AMD - TrueAudio. Anyone using it?

[3DVagabond]

I wouldn't expect them to use the term "ray tracing" since it's a term we made up to best describe it in a term people would grasp.

I appreciate that you have done considerable research into it though. More than I have, for sure.

 

[BrightCandle]

The techniques that a3d used are all patented and held by creative. So I think in this case we will have to wait another 5 years before we even start to see similar environment bounces sound effects.

Really high quality hrtfs will make a big difference, because none of the ones uses today are really very good at all.

 

[motsm]

The techniques that a3d used are all patented and held by creative. So I think in this case we will have to wait another 5 years before we even start to see similar environment bounces sound effects.

Those techniques were around before a3d and are used today by acoustics engineers in software like Odeon and CATT. So if someone wanted to make their own engine, there would be nothing stopping them legally.

I wouldn't expect them to use the term "ray tracing" since it's a term we made up to best describe it in a term people would grasp.

Ray and cone tracing are standard terminology, but perhaps you are referring to something else?

 

[Erenhardt]

PS4 equivalent of TrueAudio is used to compute something along the lines of raytracing:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-the-making-of-killzone-shadow-fall

"One step beyond 'HDR' audio. Killzone Shadow Fall's surround audio system has commonalities with DICE's acclaimed surround sound set-up, but the addition of MADDER - Material Dependent Early Reflections - which shapes the sound of your gunfire according to the surrounding environment."

There are more explanations in the article and in the video.

 

[Squeetard]

A3D or die

God I loved my Aureal 3D card. Gave me a massive advantage in Counterstrike. You could tell exactly where people where and exactly when they would be coming around the corner.
What a shame we have regressed from 15 years ago.

 

[BrightCandle]

God I loved my Aureal 3D card. Gave me a massive advantage in Counterstrike. You could tell exactly where people where and exactly when they would be coming around the corner.
What a shame we have regressed from 15 years ago.

I know precisely what you mean. That card was an awesome advance and when they went under/got bought out we all lost out. Creative has been pushing its rubbish EAX and basic surround sound CMSS/SBX pro ever since. I couldn't care less for the incredible SNR's and such on modern cards when I struggle to hear a difference in volume of 1Db. However the accuracy of surround sound that fools my ears well is imperative to gaming and something that is severely lacking in todays implementations.

I have personally found SBX Pro is better than CMSS which are both massively better than Dolby Headphone and these 3 are all better than the grand majority of software solutions. OpenAL is usually not too bad, in the sense its comparable to SBX pro but still all of these are woefully lacking compared to the Aureal cards and A3D. I was hoping based on the early presentations that AMD intended to make TruAudio into A3D and then beyond, but a lot will depend on what the APIs and companies choose to do with it.

 

[mindbomb]

i find dolby headphone to be fine. For dolby headphone to work well, remember that the game has to be set to 5.1, and windows has to also be set to 5.1, since audio now generally goes through windows, and no longer goes directly from game to hardware like in the eax days. Windows audio options in control panel>audio>right click on device and configure speakers. For the headphones, you'll want an open back design with large drivers, like the ad700x for example.

 

[tweakboy]

Ray Tracing in realtime game, wont happen anytime soon.

 

[BrightCandle]

i find dolby headphone to be fine. For dolby headphone to work well, remember that the game has to be set to 5.1, and windows has to also be set to 5.1, since audio now generally goes through windows, and no longer goes directly from game to hardware like in the eax days. Windows audio options in control panel>audio>right click on device and configure speakers. For the headphones, you'll want an open back design with large drivers, like the ad700x for example.

Well aware of how to make surround sound work!

Take a listen to the comparisons this guy made, very interesting differences between the implementations. I really hope someone adds some TrueAudio ones in addition to this as well when it arrives in a game:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2BxO9cd-sYA

 

[motsm]

PS4 equivalent of TrueAudio is used to compute something along the lines of raytracing:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-the-making-of-killzone-shadow-fall

There are more explanations in the article and in the video.

Interesting, thanks for the link. I'll have to give it a read when I have some time.

 

[motsm]

PS4 equivalent of TrueAudio is used to compute something along the lines of raytracing:
http://www.eurogamer.net/articles/digitalfoundry-the-making-of-killzone-shadow-fall

From what I am getting from the article, it only processes the players gunfire with early reflections, may only use 1 ray per surface, and it seems the ray disappears when it hits it's first material (It's not real clear on that though). So it sounds like it's a very limited implementation, but it's still an improvement over having none at all, so I can't knock em I suppose. Ideally, you'd want each sound source casting ray spheres that would bounce around the environment while being filtered by each surface's material properties they encountered, and they wouldn't disappear until the surfaces absorptive properties along with it's natural decay silenced the sounds rays. I guess a single calculation per material is an alright workaround at this stage, but having it limited to only the players gun fire is an unfortunate compromise.

 

[BrightCandle]

From what I am getting from the article, it only processes the players gunfire with early reflections, may only use 1 ray per surface, and it seems the ray disappears when it hits it's first material (It's not real clear on that though). So it sounds like it's a very limited implementation, but it's still an improvement over having none at all, so I can't knock em I suppose. Ideally, you'd want each sound source casting ray spheres that would bounce around the environment while being filtered by each surface's material properties they encountered, and they wouldn't disappear until the surfaces absorptive properties along with it's natural decay silenced the sounds rays. I guess a single calculation per material is an alright workaround at this stage, but having it limited to only the players gun fire is an unfortunate compromise.

Ray tracing sound is every bit as expensive as ray tracing light however, so its always going to be somewhat limited in its capabilities, especially while there is so little hardware thrown towards making it sound better.

 

[KingFatty]

Ideally, you'd want each sound source casting ray spheres that would bounce around the environment while being filtered...

That's weird to me, how you'd combine the "ray" concept of light, with the "sphere" concept of a wave/sound. Aren't the two terms kind of opposite?

Instead of ray tracing (as in light), shouldn't the analogy for sound be "wave tracing" or something?

 

[motsm]

That's weird to me, how you'd combine the "ray" concept of light, with the "sphere" concept of a wave/sound. Aren't the two terms kind of opposite?

Instead of ray tracing (as in light), shouldn't the analogy for sound be "wave tracing" or something?

Ray became the standard term, couldn't tell you why. I agree though, would likely be better renamed since it would differentiate it from the visual technique.

Ray tracing sound is every bit as expensive as ray tracing light however, so its always going to be somewhat limited in its capabilities, especially while there is so little hardware thrown towards making it sound better.

A3D sound cards did it in the late 90's with multiple sources. I can't say it sounded all that great, but if they are still struggling to make it work now, I see that as a problem. Killzones implementation doesn't sound particularly intensive though, Instead of a sound source shooting out potentially hundreds of rays, it seems like it targets a single ray at each unique material within range of the source, then kills the ray immediately after collecting the material data.

 

[BrightCandle]

That's weird to me, how you'd combine the "ray" concept of light, with the "sphere" concept of a wave/sound. Aren't the two terms kind of opposite?

Instead of ray tracing (as in light), shouldn't the analogy for sound be "wave tracing" or something?

Light actually expands out in the same way, as waves. Its called wave/particle duality and sound and light have a lot in common with each other in terms of how you cast them around.

Light can be a very focussed beam from source or it can be an expanding sphere, but once it hits something else it scatters and produces a wave front of varying strengths. Sound behaves basically the same way, it scatters on hitting a surface as well and just like light the function of how much of the energy goes in what direction depends on the angle of impact.

Light and sound can both be simulated somewhat poorly with ray tracing and quite accurately with a derivative of radiosity.

 

[3DVagabond]

I guess the first question is, How many audio rays does the human ear need to process to determine direction, distance, etc...? Of course, the more the better as far as realism goes, but what's the minimum that would still sound realistic. We often don't need "all" of the information to draw an accurate picture. The brain is pretty adept at filling in the blanks.

 

[BrightCandle]

That is a good question. Right now most directional sound is based on significantly reduced quality head related translation functions. They simplify the distance/frequency response to near field and far field. This is one of the reason why with DX its hard to tell how far away something is, because all they do is reduce the volume whereas different frequencies respond differently at different ranges and different environments. When that is the trade off they are making with some basic reverb applied we are a long way away from what A3D was trying to do a decade ago.

 

[norseamd]

Creative Labs sued Aureal for patent infringement in March 1998 [1], and Aureal countersued for patent infringement and deceptive trade practices. Aureal won the lawsuit brought by Creative in December 1999. However, the cost of the legal battle caused Aureal's investors to cease funding operations, forcing Aureal into bankruptcy. Creative then acquired Aureal's assets in September 2000 through the bankruptcy court with the specific provision that Creative Labs would be released from all claims of past infringement by Creative Labs upon Aureal's A3D technology. Creative Labs has not chosen to support the A3D API.

this is why i buy asus cards in the first place. not only that creative makes any old sound card perform worse with bad drivers.

and now creative makes the open al propietary. you know they are just holding the whole audio industry back.

so do most games now just use open al or something?

Unfortunately Microsoft decided to omit hardware acceleration from Vista and 7's sound API. Having Hardware acceleration back on Audio might be the one reason I end up upgrading to Windows 8, but as I already have a fairly powerful audio engine that is has been practically dormant for years, I would welcome some kind of OpenAL workaround to make use of what I already have. Or if it comes to it, a separate AMD Trueaudio card, not locked in to the Graphics chip.

what benefit would my asus dx and ad700 have with windows 8 instead of windows 7

 

[Headfoot]

Nope. TBH, I've lost interest.

Its literally not even out yet...

 

[Deders]

what benefit would my asus dx and ad700 have with windows 8 instead of windows 7

I'm really not sure as it was designed for a time when no one was using hardware acceleration. It most likely supports EAX2 (but that doesn't sound anywhere near as nice as 4 or 5) It would also support OpenAL but how much of that would be hardware accelerated would be hard to find out.

 

[chimaxi83]

Its literally not even out yet...

You're right. I should've said "they're taking their sweet ass time, don't care anymore".