Xbox Series X will have dedicated sound card

[JZStudios]

11 hours ago, Doobeedoo said:

Path traced sound? We'll see. 

11 hours ago, RejZoR said:

Oh, we've seen it and it was jaw dropping amazing. Then Microsoft took it away from us.

This one's really good, with a demo download link.

Over the years I've found a bunch of decent implementations that people have made, but none of them have ever been put in a game of any note. They're also hard to find again since YouTube mixes them in with standard binaural recording. UE4 a few years ago was supposed to be making a big push to overhaul their audio engine to actually support surround sound and I remember watching a stream where they had real time binaural processing with a ball moving around an underground parking lot, and you could hear it move closer and get obstructed by world geometry. I honestly have no idea if anything ever came of it.

 

11 hours ago, Kisai said:

https://forums.unrealengine.com/unreal-engine/feedback-for-epic/8240-audio-roadmap-and-apis

 

I was watching Picard Episode 5 last night, on my iphone, and there is a distinct "sound from behind" that I heard in one scene, and I was listening to it with just headphones. Yet, I can not even think of a game that does anything like this.

Oh. Well I guess that answers that. They just dropped it because Wwise exists. Nice. I figured, but... wow.

 

Also, Battlefield 4 at least did a really shitty sounding "muffle" for anything that was behind you. It worked okay for headphones since anything that was muffled was behind you, but the super cool thing is they also did it to actual surround speakers and it just sounded awful.

10 hours ago, RejZoR said:

A lot of this stuff wasn't directly apparent back in the day, but when you started actually listening, it was incredible. You didn't even need silly on-display hit directions as we have today that show you where you're getting hit from, you could tell where gunfire is coming from from sound alone.

 

There were some exceptions. FEAR Combat had EAX 4.0, yet its 3D audio was a total garbage. Elevation distinction was non existent, sounds were the same through walls and it was just entirely useless. But I can really only recall FEAR Combat cocking it up so badly with 3D audio in place.

This is why I like my 5.1 setup. Horizon Zero Dawn sounds amazing with surround sound, though it's also supposed to have proper 3d sound. Would still be cool to get proper ambisonic support because that would benefit surround systems too, not just headphones.

 

I also noticed that FEAR was kind of crap, but I thought it might've been DSOAL.

10 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

So the implication is that actual 3d audio might be possible.  The implication is that there is post processing in the human brain that turns 2d audio into 3d by processing echoes and stuff.  A 3d audio would replicate these fractional and tightly timed echoes to replicate things so exactly that a human brain would process it as 3d. Might be true.  Seems unlikely to me, but it might be.

I don't know about Atmos Headphones, haven't looked into it, but base Atmos from what I understand utilizes an actual surround setup and just has a processing chip or channel mixers to "physically" locate a sound source and play it back on the appropriate speakers. This is really already mostly how game audio already works, Atmos just has more channels, specifically ceiling speakers. It just pans between physical speaker locations to give the sense of where audio sources are. Basically a 2D stereo pan (left/right) but also including height and depth.

I'm assuming Atmos uses HRTF. A quick rundown is that HRTF is essentially a 3d head model. You can actually make your own specific personal one, but it takes equipment or a lab. Anyways, audio in the real world moves at a pretty constant speed, and there's a slight delay between it hitting each ear, and then a bit of occlusion for whatever ear isn't in direct "line of sight" to the audio source. The HRTF is a more or less 3D model of how you perceive sound from all directions, including above and below you. Then it essentially creates that minute delay and a slight amount of occlusion, thus giving you "directional" sound.

 

Personally, I don't know if all the available free HRTF files are just way different than my head, but anything behind me just sounds pretty muffled and terrible. Judging on how terrible the audio source sounds I can tell if it's supposed to sound like it's behind me, but it doesn't really. I stick to my 5.1 setup for clarity. If you're interested, you can check out this YouTube channel; I Drink Lava

[Dash Lambda]

Okay. Was super confused until I watched the video.

 

So they're not just saying they have a dedicated sound card, which would be weird for them to announce because of course it does, everything that outputs audio needs dedicated hardware for it. They're saying they have a special chip designed to generate better spatial audio, so it has nothing to do with DAC or sound reproduction, it's better dynamic 3D surround sound. You might want to put that in your post.

 

Side note, that guy is a an almost comedic waterfall of buzzwords.

[JZStudios]

9 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

It’s possible I think that neither emperor has any clothes.  You’re talking about multiple speaker room audio.  There are still only two ears.  My suspicion is that if 3daudio is even possible it would have to be headphone only as room shape and speaker placement is going to change.

Well... yes and no. Ideally if they go through that effort they're in a fairly deadened environment with couches, curtains, carpet, etc. and have a semi-proper speaker placement. This is where Ambisonics comes into play. You tell the system where exactly in 3D physical space your speakers are set up. There's actually a few standards in place for ambisonic setups, and Atmos with ceiling speakers is pretty close. Then the system determines where in 3D game space the speakers and audio sources are, it works it's magic, and viola, you're "in" a brand new space. Theoretically if the ambisonic rendering is any good even a non-optimal speaker placement should still work pretty well.

I actually did this with my 5.1 system and FEAR, but FEAR apparently was actually pretty crap about it and it didn't quite work right. Pretty sure the old audio cards also just had that built in so you move your speaker placements and have it do proper ambisonics.

9 hours ago, Curufinwe_wins said:

Its personal preference I suppose, but I would rather listen in stereo to gaming sound properly/accurately rendered than deal with positional data displayed with horrible distortion and frequency imbalance. Obviously in ideal world, both aspects are done properly.

Agreed. The implementations used by VSS and showcased on I Drink Lava's channel generally sounds pretty poor to me, but the little demo I shared earlier actually sounds pretty good. Otherwise I'd definitely stick to regular stereo.

And if it is calculating ambisonics and HRTF then a dedicated chip (Like the EAX chip in the OG Xbox) makes sense, and it would do the processing before sending it to the receiver/speakers.

[Bombastinator]

24 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

Well... yes and no. Ideally if they go through that effort they're in a fairly deadened environment with couches, curtains, carpet, etc. and have a semi-proper speaker placement. This is where Ambisonics comes into play. You tell the system where exactly in 3D physical space your speakers are set up. There's actually a few standards in place for ambisonic setups, and Atmos with ceiling speakers is pretty close. Then the system determines where in 3D game space the speakers and audio sources are, it works it's magic, and viola, you're "in" a brand new space. Theoretically if the ambisonic rendering is any good even a non-optimal speaker placement should still work pretty well.

I actually did this with my 5.1 system and FEAR, but FEAR apparently was actually pretty crap about it and it didn't quite work right. Pretty sure the old audio cards also just had that built in so you move your speaker placements and have it do proper ambisonics.

Agreed. The implementations used by VSS and showcased on I Drink Lava's channel generally sounds pretty poor to me, but the little demo I shared earlier actually sounds pretty good. Otherwise I'd definitely stick to regular stereo.

And if it is calculating ambisonics and HRTF then a dedicated chip (Like the EAX chip in the OG Xbox) makes sense, and it would do the processing before sending it to the receiver/speakers.

This is what I’m saying.  There seems to be all this conditional stuff and theoretically and standardized models and ifs and buts.  Making 3d sound actually work might take just too much specific measurement and set up to actually be useful.  There might be a difference between it’s a fiction and it just doesn’t actually quite work, but it’s not a particularly tangible one.  Maybe they can make it work.  We’ll find out I guess.

[greenmax]

4 minutes ago, Bombastinator said:

Making 3d sound actually work might take just too much specific measurement and set up to actually be useful.

You are probably on the right scent there. But sound is sound, one persons taste isnt another persons.

[ARikozuM]

Just give me a fucking Xbox-themed case with the disc drive and software that I need to build a badass HTPC out of. 

 

Edit: Hopefully it comes with outputs to connect with a home theater system. 

[SpikeSpiegel]

59 minutes ago, ARikozuM said:

Just give me a fucking Xbox-themed case with the disc drive and software that I need to build a badass HTPC out of. 

 

Edit: Hopefully it comes with outputs to connect with a home theater system. 

Pull a JayTwoCentz Custom Mod and make your own Xbox X case

[Bombastinator]

Just had a thought regarding 3d sound.

One of the things that makes it seem so iffy is apparently it used to work but doesn’t anymore or something.  What if it’s not the system that lost it but the people.  Might maybe need to be a certain age for 3d sound to work? 

[pas008]

6 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Just had a thought regarding 3d sound.

One of the things that makes it seem so iffy is apparently it used to work but doesn’t anymore or something.  What if it’s not the system that lost it but the people.  Might maybe need to be a certain age for 3d sound to work? 

subjective because its sound

 

hesuvi on pc onboard will show differences of many vss for free

 

i think this crap of people pissing the idea of using a 5.1 or 7.1 options in game to using algoritms to create a hrtf for headphones is dumb

digital sound is algorithms period

the game uses algorithms

and even high end receivers for surround use algorithms

 

games movies engines etc all dont throw in huge budgets for sound

so to bet only on that is kinda ridiculous

 

having options is better than none here and I cant see why anyone here would bitch period even if ms doesnt add their own vss or use another because i'm sure apps/etc might be avaiable if we know ms

and dedicated hardware for sound is great more options right?

this isnt going to cost alot at all really maybe couple bucks on hardware and few on incorporating software

 

sry kinda all over the place here but at work

 

I like all newer vss solutions though because when a games audio is shit least i can get better positional or immersion with it

[JZStudios]

11 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

This is what I’m saying.  There seems to be all this conditional stuff and theoretically and standardized models and ifs and buts.  Making 3d sound actually work might take just too much specific measurement and set up to actually be useful.  There might be a difference between it’s a fiction and it just doesn’t actually quite work, but it’s not a particularly tangible one.  Maybe they can make it work.  We’ll find out I guess.

Eh. There's more of a standardized placement in terms of angles, but not actually distances. If it's done correctly you only need to input that data once and never again. and then you just use a standard tape measure to place things. Most people who have a 5.1 setup are already following the industry standards for the most part since otherwise it really just wouldn't work.

 

7 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Just had a thought regarding 3d sound.

One of the things that makes it seem so iffy is apparently it used to work but doesn’t anymore or something.  What if it’s not the system that lost it but the people.  Might maybe need to be a certain age for 3d sound to work? 

What? It existed on WinXP and then when MS moved onto Vista they changed something that broke how it functioned. If you in real life can hear a sound and know where it's located, then it works. Otherwise you're probably deaf.

[Bombastinator]

25 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

Eh. There's more of a standardized placement in terms of angles, but not actually distances. If it's done correctly you only need to input that data once and never again. and then you just use a standard tape measure to place things. Most people who have a 5.1 setup are already following the industry standards for the most part since otherwise it really just wouldn't work.

 

What? It existed on WinXP and then when MS moved onto Vista they changed something that broke how it functioned. If you in real life can hear a sound and know where it's located, then it works. Otherwise you're probably deaf.

I’m talking about the numerous anecdotal reports on it working or not working or used to work but no longer works for people in this thread. My hearing has changed as I have aged, that is true.  “Deaf” is somewhat binary.

I was never an entrant here.  My point was that whether it works or doesn’t work seemed to change for some people.  If it’s a deafness problem it seems to be a very common one.  What seems to be at issue is the narrowness of the use case.  It seems to be narrower than assumed.  Not sure why.  Could be this breakage you describe.  Whether this new system fixes that breakage or not and whether that fixing will make the system effective for a given person seems to remain unknown.  My experience with “audiophile audio” is that there is a certain hokum aspect to it.  That there might also be a similar hokum aspect to “gaming audio” therefore follows.

[Dedayog]

On 2/23/2020 at 2:57 PM, BlackManINC said:

 Now this is truly some juicy news for the next generation. I agree with the video maker that sound is just as important to the overall experience as the graphics, if not more in some cases. The sky is the limit now to what they can achieve with a dedicated sound card, can't wait. I will definitely be buying me a good home theater surround sound set up when the time comes. 

 

 

Motherboard sound is damn good as it is now, dedicated doesn't always mean better.

 

Why don;t you have good sound on your TV already?  Movies and shows should have good sound as well.

[BlackManINC]

11 minutes ago, jstudrawa said:

Motherboard sound is damn good as it is now, dedicated doesn't always mean better.

 

Why don;t you have good sound on your TV already?  Movies and shows should have good sound as well.

Well, as far as the TV I used for my console, its an old pre historic CRT monitor, so its useless anyway. I'll have to upgrade when I get the new Xbox. The sound on it was decent, but hooking up my surround sound theater system (that no longer works mind you) made the game ten times more immersive. For my PC, the speakers I use aren't anything to write home about, although the sub woofer makes a big difference. The sound seems muffled without my FX Sound software enabled. The speakers may be ok for the price, but FX Sound still makes a huge difference, no comparison at all.

[CreativeName642]

This won't make a difference if you're plugging the headset into the controller. Last I checked, you can't fit a sound card into those.

[DrMacintosh]

On 2/23/2020 at 12:00 PM, RejZoR said:

Now give us back hardware accelerated audio instead of this software audio garbage we have since Windows Vista release...

cough* macOS cough*

[RejZoR]

5 minutes ago, DrMacintosh said:

cough* macOS cough*

Yeah, and no games to use that. We aren't talking HW acceleration for audio mastering.

[DrMacintosh]

4 minutes ago, RejZoR said:

We aren't talking HW acceleration for audio mastering.

No, but we are talking about hardware acceleration period. Of which Windows doesn't have. 

[RejZoR]

Just now, DrMacintosh said:

No, but we are talking about hardware acceleration period. Of which Windows doesn't have. 

No, we aren't talking about HW acceleration *period*. We're talking gaming HW acceleration. Because otherwise, Windows does still offer HW acceleration for certain effects, just not gaming related like EAX once used to be.

[Kisai]

On 2/24/2020 at 9:49 AM, RejZoR said:

Not what I heard in every single video "debunking" gaming soundcards. Literally everyone was talking about stupid bits, bitrates, frequencies, SNR and THD etc. And I was cringing so hard listening to all that nonsense. Audiophiles should stay in their little world and leave "gaming audio" and "gaming soundcards" to actual gamers who know what's what.

 

Dolby Atmos is basically a form of HRTF. They try to add elevation information to the audio. But if you don't have direct connection with game engine, it's all fakery and approximation. One thing is Dolby Atmos in movies where they record things and specify on which channel it should be played. And it'll play there every single time without exception. With games, you have to do it in real time because nothing is pre-recorded. Game engine needs to tell Dolby Atmos capable speakers/decoder what audio has to fire from what speakers.

Ehhh. not quite?

 

There is two distinct issues at play:

Audio quality, which means 96khz, 32-bit floating point audio as a baseline, this is a mixing baseline not a "you can only hear 20 to 20,000hz" bs. Once that 3D mix is rendered, it's then decision time:

a) Headset HRTF

b) Surround (Dolby Prologic II/x/z, Dolby Digital/Ex/TrueHD/Atmos, DTS/X) speakers

 

Surround systems (PL, DD, DTS) are just flat out X channel audio. So it's like having X channels lossy compressed to like 384kbits mp3. TrueHD is lossless 24-bit up to 192khz. They are fixed channels, and the surround effect comes from having properly sized and positioned speakers. Atmos adds "above and below" audio.

 

https://www.dolby.com/us/en/speaker-setup-guides/index.html

 

Take note "avoid bare walls"

 

So that's clearly a super expensive option, even for watching an Atmos encoded film at home. If you only go to the theater once a month, that's still cheaper than maintaining a room with this setup.

 

Atmos basically takes the fixed channel layout of 5.1/6.1/7.1 and adds a "position" meta data. This is pretty much PC audio had been trying to do since Aureal3D.

 

Quote

A3D uses a subset of the actual in-game 3D world data to accurately model the location of both direct (A3Dspace) and reflected (A3Dverb) sound streams (A3D 2.0 can perform up to 60 first-order reflections). EAX 1.0, the competing technology at the time promoted by Creative Labs, simulated the environment with an adjustable reverb—it didn't calculate any actual reflections off the 3D surfaces.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor

 

Basically the difference between previous generations of surround sound and Atmos/HRTF is that you can program "where" the sound is supposed to be relative to the listener in 3D space. 

 

Yet, even if Microsoft implements this in the Xbox platform, unless it becomes a de-facto standard on Windows, developers won't even have access to it. So they can brag about having this feature, but it will be completely inaccessable for games, it would end up being used entirely for streaming apps.

 

[BigDamn]

Adding this to the base Xbox doesn't make any sense. If you're adding a higher-end model that comes with extra features, such as a sound card, than you have my blessing. A dedicated soundcard will make a dramatic difference compared to onboard audio when used on a proper stereo, but if you're buying a base Xbox Series X that likely won't apply to you. I personally use a soundcard in my PC and love it, and while I don't care about consoles (save for Nintendo) it's nice to see Microsoft may be using one. They just need to do it properly.

[JZStudios]

7 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

I’m talking about the numerous anecdotal reports on it working or not working or used to work but no longer works for people in this thread. My hearing has changed as I have aged, that is true.  “Deaf” is somewhat binary.

I was never an entrant here.  My point was that whether it works or doesn’t work seemed to change for some people.  If it’s a deafness problem it seems to be a very common one.  What seems to be at issue is the narrowness of the use case.  It seems to be narrower than assumed.  Not sure why.  Could be this breakage you describe.  Whether this new system fixes that breakage or not and whether that fixing will make the system effective for a given person seems to remain unknown.  My experience with “audiophile audio” is that there is a certain hokum aspect to it.  That there might also be a similar hokum aspect to “gaming audio” therefore follows.

No. It always worked, until MS broke support for it. No one ever lost the ability to hear. If you can hear sounds like a normal human being, it works. It's never stopped working for anyone. I don't know where you're getting that. It worked great until MS broke the support and Creative had some licensing issues or something. To make up for that software implementations had to be used (and they just aren't anymore) and the software implementations aren't as good as the old hardware ones.

[Bombastinator]

40 minutes ago, JZStudios said:

No. It always worked, until MS broke support for it. No one ever lost the ability to hear. If you can hear sounds like a normal human being, it works. It's never stopped working for anyone. I don't know where you're getting that. It worked great until MS broke the support and Creative had some licensing issues or something. To make up for that software implementations had to be used (and they just aren't anymore) and the software implementations aren't as good as the old hardware ones.

Here.  All of it from here. From this thread.  You seem to be claiming more or less “no it is always totally reliable and when it isn’t the person in question is defective not the system! Except when the system is defective, which it was”. Or something.  In any case there appears to be a reliability issue.

Having things not actually do what they say they do has been a standard in audio for a very long time.  This has apparently happened with 3d audio.

 

  I am merely looking at what people have said about “gaming audio” and how it works, and wondering if the reason it might produce this “used to work but now it doesn’t” feature is that it might be user age rather than coding error.

It is not so far as I have seen impossible that this standardized system used to define the human head fits fewer people than assumed, or perhaps people once fit it but age out of it.  It might be impossible.  I don’t know.  It’s also possible that this “they just broke it” thing happened.  I don’t know either.  
 

this line of discussion originally came from a claim made earlier that “audiophile audio” manufacturers should not insert snake-oil type assertions into “gaming audio” systems because gaming audio is not capable of having snake-oil in it.  I am not convinced of this.  A different sort of snake-oil perhaps, but I do not see it as being immune by definition.

[JZStudios]

1 hour ago, Bombastinator said:

Here.  All of it from here. From this thread.  You seem to be claiming more or less “no it is always totally reliable and when it isn’t the person in question is defective not the system! Except when the system is defective, which it was”. Or something.  In any case there appears to be a reliability issue.

Having things not actually do what they say they do has been a standard in audio for a very long time.  This has apparently happened with 3d audio.

 

  I am merely looking at what people have said about “gaming audio” and how it works, and wondering if the reason it might produce this “used to work but now it doesn’t” feature is that it might be user age rather than coding error.

It is not so far as I have seen impossible that this standardized system used to define the human head fits fewer people than assumed, or perhaps people once fit it but age out of it.  It might be impossible.  I don’t know.  It’s also possible that this “they just broke it” thing happened.  I don’t know either.  
 

this line of discussion originally came from a claim made earlier that “audiophile audio” manufacturers should not insert snake-oil type assertions into “gaming audio” systems because gaming audio is not capable of having snake-oil in it.  I am not convinced of this.  A different sort of snake-oil perhaps, but I do not see it as being immune by definition.

No, there was never a reliability issue. It's really exceptionally simple. Let me explain it like this;

My dad is a mechanical engineer. He uses CNC machines and does a lot of CNC work. The program he uses is old, and as such he keeps an old WinXP machine around, because the software doesn't work on Win7 and he doesn't want to pay another $8-16,000 for new software that works for Win7. He didn't lose reliability, the software didn't suddenly stop working for him, MS just moved forward with an operating system that broke compatibility. There's zero reliability issues. Nothing about CNC code, the way it works, or anything about any of it has changed. MS simply progressed forward and broke compatibility.

 

It's really, really, really simple. It's frustrating how you keep saying it's a reliability issue or that people somehow in the past 15 years have devolved in how they hear. You can still boot up a WinXP machine with the proper hardware and have it work 100%. It's a really just... fucking simple concept. Nowhere did ANYONE say that it's a reliability issue, or even insinuate as much. At best I've said that since MS broke support there's been software emulators, kind of like how there's console emulators like Dolphin and PCSX2 on the PC. Everyone is in agreement that the software emulator isn't as good as the original dedicated hardware and source code. It's a really simple concept.

 

And once again, it's not user age. We haven't devolved to a single ear in the past 15 years, it's just a technology that MS deprecated and thus died out. It's a really fucking simple concept. There's no reliability issues or "sometimes it works but not really."

 

I'd recommend you to watch this video, and if you have a PC to download the demo and check it out for yourself.

 

[JZStudios]

2 hours ago, Bombastinator said:

Here.  All of it from here. From this thread.  You seem to be claiming more or less “no it is always totally reliable and when it isn’t the person in question is defective not the system! Except when the system is defective, which it was”. Or something.  In any case there appears to be a reliability issue.

I... I don't... I honestly... I... I don't understand... where you think I said anything like that anywhere. I'm genuinely confused as to how you could've interpreted anything I've said to be like that. Like... just... at all. Nothing I said was remotely close to that.

[BlackManINC]

Man, all this interesting talk about the nuances of audio over what is apparently a rumor at best. If this proves anything, it is that I am indeed "the most interesting man in the world".