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MC-141201

Sound intensity seems to have linear scale rather than logarithmic

The following problem might be subjective and depend on other software and hardware (but shouldn't). 

So to the problem: Minecraft seems to have a linear model of sound intensity. And I'm not talking about directional/distant sounds. In the real world, the perception of sound(sones) is logarithmically proportional to the intensity of sound(dB)(attached plot). A general rule of thumb would be: to make something sound 2x louder, we must increase the power by about a factor of 10. After some testing it occured to me, that the sound volume sliders don't really seem to change the perceived sound by their value. To illustrate: place a jukebox, stand next to it and play a music disc, then change the setting for jukebox/noteblock volume from 100% to 50%. It doesn't really sound like "2x quieter", does it? Maybe like ~80% the starting volume. What seems to be actually "2x quiter" is value ~7%. Not something I would expect. Why is it annoying? First of all: try setting the volume to 1% - still pretty easy to hear. Second: I don't want to meddle in windows sound mixer each time I want to change the volume in game.

In conclusion: test it (and maybe other aspects of sound in game like MC-71552), check if it occurs to you as it occurs to me (and by check I mean ask others about their opinion and collect the data from many people) and give feedback.

And in attachments the dB to sones(perceived loudness) graph:

 

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Comments 2

It sure is annoying. Using logarithmic volume sliders is a standard nowadays, and it would be really helpful to have those in Minecraft settings instead of what we have there now. Seems like an easy thing to implement, so why not?

Doesn't seem to be completely in a linear scale, but it definitely feels louder than it should when reducing the volume to 50%.

T3sT3ro

(Unassigned)

Community Consensus

Sound

Minecraft 1.13.2

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