Configuring Sound Physics Remastered: Voice Chat, Attenuation, Underwater Sound, and Debug Options

Sound Physics Remastered gives you detailed control over how audio behaves in your game, from how far sounds carry to how they echo off blocks. All of its options live in the Sound Physics Settings screen, and none of them require crafting anything. This guide covers the main groups of settings: Simple Voice Chat integration, distance and air effects, underwater filtering, the sound blacklist, and the debug and visualization tools.

Simple Voice Chat Integration

The mod hooks into Simple Voice Chat so that voice audio is processed by the same physics as everything else. There are two related toggles. The first one turns sound effects on or off specifically for Simple Voice Chat audio. The second controls whether you hear your own echo when using Simple Voice Chat. If you want voice chat to sound completely untouched by the mod, switch the first option off.

Attenuation and Distance

Attenuation factor changes how quickly a sound fades as it gets further away. Smaller numbers keep distant sounds louder, while larger numbers make them drop off faster. The value 1.0 represents the physically accurate setting. This particular option only works in singleplayer or when the mod is present on the server.

Sound distance allowance acts as a multiplier on how far away a sound source may be and still play at all, since the game normally cuts sounds off past a fixed range. Like attenuation, it only applies in singleplayer or on a server running the mod.

Reverb attenuation distance sets the ray distance where reverb begins. Setting it to 0.0 turns reverb attenuation off entirely.

Air Absorption and Reverb

Air absorption controls how much high-frequency content is lost as sound travels. A value of 1.0 matches real air at ordinary temperature and humidity. Larger values remove more high frequencies over distance, and 0 disables the effect.

Several options shape the simulated reverb itself. One sets the loudness of the simulated reverberations. Another sets their brightness, where higher values keep more high frequencies and lower values produce a duller, more muffled tail. A third sets the reverb distance relative to the sound's distance. Default block reflectivity determines how much energy blocks reflect by default; lower values give shorter, more restrained reverb tails, while higher values give longer, more generous ones.

Occlusion

Occlusion governs how much sound is blocked and muffled by geometry. Default block occlusion factor sets the baseline for all blocks; lower values mean walls muffle less, higher values mean thick walls block sound more completely. Non full block occlusion factor multiplies occlusion when sound strikes a side that isn't a full square. Occlusion variation makes smaller objects less likely to count as occluders when raised. Maximum occlusion rays caps how many rays are used to work out occlusion, which relates to how many blocks between walls are considered. A separate setting caps the occlusion amount itself, and another makes the calculation use a single path between source and listener rather than nine.

Underwater Filtering

One setting controls how much sound is filtered while the player is submerged. At 0.0 there is no filter at all; at 1.0 the sound is fully filtered.

Sound Blacklist and Ambient Sounds

Sound blacklist regex is a regular expression tested against every sound that plays. Any sound matching it receives no effects. Evaluate ambient sounds decides whether ambient audio such as cave, nether, or underwater sounds is processed by the physics at all.

Direction, Moving Sounds, and Performance

Sound direction evaluation attempts to work out where a sound should come from using reflections. Redirect non occluded sounds skips redirecting sounds you can see directly. Update moving sounds makes long sounds such as music discs get reevaluated regularly, and Sound update interval sets how often that happens in ticks; smaller values update more often but cost more performance. This only applies when Update moving sounds is on.

Environment evaluation ray count and Environment evaluation ray bounces trade accuracy for cost. More rays give steadier tracing, and more bounces produce more echo and sound ducting, but both take longer to compute. Lower them if sounds cause lag spikes.

Debug and Visualization

Debug logging can be switched on, with extra detail available for occlusion, environment calculation, and computation timing. Render sound bounces draws the sound's path in the game, and a separate option visualizes occlusion. Use the corresponding hotkey (set it in the controls menu) to open the settings screen.