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[A-V-B]

I'm honestly surprised no-one's done this yet.

There's gotta be some previous working attempts at this in games. Can anyone think?

There absolutely was. It was a brand new burgeoning industry in the 90's. Aureal's sound cards were the spearhead.

Then Creative sued them. Creative lost, but the legal payments bankrupted Aureal, and Creative bought Aureal's intellectual property and shelved it. 3D Audio died.


A3D test program:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-oSlbyLAksM


Unreal Tournament using A3D:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U38uTnbarqk

 

[Lister]

I'm honestly surprised no-one's done this yet.

There's gotta be some previous working attempts at this in games. Can anyone think?

This was the kind of stuff being done back in the glory days of hardware accelerated PC game audio. Then it died.

 

[KainXVIII]

Still remembering (and using sometimes) Creative EAX, good times 😄

 

[Prophet Steve]

Oh cool, I might be going to try this out. At least Valve doesn't care too much where you use their tools with. I'm a bit surprised they want to be accredited for it, but that's a small effort.

 

[Lister]

Can I finally get rid of my sound blaster live! card?

Presumably you were also using it for it's quality DAC and possibly AMP and not just DSP 7.1 virtual surround. So no

 

[Compsiox]

This was the kind of stuff being done back in the glory days of hardware accelerated PC game audio. Then it died.

It died due to a monopoly correct?

 

[Lister]

It died due to a monopoly correct?

Number of factors, IMHO. As mentioned above, some crappy legal action to squalsh competition, the movement towards OpenAL on Windows too.

 

[SirMossyBloke]

As long as this doesn't require for me to downgrade to headphones instead of a home theatre system I'm happy. I know binaural requires headphones but it's still in early stages and doesn't sound that good yet.

 

[Lister]

As long as this doesn't require for me to downgrade to headphones instead of a home theatre system I'm happy. I know binaural requires headphones but it's still in early stages and doesn't sound that good yet.

3D audio with headphones >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 7.1 surround sound speaker setup.

Atmos, would change that equation. But either way you're still getting low latency, real time physics based sound, which should be awesome on headphones or out.

 

[Easy_D]

So, would this have any benefit for non-VR games, besides CSGO (apparently)?

Literally any game will benefit from this. The immersion boost will be insane even if you're just looking at a 2D screen. Like BF3's positional audio was fucking great, hearing a chopper coming up behind you in a way that made your neckhairs stand was super cool.shame it was suddenly shit in BF4 :/

 

[SirMossyBloke]

3D audio with headphones >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> 7.1 surround sound speaker setup.

Atmos, would change that equation. But either way you're still getting low latency, real time physics based sound, which should be awesome on headphones or out.

The 3D audio in its current stages isn't even close to a home theatre, especially frequency response.

 

[maniac-kun]

Will they patch it in cs:go?

 

[jmga]

Wouldn't this same system be able to render audio to an undefined number of speakers? At least in theory.

 

[Krosia]

Will they patch it in cs:go?

They did in december 2016. Over two months ago. Also pretty buggy till today

 

[maniac-kun]

They did in december 2016. Over two months ago.

How do you activate it?

 

[Krosia]

How do you activate it?

Go in audio options and use HRTF headphone settings. Should be automatically set up, but maybe not.

 

[Arkanius]

3D AUDIO IS FINALLY COMING BACK

AWWW YISSS

Will I be able to retire my X-Fi Titanium and just use an external DAC one day? We shall see...

 

[mattwhite924]

It died due to a monopoly correct?

Vista on forward killed off hardware accelerated audio in it's previous form. There's some ways to still get EAX running, but for the most part that killed it.

 

[JSoup]

Valve is always winning. Do they ever get bored of winning?

Given the state of Steam OS, I'd assume so.

 

[Lister]

The 3D audio in its current stages isn't even close to a home theatre, especially frequency response.

Not sure what you mean. Frequency response is a function of your headset or speakers, not 3D audio.

3D audio is about positioning audio sources accurately in a sphericla sound stage aorund you. When a helicopter flies over you it will sound slike it's coming fromt he right direction, going on top of you, etc. Same thing for sounds all around you in a full 360 degree arc and below and above you.

You can't replicate that with 7.1 speakers. Not only that but many sources will split up the channels in such a way as to not even give you an acurate positional cue but will instead just be routed to the nearest positional speaker! (mind you good surround wouldn't do that.

 

[Akronis]

3D AUDIO IS FINALLY COMING BACK

AWWW YISSS

Will I be able to retire my X-Fi Titanium and just use an external DAC one day? We shall see...

The X7 has SBX built in for surround sound and it's external. Unless I'm confusing SBX surround processing for something else. Thought they were the same thing.

 

[SirMossyBloke]

Not sure what you mean. Frequency response is a function of your headset or speakers, not 3D audio.

3D audio is about positioning audio sources accurately in a sphericla sound stage aorund you. When a helicopter flies over you it will sound slike it's coming fromt he right direction, going on top of you, etc. Same thing for sounds all around you in a full 360 degree arc and below and above you.

You can't replicate that with 7.1 speakers. Not only that but many sources will split up the channels in such a way as to not even give you an acurate positional cue but will instead just be routed to the nearest positional speaker! (mind you good surround wouldn't do that.

I was a little confusing there. I meant based on speakers vs headphone for frequency response, for the average Joe anyway. I've heard a lot of 3D audio over the years and while the technology is exciting it's not there yet. One day for sure, but the positional audio isn't accurate enough yet.

 

[TylerDurden4321]

Could that be used by racing games instead of f-mod?
Could it sound better?

 

[The Lamonster]

So is this just going to be automatically applied to Steam games?

I don't have to enable it manually or install anything extra?

 

[Philly40]

Valve is always winning. Do they ever get bored of winning?

They get bored of winning occasionally, that's why they tend to lose a few of those anti-consumer court cases.

 

[Lister]

I was a little confusing there. I meant based on speakers vs headphone for frequency response, for the average Joe anyway. I've heard a lot of 3D audio over the years and while the technology is exciting it's not there yet. One day for sure, but the positional audio isn't accurate enough yet.

3D audio in games is few and far between, so I doubt you've heard much of it.

 

[Krosia]

I could be wrong, but I doubt any of thoe games do physics based 3D audio.
.

3D audio is about positioning audio sources accurately in a sphericla sound stage aorund you. When a helicopter flies over you it will sound slike it's coming fromt he right direction, going on top of you, etc. Same thing for sounds all around you in a full 360 degree arc and below and above you.

Overwatch calculates audio reflections in all directions based on distance between source and reflection point. Say you stay next to a wall on your left and the wall on the right is 50 meters away, then the audio relection will come quickly from the left and after some delay from the right. Plus obstruction/occlusion, changing audio mix based on materials (glas/stone/wood etc) and so on and so on. You can easily pinpoint every sound in Overwatch.

3D Audio is in Battlefield since forever, at least left/right/front/back. The game had issues till BF4 with sound above and below you, so its very hard on certain maps to say if the enemy is on the roof or in the cellar, but BF1 fixed that issue too. Also the game calculates travel distance for sounds and delays them physically correct.

 

[Maniac]

Exciting. :3

Edit: If we get aureal-level binaural audio as a standard... I'll be happy.

Physics-based sound propagation is a thing I'd... Love to have in so very, very many first person games. That shit could be good in RE7.

 

[Lister]

So is this just going to be automatically applied to Steam games?

I don't have to enable it manually or install anything extra?

This will need ot implemented into the game engine. It's not someting you add on your end.

 

[Lister]

Overwatch calculates audio reflections in all directions based on distance between source and reflection point. Say you stay next to a wall on your left and the wall on the right is 50 meters away, then the audio relection will come quickly from the left and after some delay from the right. Plus obstruction/occlusion, changing audio mix based on materials (glas/stone/wood etc) and so on and so on. You can easily pinpoint every sound in Overwatch.

3D Audio is in Battlefield since forever, at least left/right/front/back. The game had issues till BF4 with sound above and below you, so its very hard on certain maps to say if the enemy is on the roof or in the cellar, but BF1 fixed that issue too. Also the game calculates travel distance for sounds and delays them physically correct.

That's impressive and I wonder why the hell no one talks about that.

however:

3D Audio is in Battlefield since forever, at least left/right/front/back.

This is not 3D sound.

Just read up on Overwatch, it looks like they use a Dolby Atmos solution for HRTF. I gues sI have to pick up thie game afterall. Must check it out.

 

[Krosia]

That's impressive and I wonder why the hell no one talks about that.

Here is a GDC talk of the Blizzard audio guys:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1023317/Overwatch-The-Elusive-Goal-Play

Don't know if anything like that exists from DICE.

 

[A-V-B]

Here is a GDC talk of the Blizzard audio guys:

http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1023317/Overwatch-The-Elusive-Goal-Play

Don't know if anything like that exists from DICE.

I tried 3D audio in Overwatch. It was decent, but it still felt like kind of a half-measure. Sound got muddier, for one.

 

[madjoki]

Sounds awesome (literally). Hopefully many games start using this.

 

[Krosia]

I tried 3D audio in Overwatch. It was decent, but it still felt like kind of a half-measure. Sound got muddier, for one.

That is with all 3D audio solutions, Valves HRTF has the same issue in CS:GO. You lose audio quality, but hey at least you gain the 3D effect. And that is pretty huge.

 

[Lister]

I tried 3D audio in Overwatch. It was decent, but it still felt like kind of a half-measure. Sound got muddier, for one.

Are you using open ear or closed ear headsets? 'cause those make a big difference.

 

[The Lamonster]

Overwatch 3D audio (Dolby Atmos) is headphones only, btw.

and yeah, open headphones are always going to provide the widest soundstage which is ideal for gaming.

 

[SatelliteOfLove]

Gimme that Good Sound.

Great SFX is constantly overlooked.

 

[Twookie]

so this is completely free? damn

I guess the "catch" is you have to release whatever you use this in on steam?

 

[Durante]

Plenty of games do good audio occlusion / obstruction.

I think that's overstating it a bit. Most games (that aren't extremely high profile) don't seem to do physical occlusion at all, or do it very poorly.

I assume that is because there was no easily integrated free solution for that available, so this is very welcome.

Of course, it's doubly welcome in a VR context!

So is this just going to be automatically applied to Steam games?

No. It's middleware that developers can use for free.

 

[Melon Husk]

Oh, it's this: https://www.impulsonic.com/
The Unity plugin doc even says phonon_manual.pdf


edit: They have more demos: Phonon 3D Cemetery Demo. Plenty of old stuff.

edit2: Their year-old Unity tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCoU744rzVY

 

[Parsnip]

Some hot beats in the example videos.

 

[Kthulhu]

Valve is always winning. Do they ever get bored of winning?

Well they haven't made a game in awhile, so yes.

 

[Compsiox]

Oh, it's this: https://www.impulsonic.com/
The Unity plugin doc even says phonon_manual.pdf


edit: They have more demos: Phonon 3D Cemetery Demo. Plenty of old stuff.

edit2: Their year-old Unity tutorial https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fCoU744rzVY

This time in the cemetery video showcases this tech in the best way:
https://youtu.be/9lprZmOgU-E?t=42

 

[Nzyme32]

Nice, guess that purchase is in there. Also looks like they'll have wide compatibility soon enough. UE4 integration with their thing is being shown at GDC apparently.

If you scream, will Steam support hear it?

Apparently (says Valve in their latest interview), Steam support should get to you within 24hrs. I wonder if that is true. Not used it since October 2015, which took 2 days.

 

[Durante]

Yeah, the Unity manual also mentions that:

This chapter explains how to use Steam Audio with Unity. It assumes that you are using Unity's built-in audio engine. Support for other game engines like Unreal Engine and other audio engines like FMOD Studio and Audiokinetic Wwise will be available soon.

 

[Mosse]

Nice, guess that purchase is in there. Also looks like they'll have wide compatibility soon enough. UE4 integration with their thing is being shown at GDC apparently.

Apparently (says Valve in their latest interview), Steam support should get to you within 24hrs. I wonder if that is true. Not used it since October 2015, which took 2 days.

Nice! Can't wait to test it when it's out for UE4 and Fmod/Wwise

 

[Compsiox]

Nice! Can't wait to test it when it's out for UE4 and Fmod/Wwise

I hope switching over will be nearly as easy as flicking a switch. Every game needs this right now.

 

[XiaNaphryz]

I hope switching over will be nearly as easy as flicking a switch. Every game needs this right now.

Integrations rarely go that smoothly. At the very least, it will require more time from audio designers iterating/tweaking on a per-level/environment basis, as well as extra time needed for QA/testing. At least for any competent studio.

 

[Mosse]

I hope switching over will be nearly as easy as flicking a switch. Every game needs this right now.

Yeah, good 3d audio is amazing and one of the reason VR is so cool. I've played around a few times with a binaural head to record some binaural sound. And if we can get better and easier ways to get similar result through audio middleware in games, then that would be fantastic.

 

[FairXchange]

I've got a pretty nice audio set up on PC, so I'm looking forward to hearing this technology implemented in games.