Sound Cones in FSX

Introduction

Looking at FSX sound.cfg, there are some new lines of code that control the sound cones:

InsideConeAngle=90
OutsideConeAngle=270
ConePitch=0.000000
ConeHeading=0.000000
OutsideConeVolume=9600

InsideConeAngle

The size of the inner cone (sound is played at full volume while the listener in inside this radius), range is 0 to 360

OutsideConeAngle

The size of the outer cone (the volume is attenuated between the inside cone and outside cone), range is 0 to 360 and I believe it needs to be larger than the InsideConeAngle.

ConePitch

Pitch (direction up or down) in degrees, of the cone. Range is -180 to 180

ConeHeading

The direction the cone is pointing, range is 0 to 360 (might be 1 to 360 – I’ll have to check on that…)

OutsideConeVolume

Volume of the sound at the outside cone. This sets the rolloff between the inside and outside cones. The range is 0 to 10000, which is misleading – a setting below 9000 is impractical in almost all cases. If it’s set to zero, the sound is inaudible almost immediately beyond the range of the inside cone. Getting this setting right requires a lot of experimentation.

737 Example

Here is how it is set for one of the sound nodes on the 737:

InsideConeAngle=90
OutsideConeAngle=270
ConePitch=0
ConeHeading=0
OutsideConeVolume=9000

Basically, this sound is projecting straight forward from the engine. It plays at full volume in a 90 degree cone around the center point, and then attenuates between 90 and 270 degrees. Outside the outer cone, the sound stays at the “9000” volume setting (which translates to “very quiet, but not quite silent”).