TrueAudio question.

[Anarchist420]

Is it a general purpose core? I thought it would have to be, because Microsoft removed the hardware audio stack (that wasn't the right name but I guess someone besides me knows what I'm talking about)?

What are your thoughts on it?

If it's done on general purpose core, then it's a good idea IMO, but I don't know that we should go back to HW audio processing. I think more general purpose dies would be a better idea because more can be done in software . But then im not a computer programmer.

 

[Abwx]

They implemented a few DSPs , digital signal processors ,
to compute among others the impulse response of the different
scenes of a game , you could then have the sound signature
not only of accurately computed rooms reverberations but also
the one you could have in a wood or in a street and so on.

 

[imaheadcase]

Thoughts are its just another thing that won't be a big deal. AMD touted it using less CPU, which was great when EAX and hardware soundcards, but with modern CPU its not a big deal having it.

Maybe on a HTPC crowd it will nice, but I think i read its on the higher end cards.

 

[Erazor51]

Thoughts are its just another thing that won't be a big deal. AMD touted it using less CPU, which was great when EAX and hardware soundcards, but with modern CPU its not a big deal having it.

Maybe on a HTPC crowd it will nice, but I think i read its on the higher end cards.

It is a a big deal. Even simple audio effects can use up to 14% of your cpu.


Here is article off Guru3D:


True Audio

Audio immersion is a key factor for AMD as they are now implementing an audio pipeline into the newest GPUs. Now first, please understand that AMD True Audio only is available at the R7 260X and the upcoming Radeon R9-290 and R9-290X. And NOT the rest of this series.

And AMD is implementing a fully programmable audio engine, True Audio technology. You guys know programmable shaders for visuals right ? To some extent that now applies for audio as well; to improve audio effects (real-time voices and audio channels in your game opposed to what is possible with CPUs today) enabling directional (surround) audio over input. To do so AMD injected DSPs into the GPU that can do some magic on the audio channels.

For the geeks:

There are multiple Audio optimized DSP cores
Tensilica HiFi2 EP instruction set
Tensilica Xtensa SP Fload support
The DSPs have 32KB instruction and data caches
8KB of scratch RAM for local operation.
So yes, an audio processor is onboard the 260X and the 290 series. For example surround with stereo could be virtualized. There isn't enough CPU power left to run complex audio mechanisms and this is where the technology kicks in. So professional grade audio is now closer to the PC with this new audio technology. Try to imaging High Quality Reverbs, Room Simulation True 3D audio dedicated audio processing. Game developers can use what is called a Wwise audio plugin to get all this going over the AMD True Audio DPS.

This is going to help with CPU load big-time BTW. A few simple Audio effects can use up-to 14% of your CPU, this is now offloaded to the graphics card. That's always good stuff. But not available for the R9-270 and 280 though.

 

[PliotronX]

Finally! Some action in audio effects that Creative Labs can't litigate or liquidate into the ground.

 

[NTMBK]

Finally! Some action in audio effects that Creative Labs can't litigate or liquidate into the ground.

Creative Labs to acquire AMD in 3, 2, 1,...

 

[PliotronX]

Creative Labs to acquire AMD in 3, 2, 1,...

LOL I would be more angry than when they bought out Aureal. I thought NVIDIA would make it somewhere with the SoundStorm jazz but they might have not seen a market for it. Rightly so, that was when onboard audio became decent with HD hardware.

If TA gets somewhere I would be excited. It is inevitable that CL will try something though.

 

[Abwx]

Would be great that they provide a GUI with access to the DSPs
parameters for users interested in audio activities , it would rock !!

 

[imaheadcase]

No its not a big deal, that %13 you said it only for certain effects and its only for one core not using all the cores people have. Also, everything that trueaudio can be done already programming wise.

Never mind the fact its for the higher end cards, which those people will have higher end CPU to begin with.

The reason developers latched on to EAX was because it made a HUGE diffrence, something like %20 of more overhead on games then, which was single core cpus.

 

[Ieat]

Game developers can

And there in lies the problem with your argument. Game developers can do anything but they won't especially for the tiny segment of the market that cares and the even smaller subgroup that owns one of the enabled cards. Time is money and unless AMD pays devs for their time I doubt much will come of this.

 

[Abwx]

No its not a big deal, that %13 you said it only for certain effects and its only for one core not using all the cores people have. Also, everything that trueaudio can be done already programming wise.

Never mind the fact its for the higher end cards, which those people will have higher end CPU to begin with.

The reason developers latched on to EAX was because it made a HUGE diffrence, something like %20 of more overhead on games then, which was single core cpus.

True Audio allow apparently much more complexe audio schemes
than previous offerings.

An exemple is dynamical reverberation , that is the acoustic
of a given room, called its impulse response in enginering,
is computed in real time , that is , the reverberation
will be calculated permanently from the player charachter position.

 

[Erenhardt]

True Audio allow apparently much more complexe audio schemes
than previous offerings.

An exemple is dynamical reverberation , that is the acoustic
of a given room, called its impulse response in enginering,
is computed in real time , that is , the reverberation
will be calculated permanently from the player charachter position.

That would be more than welcome. I have enough of through the wall sounds, no Z level and very primitive direction indication.

No its not a big deal, that %13 you said it only for certain effects and its only for one core not using all the cores people have. Also, everything that trueaudio can be done already programming wise.

13% for very basic sounds. Real-time 3d sound effect require much more horsepower.

Never mind the fact its for the higher end cards, which those people will have higher end CPU to begin with.

Funny, it is not. R7 260X comes with it.

 

[PliotronX]

AMD's got some good ideas on ASIC-like integration. While multicore processors have lessened the need for dedicated sound processing, introducing new effects particularly for surround setups and headphones is what gets me hot and bothered.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Will AMD cards have a separate optical digital out and analog 6-channel? Desktops don't usually have a HTPC setup where you are connecting your HDMI cable to a receiver.

Most (all?) powered speakers have either optical digital or analog inputs, not HDMI.

 

[gorobei]

Will AMD cards have a separate optical digital out and analog 6-channel? Desktops don't usually have a HTPC setup where you are connecting your HDMI cable to a receiver.

Most (all?) powered speakers have either optical digital or analog inputs, not HDMI.

the interviews and articles ive seen have indicated that the audio gets processed on the gpu and routed back out to motherboard or whatever audio outputs(card) you have. no need to send it through the hdmi.

 

[Erenhardt]

Will AMD cards have a separate optical digital out and analog 6-channel? Desktops don't usually have a HTPC setup where you are connecting your HDMI cable to a receiver.

Most (all?) powered speakers have either optical digital or analog inputs, not HDMI.

From what I understand it all goes back to your soundcard for ordinary processing, then out it goes through audio outputs from soundcard. Think of it as physx dedicated card. It is not like dedicated card is displaying particles over what is displayed by primary card.

 

[DaveSimmons]

Makes sense. Code => (AMD card) => 2.x / 5.x audio => soundcard

Hopefully it will end up more like OpenCL than like another closed PhysX or CUDA.

 

[bononos]

That would be more than welcome. I have enough of through the wall sounds, no Z level and very primitive direction indication.

13% for very basic sounds. Real-time 3d sound effect require much more horsepower.

Funny, it is not. R7 260X comes with it.

You're right that it pc gaming audio have gone backwards when innovative companies like Aureal got stifled and their tech killed off. Gaming sound tech got simpler and lousier to the point where it didn't cost much in terms of cpu time.

The 260x may have it but not the 7870/7970 rebadged as 270x/280x.

 

[BrightCandle]

I for one really want improved sound. Dolby Headphone and Creative CMSS surround effects are all pretty bad. They are better than nothing but having the game first render its any positional sound into a 7.1 scheme and then have the sound card post process that into 2.0 for headphones is in a word...crazy. Its also inaccurate because the 7.1 output is processed relatively cheaply on the CPU and it doesn't very accurately place the sound from the potential any direction and distance.

Such an engine presumably needs to know precisely where the sound is and its volume so that it can process the audio cues to place it correctly for headphones. If its just going to preprocess it before it gets dumped into the 7.1 channels it might be able to improve things slightly but it wont get to the same extent as the Aureal Vortex 2 did in surround quality. I miss that card and the games that supported it so much, audio took a big step backward with Vista in quality but forward in reliability (Creative and Aureal's cards were a pain to install drivers for).

 

[imaheadcase]

True Audio allow apparently much more complexe audio schemes
than previous offerings.

An exemple is dynamical reverberation , that is the acoustic
of a given room, called its impulse response in enginering,
is computed in real time , that is , the reverberation
will be calculated permanently from the player charachter position.

Can be done with CPU without much overhead. Does not matter how complex the audio offerings are today. It still comes down to hardly anything with people with quad core systems anymore.

The reason you don't see this stuff in games much (some games do but you don't notice them) is because it won't help the immersion of the gamer. Most people who game don't use expensive surround setups, most use headphones or dinky speakers. From a developer standpoint its not worth the money for it.

 

[3DVagabond]

True Audio is like physics (hopefully they don't use it like PhysX) for audio. Or "aural ray tracing". It's way more than anything we've had before. Of course, implementation is key. We'll have to wait and see how (or if, even) they use it.

 

[Abwx]

Can be done with CPU without much overhead. Does not matter how complex the audio offerings are today. It still comes down to hardly anything with people with quad core systems anymore.

The reason you don't see this stuff in games much (some games do but you don't notice them) is because it won't help the immersion of the gamer. Most people who game don't use expensive surround setups, most use headphones or dinky speakers. From a developer standpoint its not worth the money for it.

DSPs can do few things but they do it very well, it would be
too CPU ressource hungry , i think that you dont realize what
it is about.

You are firing 500 feet from a wall and you have the direct gun sound
and its delay after reflexion on the wall , in that case about 1.5s after
you fired , as you re running in the direction of the wall and still firing
the delay decrease while the direct sound tone change because of the
close environement switch from grassed ground to concrete.

The purpose is to recreate the real world acoustical signature ,
i would say this would really be 3D sound and you think that
it wouldnt be immersive.?.

Besides , a phone is perfect for such a feature.

 

[imaheadcase]

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.

 

[Erenhardt]

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.

Go get cheap headphones and listen @ 3:20
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nKnhcsRTNME

Go back and tell me again that headphones are not good for the job.
That is the thing! They have tech to process sound so only 2 speakers in headphones are enough to deliver better* 3d sound than 5.1 system. That processing of multiple sound sources is very demanding on CPU, that's why dedicated hardware preferred.

 

[Atreidin]

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.