Technical investigation into PS4 and XB1 audio solutions *spawn
- Thread starter Brad Grenz
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arwin you heard of blue ripple sound ?
http://www.blueripplesound.com/
ps: while creative have a hell of a lot to answer for, they are practically the only ihv that invested in dsp's
http://www.blueripplesound.com/
ps: while creative have a hell of a lot to answer for, they are practically the only ihv that invested in dsp's
D
Deleted member 13524
Guest
Exactly. And Microsoft killed them when they blocked their proprietary audio API from Vista and successors.
Not that their drivers and PR disasters did any good either, but that was the nail in the coffin that made people wonder why they should buy expensive soundcards if their dumb onboard realtek codecs presented the same results.
Those of us that follow the teachings of the Gaming Gods have one of these
And yes I do actually own one, and yes it does impress the ladies
cost me 99p in cash converter (boxed)
Actually they fixed that, with Alchemy also hardware acceleration is still possible with openal and fmod
but I do agree environmental audio is dying, my only hope is with gfx cards supporting audio then gpgpu can process audio. I think it was maybe matt houston that posted a presentation from one of those tech conferences (siggraph or similar) that mentioned audio processing via opencl allthough it was one on the cpu.
Unless you have fairly large speakers, you aren't getting the full range of audio(depending on what you are listening to of course). Not having to reproduce low frequency will also generally let your speakers produce the midrange sounds better.
As for the in-tact part, most 5.1/7.1 setups use a 80Hz crossover for the subwoofer for this reason:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_localization
I wonder if you do even with large speakers? my headphones do 3 Hz - 28,000 Hz try finding speakers that can match that
ShadowRunner
Veteran
Dont some games already provide a Headphone mode that provides virtual surround sound?
Those binaural recordings are done using special recording equipment, simulating the effect virtually wouldn't give the same results id imagine, im not sure exactly how complex it is to simulate. Still would be a nice feature though if its a decent improvement over what we currently have. Is there any software available that can do proper simulated binaural audio out there currently on PC or would the simulation algorithms need to be developed from scratch?
Those binaural recordings are done using special recording equipment, simulating the effect virtually wouldn't give the same results id imagine, im not sure exactly how complex it is to simulate. Still would be a nice feature though if its a decent improvement over what we currently have. Is there any software available that can do proper simulated binaural audio out there currently on PC or would the simulation algorithms need to be developed from scratch?
http://www.flickr.com/photos/15041669@N00/428896499/
Lol
Even a very high end speaker like:
http://www.bowers-wilkins.com/Speakers/Home_Audio/800_Series_Diamond/800-Diamond.html
Only do 32Hz-28KHz at +/-3dB (25Hz-33KHz at +/-6dB)
But really no speakers will do sound that low outside of a dedicated sub.
And the difference in bass between that speaker and any pair of headphones at a relatively equal volume will not be comparable. FWIW, finding source material that is below 10Hz, outside of generated test tones, is extremely rare, and generally sound that low you don't really hear, but you feel.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Not so much their actions against Aureal. Their actions there was actually pretty good. In response to Aureal being first out of the gate, Creative Labs went ahead and made EAX an open license available for any hardware manufacturer to use. Hence we saw a proliferation of EAX 1.0 and 2.0 compatible hardware (including on board sound on the MB) driving adoption of the standard as well as adoption in games.
With the demise of Aureal, however, Creative labs then closed off licensing of EAX starting with 3.0 and thus the slow death to EAX as well as sound innovation in games.
IMO, if Creative Labs had kept EAX on an open license while offering superior audio hardware I think we'd have absolutely incredible audio effects in games now as opposed to the crappy audio that exists in PC and console games. The ubiquity it would have had would have made it a serious choice for use on consoles as well as all games (on board MB audio having it as well).
Regards,
SB
So what are the significant sound improvements that XB1's SHAPE can offer compared to previous gen?
I cant think of anything that can be a game changer other than something that mimics binaural
Which is half of what BASS is all about..
Silent_Buddha
Legend
Dynamically adjusted sound.
The difference between pre-recorded (pre-baked) and realtime modified (realtime).
For example, lets take something as simple as footsteps.
1. They can be modified by the materials (not just wood, but pine or mahogany or cedar or balsa wood [
] and not just stone, but granite or cement or obsidian or glass or ceramic or vinyl or whatever) being traveled over. Thin material layer or thick material layer. Solid or has holes in it? Bumpy or smooth? Made of just one material or multiple? Rather than being pre-recorded you can modify them in realtime. 2. The environment. Are you indoors? Outdoors? Are there walls? One 1 side? 2 sides? 3 sides? 4 sides? A roof? If indoors how large is the volume of the room?
3. If in a room, what are the material characteristics of the walls? Wooden walls reflect sound differently than Metal walls. Perpendicular walls reflect sounds to the user differently than angled walls. Is the wall a smooth surface? If not, how is the wall shaped? Does the walls have holes?
4. Are there objects in the scene? What are the material characteristics of the objects? Vinyl reflects differently from cloth which reflects differently from leather which reflects differently from wood which...etc... What are the shapes of the objects?
5. How do different frequencies react to all of the above.
6. Is distance going to finally be modeled correctly? Low frequencies travel farther than high frequencies. Add in occlusion. Low frequencies can penetrate occluding objects much more easily than high frequencies.
7. How does the sound in the environment affect the objects in the environment? Is there resonance in some objects? Will a suitably powerful low frequency sound wave cause objects in the environment to vibrated thus generating more sounds?
8. Something as simple as the Doppler effect on sound. Something so simple, yet so incredibly lacking in games that it bugs me everytime I hear a siren from a police car, ambulance, fire truck, etc.
9. The list goes on and on.
And then add in every single other source of sound in the game (channels). Remember audio processing does NOT equal the number of voices sound hardware can support simultaneously.
It really is similar to whether you prefer pre-baked shadows or want realtime shadows. Do you prefer pre-baked lighting or would you prefer realtime lighting? Prebaked animations or actions modified by physics calculations?
Some of the above is done on a very very simplistic level in some games. And only on a VERY simplistic level, because a lot of that stuff is very computationally intensive.
Even with Shape, it'll only allow a small fraction of what I described above to be implemented. But a little bit is still infinitely better than the relatively flat and crappy sounds we have in games today.
Of course, you could attempt to do it the old fashioned way of recording footsteps on a wood surface, metal surface, stones, etc. But to do anything even remotely reflecting a fraction of what I mentioned above would require terabytes of sound files.
That is why audio processing is important, IMO. To people that didn't get to live through the early days of audio processing on A3D or EAX, the sound in games today probably sounds good. As well A3D and EAX was still very primitive back then but still sounded better than what we have today. To me? All audio in games for the past decade has sounded like crap.
Then again, will any multiplat developers make use of Shape considering the PS4 would likely require significant GPU resources to try to replicate the effects? If not, then it's a bloody shame as audio has been seriously lacking in games.
Then again perhaps the PS4 audio hardware is also powerful, but I'm not holding my breath on that one. Sony would have said something about it if it had been.
Regards,
SB
In theory, yes, but in practice, I'm just not experiencing this.
Love_In_Rio
Veteran
Man that was fun. I closed my eyes so I could sense the effect as perfectly as possible.
I started laughing when I could hear the plastic bag wrapping around my head
edit: Btw is this the effect that the XB1 audio capabilities are supposed to provide?
The f...!. Listening to that video with my headphones was an awesome experience, much better than listening to my 5.1!.
Well, you guys have sold me in this binaural tech. Now, what is needed to process something like that in a game in real time?. Are there any real time binaural sound engines that could be used for games?.
This plus Rift plus Kinect plus move and navigation controller > future of gaming.
Right, and which would do better in letting you feel that kind of bass, a large powerful speaker capable of vibrating the walls, or a pair of headphones which might be able to vibrate itself, maybe.
You may have more sensitive hearing than most, or it could be standing waves or reflections from your room or something like that. Room acoustics are a huge part of how things sound anyway.
Well i have a giant sub behind my back when i play and some giant headphones on hand as well, i am good.
Wouldn't that really depend on the cross-over point that is calibrated? Then again, not everyone has the same set-up and would calibrate things the same. I have 4 fullsize speakers in my set-up and when I do get my sub, the sub will only be taking care of the LFE channel, while the stand-speakers will still take care of the normal bass (not LFE frequencies).
I actually only have a 5.0 setup at the moment too, but especially when watching films, it's quite apparent in some scenes how much an LFE channel is missing. There are some frequencies a speaker can't reproduce effectively. Like just about any shockwave scene in movies where the sub would reproduce a shockwave that you can simply feel, but not necessarely hear, followed by the audible explosion that follows reproduced perhaps by the normal speakers because it's in the mid frequency range.
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