TrueAudio question.

[24601]

People here arguing that they think sound in computer games can't get noticeably better than it is right now remind me of people saying 256 colors is more than enough for any monitor. If you can't tell the difference, congratulations(?), but some of us would enjoy it.

vvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvvv

I realize what its about, but what you described won't immerse someone with speakers and headphones, which is most people.

Again, its NOT cpu intensive anymore. Sound is very subjective to people, some love surround sound, others don't. Some can't tell the difference between a $10k sound setup and a pair of $40 speakers. For a developers standpoint I can't see them investing money into something like this.

 

[Anarchist420]

if think the fact that intel did not constantly increase fp performance along with IPC (or cache/memory efficiency whatever it is) at the same time may have something to do with why audio has largely been neglected after 1999... perhaps it had to do with the fact that there wasn't that much advancement in cooling in the mid-90s and the fact that oems tended to use mediocre circuitry and cooling.

also not going for more fp performance may even be what got us to hardware rasterization. i don't see why most people wouldn't love software rasterization because most people like to push frame rates as high as they'll go and there is somewhat of a fixed minimum wall with hardware function. then it's also good for the minority like me who ****s a brick over every precision reduction and compression artifact.

that said, i'd be perfectly satisfied with a maximum of 30 fps in 90% of the games i play.

 

[imaheadcase]

People here arguing that they think sound in computer games can't get noticeably better than it is right now remind me of people saying 256 colors is more than enough for any monitor. If you can't tell the difference, congratulations(?), but some of us would enjoy it.

No, people are saying you can't get any better than what WAS before. EAX was hardware sound, this is hardware sound. People don't really notice or care the benefit that EAX brought anymore. Its not a game changer.

I don't think anyone said 256 colors was more than enough. More like people comparing this to sound from eax card vs onboard sound. Most don't care.

 

[flopper]

. More like people comparing this to sound from eax card vs onboard sound. Most don't care.

true.
128kb mp3 is the average bitrate for most.

still trueaudio is a great thing for those that do care.

 

[StrangerGuy]

No, people are saying you can't get any better than what WAS before. EAX was hardware sound, this is hardware sound. People don't really notice or care the benefit that EAX brought anymore. Its not a game changer.

I don't think anyone said 256 colors was more than enough. More like people comparing this to sound from eax card vs onboard sound. Most don't care.

I have no idea some people are still living in the 90s/early 00s. Let them list ONE realistic example why software based sound today is inadequate and we will talk.

 

[krumme]

Follow Erenharts advice 3:20
At the vid.
Dsp or not the potential is there on headphones everyone have.

 

[bononos]

I have no idea some people are still living in the 90s/early 00s. Let them list ONE realistic example why software based sound today is inadequate and we will talk.

If you really were a gamer from that period (90s), you would've realised that gaming audio has regressed since then which is why newbies don't see the need for hardware based audio. Some of the improvements from the late 1990s were folded into eax5 like wavetracing/vertical positioning/macrofx but it didn't seem to work as well.

 

[maddie]

It should be noted, that headphones will take full advantage of positional audio, etc, and that you do NOT need 5.1 or 7.1 speakers. The needed computations will be done in the dsp.

 

[3DVagabond]

It should be noted, that headphones will take full advantage of positional audio, etc, and that you do NOT need 5.1 or 7.1 speakers. The needed computations will be done in the dsp.

I think for some people they are just going to have to experience it. Assuming it's done well the difference will be dramatically more realistic. I don't know why anyone would think that real time calculations of the audio environment isn't going to help immersion. We use our auditory senses to locate ourselves and things in our environment. Someone calls for help in another room of our house we can, without seeing, know exactly what room they are calling from. True Audio has that capability if properly used.

 

[HisDivineOrder]

I think for some people they are just going to have to experience it. Assuming it's done well the difference will be dramatically more realistic. I don't know why anyone would think that real time calculations of the audio environment isn't going to help immersion. We use our auditory senses to locate ourselves and things in our environment. Someone calls for help in another room of our house we can, without seeing, know exactly what room they are calling from. True Audio has that capability if properly used.

Assuming it's done well. That's a big assumption. It's been a long time since I "heard" it done well.

 

[Anarchist420]

If you really were a gamer from that period (90s), you would've realised that gaming audio has regressed since then which is why newbies don't see the need for hardware based audio. Some of the improvements from the late 1990s were folded into eax5 like wavetracing/vertical positioning/macrofx but it didn't seem to work as well.

I agree that audio has regressed since then.

i don't agree that it's because of the removal of the hw audio stack from vista though, as few people have ever really cared that much about audio quality in games. that may be because they never experienced aureal, it may be because they turn the audio off and listen to regular music, it may be because gameplay and graphics are so satisfactory to so many that devs neglect audio, it may be for any other number of reasons.

i can't tell whether we need another general purpose processor for audio which is what true audio is, but i dont think we need more fixed function hardware. i think we need less. we can't get excellent quality for everything on one die, but more dies should be used so more things can be done in software. for gpus i think the only things that should be hardware functions are texture addressing and filtering, any lag/stutter/latency reduction hardware if it can achieve better results, and the display logic. things would also scale better and have less issue the more dies were added.

with HAL reduction, the results from the best programmers will be much better.

It should be noted, that headphones will take full advantage of positional audio, etc, and that you do NOT need 5.1 or 7.1 speakers.

Exactly, the super nes did excellent panning effects in stereo... we don't even have those anymore.

 

[StrangerGuy]

If you really were a gamer from that period (90s), you would've realised that gaming audio has regressed since then which is why newbies don't see the need for hardware based audio. Some of the improvements from the late 1990s were folded into eax5 like wavetracing/vertical positioning/macrofx but it didn't seem to work as well.

Maybe for you and the few elites. Vast majority of us have, and will never care how much better HW sound can get unless we magically get free sound systems that let us judge the potential, assuming the devs even put in the effort. 3D graphics was a totally different story since everyone can see the huge jump in image quality regardless of monitor.

 

[Erazor51]

Check this demo, use headphones and make sure it's set to 720p.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKnhcsRTNME

 

[24601]

I agree that audio has regressed since then.

i don't agree that it's because of the removal of the hw audio stack from vista though, as few people have ever really cared that much about audio quality in games. that may be because they never experienced aureal, it may be because they turn the audio off and listen to regular music, it may be because gameplay and graphics are so satisfactory to so many that devs neglect audio, it may be for any other number of reasons.

i can't tell whether we need another general purpose processor for audio which is what true audio is, but i dont think we need more fixed function hardware. i think we need less. we can't get excellent quality for everything on one die, but more dies should be used so more things can be done in software. for gpus i think the only things that should be hardware functions are texture addressing and filtering, any lag/stutter/latency reduction hardware if it can achieve better results, and the display logic. things would also scale better and have less issue the more dies were added.

with HAL reduction, the results from the best programmers will be much better.
Exactly, the super nes did excellent panning effects in stereo... we don't even have those anymore.

I have trouble believing that you cannot do this on the CPU.

With the amount of games not made by engine designers only using 1 super-heavy core, devs have had the chance for a long time now to do what you propose.

 

[Rikard]

The positional audio software has been out there for some time. I tried a few, with varying degree of success, but they are all superior to non-positional audio. If I remember the announcement correctly, what is new is that by doing this on the graphics card, there is direct access to the source and sound environment, thus the positional audio software does no longer have to guess how the sound should be generated. Sounds like a pretty big deal to me.

 

[24601]

The positional audio software has been out there for some time. I tried a few, with varying degree of success, but they are all superior to non-positional audio. If I remember the announcement correctly, what is new is that by doing this on the graphics card, there is direct access to the source and sound environment, thus the positional audio software does no longer have to guess how the sound should be generated. Sounds like a pretty big deal to me.

That's nowhere near as useful as an integrated engine implementation.

All of the things that you think happen auto-magically obviously require engine involvement for any realism to show through.

I have trouble believing that you cannot do this on the CPU.

With the amount of games not made by engine designers only using 1 super-heavy core, devs have had the chance for a long time now to do what you propose.

If you have seen (heard) the GenX TrueAudio showcase in Doom 3 done by the Doom 3 sound director, it sounds extraordinarily fake. It does only showing how far to the left and right something is to you. It does no vertical positioning. It does no object obscurement. It does bad "room capture" if that is really what they used (their words from the AMD/ATi presentation by the GenX guy). It does no forward and/or rear positioning. It also did the kind of "audio enhancement" of making the difference of volume extremely exaggerated and non-realistic.


Doom 3 in full-blown AstoundSound® (Headphone Demo)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mb57qpc0RD0

In comparison, a game like Counter-Strike: Source has very good positional audio, it only misses good object obscurement.

If you have played both that game and Counter-Strike: Global Offensive, you can see the leap in audio realism. Note this is a BAD thing for gameplay, as realistic sound in a gun game is a very bad idea. If you turn up the sound to be able to hear the footsteps as you are able to do easily in Source (from the unrealistic footstep sound level) you basically blow your eardrums.

People who shoot guns have tinnitus for a reason.

 

[Rikard]

That's nowhere near as useful as an integrated engine implementation.

All of the things that you think happen auto-magically obviously require engine involvement for any realism to show through.

I never said it would happen auto-magically. If a game supports TrueAudio, that is a selling argument that works well on me (or would if I actually had the hardware for it ) . Hopefully publishers see it that way too.

 

[Erenhardt]

Do next gen consoles have trueaudio aswell?

 

[sandorski]

The best 3D positional Audio I ever experienced by my PC was with my Aureal SQ2500 in UT. I could literally feel rockets flying past my head with a 2 speaker setup. I haven't experienced anything like it since. If TrueAudio can deliver that, it would be a selling point.

 

[frozentundra123456]

According to a chart in Toms preview article today, it shows the 260x has true audio, while the 270x and 280x don't. (doesn't show the 290)

Can this be correct? If so, what are they thinking? Wouldnt you want your new showcase sound feature on the highest performing cards?

 

[chimaxi83]

According to a chart in Toms preview article today, it shows the 260x has true audio, while the 270x and 280x don't. (doesn't show the 290)

Can this be correct? If so, what are they thinking? Wouldnt you want your new showcase sound feature on the highest performing cards?

The 260x, 290, and 290x have it because they're Hawaii based. The 270/280 don't because they're just rebranded Tahiti.