luftwhining" supercharger

The funny thing is almost all of the planes are using the same sound of a 109 energizing then starting up. It's really odd.

More posts people, maybe we can get Oleg to accept new sounds...