This article gives you a quick overview of the most commonly used and most useful CVars for the CRYENGINE audio system.
s_SoundInfo
Toggles onscreen sound statistics.
Usage: s_SoundInfo [0..9]
1: simple list of playing sounds.
2: extended list of looping sounds.
3: extended list of oneshot sounds.
4: list of lost sounds.
5: list of event soundbuffers.
6: list of sample soundbuffers (dialog).
7: list of wavebanks.
8: displays music information.
9: displays sound moods.
10 shows Sound Moods values set within FMOD.
11 shows memory usage by project.
12 shows memory usage by project/group.
13 shows memory usage by project/group:sound.
14 shows overall memory stats.
15 shows detailed listener infos.
Default is 0 (off).
s_SoundEnable
DUMPTODISK
Toggles sound on and off.
Usage: s_SoundEnable [0/1]
Default is 1 (on). Set to 0 to disable sound.
s_MusicEnable
DUMPTODISK
enable/disable music
s_DebugSound
Toggles sound debugging mode.
Usage: s_DebugSound [0/13]
0: Disables debugging.
1: Enables simple sound debugging.
2: Enables full sound debugging.
3: Enables sound event callback debugging.
4: Enables sound event listener debugging.
5: Enables sound syncpoint debugging.
6: Enables simple memory debugging.
7: Enables FMOD logging into fmod.log.
8: Enables simple FMOD debugging into fmod.log.
9: Enables complex FMOD debugging into fmod.log.
10: Enables FMOD memory debugging into fmod.log.
11: Enables logging of all FMOD output into fmod.log.
12: Enables AudioDevice command logging to SoundCommands.xml.
13: Enables logging of information on Voice files which have programmersounds.
Default is 0 (off).
s_DebugMusic
DUMPTODISK
Changes music-debugging verbosity level.
Usage: s_DebugMusic [0/4]
Default is 0 (off). Set to 1 (up to 4) to debug music.
s_DrawSounds
Toggles drawing of a small red ball at the sound's position and additional information.
Usage: s_DrawSounds [0..5]
Default is 0 (off).
1: Draws the ball, filename and the current volume of the used channel for all active sounds.
2: Draws the ball, used channel, static volume, current volume, SoundID of the used channel for all active sounds.
3: Draws the ball, all information for all active sounds.
4: Draws the ball, and information for all sounds (also inactive).
5: Draws the ball plus filename, current volume of the used channel for all active sounds, name and values of the event parameter(s).
s_DrawObstruction
Toggles drawing of a blue radius around the sound's position and rays casted to test obstruction.
Usage: s_DrawObstruction [0/1]
Default is 0 (off).
1: Draws the ball and casts rays to show the obstruction tests.
s_DistanceSphereSemantic
Controls for which type of event to draw the distance sphere.
Usage: s_DistanceSphereSemantic [0ab...] (flags can be combined)
Default: 0 (all)
1 : Only Voice Sounds
2 : No Voice Sounds
a : Ambience
b : Ambience Oneshots
c : Collisions
d : Dialog
e : MP Chat
f : Footsteps
g : General Physics
h : HUD
i : Unused
j : FlowGraph
k : Unused
l : Living Entity
m : Mechanic Entity
n : NanoSuit
o : SoundSpot
p : Particles
q : AI Pain/Death
r : AI Readability
s : AI Readability Response
t : TrackView
u : Projectile
v : Vehicle
w : Weapon
x : Explosion
y : Player Foley
z : Animation
Note that s_DrawSounds 4 is required for this to work. By default s_DistanceSphereSemantic is set to 0 which means all active sounds will be shown and drawn.
You can filter by single semantics if you wish. To display a list of known semantics just use "?" as input to bring up a list.
s_FindLostEvents
Toggles to find and stop lost events to prevent them from endlessly looping.
Default is 0 (off).
1: finds and stops lost events.
Usage: s_FindLostEvents [0/1].
s_GameDialogVolume
Controls the dialog volume for game use.
Usage: s_GameDialogVolume 0.5
Default is 1, which is full volume.
s_GameMusicVolume
Controls the music volume for game use.
Usage: s_GameMusicVolume 0.2
Default is 1.0
s_GameSFXVolume
Controls the sfx volume for game use.
Usage: s_GameSFXVolume 0.5
Default is 1, which is full volume.
s_NoFocusVolume
Allows for overriding the application's master volume when the window lost focus.
Usage: s_NoFocusVolume [0...1]
Default is 0 (total silence on no focus).
s_GameMasterVolume
Allows for setting the application's master volume.
Usage: s_GameMasterVolume [0...1]
Default is 1 (full volume).
s_VUMeter
Enables audio volume debug drawing for the specified category.
Usage: s_VUMeter
Default:
s_VariationLimiter
REQUIRE_APP_RESTART
Sets limiter to control sound variation.
Usage: s_VariationLimiter [0..1]
Default is 1.0.
s_NetworkAudition
REQUIRE_APP_RESTART
Toggles network audition (opens port/needs restart).
Usage: s_NetworkAudition [0/1]
Default is 0 (off).
s_PlaybackFilter
Toggles filter to select certain sounds to be played only.
Default is 0 (off).
1 : Only Voice Sounds
2 : No Voice Sounds
+a : Ambience
+b : Ambience Oneshots
+c : Collisions
+d : Dialog
+e : MP Chat
+f : Footsteps
+g : General Physics
+h : HUD
+i : Unused
+j : FlowGraph
+k : Unused
+l : Living Entity
+m : Mechanic Entity
+n : NanoSuit
+o : SoundSpot
+p : Particles
+q : AI Pain/Death
+r : AI Readability
+s : AI Readability Response
+t : TrackView
+u : Projectile
+v : Vehicle
+w : Weapon
+x : Explosion
+y : Player Foley
+z : Animation
Usage: s_PlaybackFilter [1,2,a..z].
s_DummySound
DUMPTODISK, REQUIRE_APP_RESTART
Toggles dummy(NULL) sound system.
s_Obstruction
REQUIRE_APP_RESTART
Toggles sound obstruction effect.
Usage: s_Obstruction [0..2]
0: off
1: DSP based obstruction
2: volume based obstruction
Default is 1 (DSP).
The Obstruction effects introduce a muffling if the direct sound is blocked from a listener. Obstruction can be controlled by console variables starting with s_Obstruction_ to add an individual low-pass filter to each sound, which has the obstruction flag set.
Please have a look at the individual documentation for these console variables. On low spec machines this effect can be turned off or approximated by simply lowering volume.
g_debugDialogBuffers
Enables the on screen debug info for flownode dialog buffers.