One of the real treats for me when playing an AAA RPG is the immersion you can achieve if you set yourself up right. The cutscenes, storyline, and graphics are of course all important parts, but I find it's the audio that really pulls everything together. Whether it's sweeping strings as you enter a resplendent city, or the songs of your bard in battle, it simply has to sound right to work. So if you’re trying to get things just so in Baldur’s Gate 3, read on for my full audio guide.
BG3 Audio settings explained
Each setting can be changed from anywhere from 0-100 and you can alter these settings at any time by pressing escape (PC) or options (PS5), then Options, and then Audio.
- Master volume: Whatever you do to the settings below, this will set the entire set of volume choices to this level. Change this if you want to change all the volumes you’ve set by an equal amount.
- Sound Effect volume: Affects the sound of combat actions, spells, moving, and using items.
- User Interface volume: This is only used when you select options in menus, click buttons, etc.
- Ambient volume: This will affect the likes of trees, animals, fire, etc.
- Music volume: The cinematic soundtrack can be altered with this control. If you want to take the misc away completely, simply set this volume to zero.
- Voice volume: Affects your character’s speaking volume, as well as that of NPCs you’re talking to or that are speaking within earshot.
- Chatter volume: Rather than conversation, this affects the general hubbub of voices in the less important dialogue going on in the environment.
Related: BG3 Tactician Difficulty Guide
You can also alter these audio settings:
- Dynamic Range: If set to High, the sound is more likely to surprise you with loud bangs and the like. Set it to Low instead if you want a more balanced sound (perfect for late at night if you don’t want to disturb anyone).
- Mute Sound When Inactive: If ticked, this mutes the sound if you Alt-Tab away from the game, or click on something like a web browser on another monitor.
- Point-and-click Voice Frequency: If set to Always, you’ll hear occasional lines of dialogue as you select things. You can dial this down to Occasional, Rare, or Never.
- Occlusion Quality: This makes the sound more panoramic and realistic, as objects and the distance between you and them affects their volume. Choose between high, medium, and low.
- Center Cinematic Audio: If ticked, this equalizes the volume of the cinematic dialogue between all your speakers, or uses the central speaker if you have surround sound. If unticked, it will use surround sound.
- Force Mono Audio: If you have a 2.0 non-surround sound setup, selecting this option will play all your audio through both speakers at the same volume.
Looking for more on Baldur's Gate 3? Click through to How to Save Shadowheart in Baldur’s Gate 3 and How to Find Gale in Baldur’s Gate 3 (Location) here at Pro Game Guides!
Chris Marling is a writer and editor with more than 20 years of experience across newspapers, magazines, and websites. Based in the UK, he has written professionally on everything from tech to tearooms. But his real passion is gaming, going right back to the Atari 2600 - and especially RPGs and MMOs. He cut his teeth on games such as The Realm and Anarchy Online. But 20 years on still gets excited about exploring each new world. When not online, you'll find him gaming analog-style around the table. Chris has had five of his own board games published, including Pioneer Days and Armageddon.