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why the hell are so many people bothered with console noise?

TAJ said:
WTF? The Dreamcast was the loudest console ever, by far. My Dreamcast sounds like it's grinding coffee when the drive spins up.

My Dreamcast can be pretty loud when it reads discs. But nothing compared to a launch 360.

Thankfully it only ruins quiet parts in games and movies. Thank god for game installs, it will be awesome.
 
Segata Sanshiro said:
Being considerate isn't 'sackless', it's just 'not being a socially maladjusted asshole'.

:lol

Seriously, I live in a small house. My living room is maybe 10 feet away from my daughter's room down the hall. I could not play any games at night without headphones because I would have to turn the TV volume so high just to hear dialog. My wife can hear the 360 running from our bedroom even further down the hall.

I now game with headphones 99% of the time, but after getting into the NXE preview, I think I'll be able to shed the headphones for games like Left 4 Dead which really require the use of a headset (I don't have headphones that are compatible with Live).

Some people's 360s are obviously not as loud as others. And you modders out there are probably running your drive at half speed or something which makes a HUGE difference.
 
YOu guys are all pussies! The Dreamcast would have made you people quiver like frightened kittens when its disc drive spun.:lol
 
Segata Sanshiro said:
The drive in the Dreamcast is louder than the 360's, but the fans aren't nearly as loud. I guess it depends on which noise people are finding annoying.
I found the beep when turning the VMU on annoying.
 
Segata Sanshiro said:
Big time. CR2032s... god. Could they have picked a battery with a shorter lifespan?

yea, it's still annoying to this day. i wish they made regular memory cards as an alternative.
 
My PS3 gets annoyingly loud if my room is hot enough (above 22-23C or so). It's a 60GB of course, which do run much hotter than the current revisions. As a previous poster said, the fans used in these system are too small, requiring them to spin too fast to push enough air. I'm always baffled when hardware manufacturers use such small fans, when there's clearly enough room for bigger ones.

edit: I should say it's not overly abnormal though. It makes about the same noise (slightly more) than my 2-year-after-launch PS2 (the model without the revised cooling).
 
TheExodu5 said:
My PS3 gets annoyingly loud if my room is hot enough (above 22-23C or so). It's a 60GB of course, which do run much hotter than the current revisions. As a previous poster said, the fans used in these system are too small, requiring them to spin too fast to push enough air. I'm always baffled when hardware manufacturers use such small fans, when there's clearly enough room for bigger ones.
Actually, 60GB PS3 uses a very large fan. It's just that 60GB model uses around 200W, and gets hot because of that - a lot more than the new ones, that use half that much power.

The fan noise was the reason I traded in 60GB for a newest 80GB, and I don't regret it for a second. New 80GB is nearly dead silent even when I leave it for hours on Folding.

For movie watching especially, silent player is a must, but there's a lot of games as well, that have silent sections where they are conveying the certain atmosphere that you don't want to have destroyed by a fan or disc whirring.
 
My 20 years old NES is super quiet, has no loading, no stupid dashboard, no intro movies nor publisher and developer screen presentation, has a much better D-Pad than the X360, more and better games than any console this generation.

Take that current gen consoles!
 
MechDX said:
YOu guys are all pussies! The Dreamcast would have made you people quiver like frightened kittens when its disc drive spun.:lol
LOL, I actually prefer that to the 360's hurricane impersonation.
 
batbeg said:
Because it's fucking loud.
This. Also, despite what you may think, not every game is a constant barrage of gunshots and explosions. I found my 360 particularly annoying during much of Eternal Sonata and the dream sequences in Lost Odyssey.
 
bimet said:
It's possible the people bitching are married and have children? One of them could be trying to get some rest? Or maybe someone is viewing a horror movie with one of those dead quiet scenes and don't want the sound of a jet taking off to take away from the suspense? Just maybe.

My kids just deal with the extreme noise that my...sound system makes. I never even give myself the chance to hear my consoles purr.
 
Dr_Cogent said:
I would have to disagree with that. I had a launch PS2 and I do not believe it was as loud as the 360.
My launch PS2 is as loud as my 360 when the 360 is in idle mode. Though not everyone has the same 360. Older ones have louder fans. There are also brushless fans out there that whiiiiiine constantly...
 
Kyoufu said:
Early Dreamcast models (not sure about the later ones...or did it not last long enough for revisions? lolz) were even worse than the 360. It was so bad during loading that I was genuinely worried if the laser would pack it in.

This is wrong, because the Dreamcast can do nothing wrong
 
My main reason is I like to keep playing at night when people in the apartment/house/wherever I am are sleeping and need their rest for the next day. So I don't want to turn it up high enough.

The second reason is a fan distorts the music. You aren't hearing the game you are hearing the game + a fan. In a video metaphor this would be like watching tv with a much smaller tv right next to it. Sure you aren't watching it but its in your peripheral vision flashing images.
 
2 Minutes Turkish said:
it only bothers me as a sign my console is dying (PS3).

My PS3 is louder than it used to be. Is it dying? Not REALLY loud, louDER than it was.

this is what i came in to say. no-one wants their console to be loud because it seems like a sign of wear.
 
manueldelalas said:
My 20 years old NES is super quiet, has no loading, no stupid dashboard, no intro movies nor publisher and developer screen presentation, has a much better D-Pad than the X360, more and better games than any console this generation.

Take that current gen consoles!

*listens to your NES*
*hears you blowing frantically on one of the carts*
*hears clicking*
*hears you shouting at the TV*
*hears clicking*
*hears blowing*
*hears clicking*
*hears the sound of a hammer against plastic*
 
raviolico said:
imagine: late evening /night.
imagine: small domicile.
imagine: you just came home from work.
imagine: wife & kid in bed.
imagine: all neighbours in bed
imagine: you and your 360. turn on your 360.
imagine: level up your speaker volume to 85 %
now imagine your wife again.

just bought headphones to safe my marriage.
:lol

with a 360 in the room, nobody can hear their wife scream.
 
TheExodu5 said:
*listens to your NES*
*hears you blowing frantically on one of the carts*
*hears clicking*
*hears you shouting at the TV*
*hears clicking*
*hears blowing*
*hears clicking*
*hears the sound of a hammer against plastic*
God there may have been some great games on the NES but i will never miss having to blow into the damn carts just to get them to work!

Thank god for Emulators!:D
 
the 360 disc spinning can be distracting, also just hearing it in the first place makes you believe that there is something wrong, even if there isn't
 
PseudoKirby said:
people keep bitching about how loud the 360 is, but WTF do you play games without any sound or something? your in game music and sound should EASILY drown out any sounds

people complain about how loud it is like its making them deaf...

Having now owned both a 360 and now a PS3.... the 360 noise is simply atrocious when it comes to playing games or watching a movie. Last night I was watching a movie on my PS3 and I couldn't even tell the damn thing was on. Seriously though, it is too loud and people bitching about have a right to as it is too loud.
 
I remember back in the day my parents would get furious at how often we'd play the Dreamcast, and that beast made a lot of noise. So my brothers and I would play in our basement and when our parents came down we'd quickly turn off the TV and pretend we were doing something else but that mother fucker made so much noise my Dad would always ask what that loud noise was (the system was hidden from view from him) and we just told him the TV would make weird noises sometimes and that he should look into buying a new one. :lol
 
Since the noise is consistent it blends in the background pretty well IMO. Your mind is designed to drown out background noise after a short period of time. I prefer it to my Gamecube which sounds like its trying to snap my discs in two.
 
I for the most part don't care until i'm made painfully aware of the problems when it grinds hard as if it's going to fail. nothing like trying to enjoy a game when you are SURE your shit is going to catch on fire.

Seriously, the sound it makes during Fable II damn near drowns out my TV. What the fuck is going on.
 
bimet said:
It's possible the people bitching are married and have children? One of them could be trying to get some rest? Or maybe someone is viewing a horror movie with one of those dead quiet scenes and don't want the sound of a jet taking off to take away from the suspense? Just maybe.

That would be me.

I don't typically play games like Gears of War 2 or Left 4 Dead in front of my 4-year old so I play after she goes to bed. The noise from my launch 360 was insufferable because I would have to turn the volume up to a pretty big level just to be able to hear. The last time my unit was repaired, they put on Opus motherboard in it and it runs a lot quieter now, but there was a time when I was going to abandon the 360 and game on my PS3 just because of the noise difference.
 
PseudoKirby said:
people keep bitching about how loud the 360 is, but WTF do you play games without any sound or something? your in game music and sound should EASILY drown out any sounds

people complain about how loud it is like its making them deaf...

I don't live in my mom's basement, I play at night when a wife and three kids are sleeping. I either put my headphones on or turn the sound down. The 360 is the loudest electronic device ever, even with the installs the two 80mm fans make a irritating waa-waa-waa sound. My new PS3 is whisper quiet like a console should be.
 
Not sure. Maybe since I sit like 12+ feet away from mine, I just don't hear them.

Even the 360. Which BTW I never thought was all that loud to begin with.
 
Console noise is an important factor to game audio.

Think of the ambient noise in your gaming evnironment and how it contributes to signal-to-noise. Signal to noise is the ratio of things you should hear to things you shouldn't.

For games with a narrow dynamic range (the difference between loud sounds and quiet sounds) it's not as important, as you can adjust the listening level of the loudest sounds to overpower console noise and since the quieter sounds are right behind, they too are louder. With a wide dynamic range game, it's possible to adjust the listening volume to the desired level, but not hear some of the quiter sounds.

For a great example of this, see the character movement sounds in COD4. They are in audible at normal listening levels in a room when you're near the 360. I applaud the devs for this, by the way. The movement sounds *should* be quieter than the guns. COD4 is a very well mixed game.

Some games get around this by giving user options to reduce dynamic range. Check audio options in the menus for games that support this feature. It may be guised as "speaker settings".

I do the majority of my gaming on X360, so I use dolby headphone + closed ear phones for isolation. It also helps not wake up the kids. :lol However, with each hardware refresh, the 360 has been getting incrementally quieter for normal usage.
 
PseudoKirby said:
your in game music and sound should EASILY drown out any sounds
If only that was the case. Do you turn your TV to the maximum volume or something? That's how loud my two Xbox 360s have been. It was completely and utterly unacceptable. Couldn't enjoy playing at all. It was the drive sound (and no, neither were faulty), so HD install should rectify this, of course.
 
Durante said:
I found my 360 particularly annoying during much of Eternal Sonata and the dream sequences in Lost Odyssey.
God, this especially.

That was the catalyst for me going to headphones for my 360 gaming. The 360 noise just completely ruined the calm feeling of those stories.
 
ShockingAlberto said:
God, this especially.

That was the catalyst for me going to headphones for my 360 gaming. The 360 noise just completely ruined the calm feeling of those stories.

those dreams are so beautiful...
 
The Xbox 360 yells at me to PUMP UP THE VOLUME.

The wife yells at me to TURN IT DOWN BECAUSE THE BABY IS SLEEPING.

Chalk this topic down to being yet another example of how so-called "hardcore" gamers really don't seem to know much about how the real world functions.
 
360 is loud as fuck. I shouldn't have to turn my volume up so high just to drown out the noise and in that process annoy everyone else in the house. It's kinda ridiculous that some of you don't see why it would bother people.
 
I am considering purchasing a 360 this week. Does the 20GB SKU run cool and quiet? I had a launch system that died on me several times due to overheating, so I am little hesitant about which SKU is the current best. I am looking at Model B4J-00107
 
nerdy1one said:
I am considering purchasing a 360 this week. Does the 20GB SKU run cool and quiet? I had a launch system that died on me several times due to overheating, so I am little hesitant about which SKU is the current best. I am looking at Model B4J-00107

It runs fine for me for most games. For some reason it it becomes really lot for Crackdown and a few others.

The only time I really notice the noise is when watching a ctuscene for it's supposed to be a touching moment or something where you expect it to be quiet.
 
tiprun said:
The noise whilst playing Fable II makes me want to cut off my ears and eat out my eyeballs.

I'll agree to that. I was even using headphones. Granted they aren't noise-cancelling but jeezuz the 360 was loud
 
I had an Xbox360 Elite and it was loud, before I bought it I thougt people were exaggerating but once I got it up and running and it fired it's jet engine...

It was annyoing as hell and one of the reasons I sold it
 
My PC is insanely loud. It annoys the hell out of me. When I switch off the PC, it does feel rather strange. A bit 'too' quiet. My PC is probably three or four times louder than a 360.

My PS3 is dead silent though. You can't even tell if its on.
 
Nathan Rain said:
1) Fanboyism.

2) People who can't play their games too loud so as to not wake their parents.

Hey Junior, some people live with other humans. Did you read the thread?

nerdy1one said:
I am considering purchasing a 360 this week. Does the 20GB SKU run cool and quiet? I had a launch system that died on me several times due to overheating, so I am little hesitant about which SKU is the current best. I am looking at Model B4J-00107


The only thing that will quiet it down is the new install feature and 20GB will allow you 1 maybe 2 installs (4-6GB each). The SKU has little to do with the noise, I had a launch 20GB and replaced it with a Falcon Elite, they were almost the same.
 
stuminus3 said:
The Xbox 360 yells at me to PUMP UP THE VOLUME.

The wife yells at me to TURN IT DOWN BECAUSE THE BABY IS SLEEPING.

Chalk this topic down to being yet another example of how so-called "hardcore" gamers really don't seem to know much about how the real world functions.

This.

And the PS3 is virtually silent, while the 360 is like a small vacuum on most games. Both of them have the annoying laser seeking noise, but on the PS3 you can actually hear it over the console's fans.
I cant wait for a PSTWO type revision to the PS3. Slim it down, smaller fans and dead silence please.
 
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