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Durango: Sound of Tomorrow (VGleaks)

While in the foreground, an application has full access to the SHAPE hardware. When that application is pushed to the background—pinned, picture-in-picture, or other scenarios—it relinquishes hardware control. By default, its hardware state is suspended, and resumes when the title returns to the foreground.

Did we have info on multitasking examples before ?
Also, that's a big amount of hardware dedicated to audio indeed.
 
The more interesting bit to me was the little tidbit about OS management of running software and ways in which software can be suspended etc.

Audio and the Durango App Model

While in the foreground, an application has full access to the SHAPE hardware. When that application is pushed to the background—pinned, picture-in-picture, or other scenarios—it relinquishes hardware control. By default, its hardware state is suspended, and resumes when the title returns to the foreground. This also is true for Exclusive Resource Applications [ERAs] where the software graph is suspended.

edit - beaten by Alx
 
I doubt the sound hardware will be terribly interesting. I mean, you have 5.1 audio. What else do you need? Sound is more limited by the speakers you use than anything.
 
The Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT) and DirectSound are not supported in the Durango environment.

So DirectX is slowly fading away.

No, more of the functionality that was previously relegated to libraries in Direct<Moniker> is being homogenized in DirectX. DirectX has audio facilities separate from DirectAudio.
Oh! Thanks for clarifying :)


Xbox Infinity powered by Beats Audio
:lol that's would be funny :D
 
So DirectX is slowly fading away.

No, more of the functionality that was previously relegated to libraries in Direct<Moniker> is being homogenized in DirectX. DirectX has audio facilities separate from DirectAudio.

Edit: Nvm, Audio has been moved to the Universal Audio Architecture.
 
Durango&#8217;s audio output pipeline eliminates the DAC (digital-to-analog converter) found in previous generation consoles. All audio is output strictly in the digital realm either through HDMI 1.4a or as S/PDIF optical output.

no analog out? I imagine this means no analog video too (though not necessarily)
 
so how may GDDR5s is that exactly, out of 8

But seriously, how does this stack up against Sony's counterpart? Pretty sure the PS4 is supposed to have a component with similar functions, but I don't suppose we have as much detail.
 
I read that sound uses a surprisingly amount of resources. Halo 4 for example had severely low music volume...probably to offset from the better graphics...
 
So DirectX is slowly fading away.


Oh! Thanks for clarifying :)



:lol that's would be funny :D

Direct anything or XNA anything is being rolled directly into Windows now. They are just killing all the branding names. The functionality still exists.
 
I think they support mp3?
"Additional audio formats&#8212;for instance, MP3 or OGG&#8212;for game assets can be provided through title or middleware software codecs running on a CPU."
In short, it doesn't support mp3 in hardware. Obviously, a program can decode them in software and output the decoded audio. Not a big deal, really. It already supports custom codecs in hardware for game use.

I guess the short version of this is that there's nothing special in the Durango's audio support, it just won't require any CPU to run any of it. I suspect most of what it does is already handled by modern game engines, but current systems have to burn some CPU to use it. And there's no analog output.


I doubt the sound hardware will be terribly interesting. I mean, you have 5.1 audio. What else do you need? Sound is more limited by the speakers you use than anything.
We could have binaural modeling for headphone users which would be amazing with modern hardware. That's the main thing I was hoping for, but Creative Labs is still probably shitting on the patents.
 
Browsed through the link, didn't see anything really special, but there is a lot of jargon inside, so it may have just went over my head.

Okay, but do you see why it's a bit strange to post in a thread saying "I doubt [the topic] is interesting" ?
 
Usually how much of processor load an AAA game generates on audio alone?
Just to people know how much flops could be saved with this (or not).
 
Okay, but do you see why it's a bit strange to post in a thread saying "I doubt [the topic] is interesting" ?

I am just saying that I doubt there is anything particularly new or interesting you can do with sound tech in general. I don't think that is a controversial statement, and I don't see anything wrong? If someone more knowldgeable can point out that I am wrong, well great.
 
But seriously, how does this stack up against Sony's counterpart? Pretty sure the PS4 is supposed to have a component with similar functions, but I don't suppose we have as much detail.

I don't think we've had precise information on the audio hardware of the PS4, but I remember reading here a comment from an insider (yeah I know) about how the 720 had a surprising amount of hardware dedicated to sound processing (hence my comment above). So it may be reasonable to think that Sony has less dedicated hardware for such tasks, with a more conventional architecture.

Usually how much of processor load an AAA game generates on audio alone?
Just to people know how much flops could be saved with this (or not).

up to one third of the CPU, IIRC.
 
While in the foreground, an application has full access to the SHAPE hardware. When that application is pushed to the background—pinned, picture-in-picture, or other scenarios—it relinquishes hardware control. By default, its hardware state is suspended, and resumes when the title returns to the foreground. This also is true for Exclusive Resource Applications [ERAs] where the software graph is suspended.

This is interesting.
 
The Microsoft Cross-Platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT) and DirectSound are not supported in the Durango environment. Titles that previously used these technologies should consider the solutions identified above, or use approved Durango audio middleware options.

More copy and paste from their SDK docs I see. VGAleaks is running dry, audio stuff is not very exciting.
 
I am just saying that I doubt there is anything particularly new or interesting you can do with sound tech in general. I don't think that is a controversial statement, and I don't see anything wrong? If someone more knowldgeable can point out that I am wrong, well great.

Like I said, binaural support would be a huge step up for anyone with stereo speakers really, but especially headphones. Also, hardware accelerated wavetracing of echoes like the Aureal 3.0 soundcards were doing a decade ago would be huge. Some modern game engines will do the wavetracing I think, but obviously with a big CPU hit.
 
This is more about dedicated hardware that takes load away from the cpu as in typical hardware situations.

Shows not only the powerful tool but how the power in the box is spread out to separate processors
 
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