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Mark Cerny (PS5’s Lead Architect) covering HRTF & 3D Audio

MZKM

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It’s covering the whole system, but this section (40min mark) shows how serious Sony is taking audio in games.

I’m surprised this is currently #1 on trending on YouTube, as it’s not like Apple doing a Keynote for a new product, it’s simply Mark talking about how they created the PS5.
The current top comment is pretty funny:
45296DC5-1D0F-4F03-87E7-98A3470F880D.jpeg
 

Senior NEET Engineer

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This is disappointing. I'm not seeing any support for 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos or DTS:X games in their marketing.
 

pozz

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This is disappointing. I'm not seeing any support for 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos or DTS:X games in their marketing.
Atmos was decided against specifically due to its limit on amount of sound sources (which places hard limits on localization accuracy), while their Tempest engine uses object-based spatial synthesis. I haven't seen mention of DTS:X either but I assume the reasoning is the same.

Tempest is only supposed to have been optimized for headphones right now. There's unclearly-defined support for multiple types of speaker systems, where you'll do something like punching in your speaker placement and configuration into the PS5 setup menu. In any case I hope they're really serious about this direction.

It will also be interesting if Tempest will be available to the general public for use in DAWs. There're no agreed-upon conventions for how to do spatial audio for either production or playback. Object-based audio seems to be the way forward when the channel count is undefined, though the psychoacoustics of it will be very difficult (particularly spatial aliasing).
 

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Atmos was decided against specifically due to its limit on amount of sound sources (which places hard limits on localization accuracy), while their Tempest engine uses object-based spatial synthesis. I haven't seen mention of DTS:X either but I assume the reasoning is the same.

Tempest is only supposed to have been optimized for headphones right now. There's unclearly-defined support for multiple types of speaker systems, where you'll do something like punching in your speaker placement and configuration into the PS5 setup menu. In any case I hope they're really serious about this direction.

It will also be interesting if Tempest will be available to the general public for use in DAWs. There're no agreed-upon conventions for how to do spatial audio for either production or playback. Object-based audio seems to be the way forward when the channel count is undefined, though the psychoacoustics of it will be very difficult (particularly spatial aliasing).

I think you are misunderstanding "object based audio". It is a framework for one audio mix to support multiple audio configurations. Has nothing to do with sound sources in the game. Limit for sound sources in game is whatever the game engine supports. Atmos supports audio mix with base layer + 32 objects which is more than enough for home audio. The cheapest 32 channel HT processors cost $20k. Based on all their marketing material, it doesn't look like they are going to support any surround sound configuration above 7.1 (requires Atmos or equivalent). Instead they are focusing on virtual surround gimmicks with headphones, TV speakers, and soundbars. That's my concern...
 

Tup3x

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It's amazing how little progresses there has been with game audio. Things have gone backwards... HRTF audio was a thing when DirectSound hardware acceleration was working ages ago. Unfortunately that got axed in Vista. Some OpenAL games had good implementations like Mirror's Edge that supported hardware acceleration and you could hear the height difference too. HRTF Audio processing and offloading should make a comeback for PC.
 

maverickronin

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It's amazing how little progresses there has been with game audio. Things have gone backwards... HRTF audio was a thing when DirectSound hardware acceleration was working ages ago. Unfortunately that got axed in Vista. Some OpenAL games had good implementations like Mirror's Edge that supported hardware acceleration and you could hear the height difference too. HRTF Audio processing and offloading should make a comeback for PC.

And now Microsoft rents ad space in your volume tray icon context menu for various half-assed ways to bring it back.

Luckily I can take solace in the fact that most of the games I play wouldn't actually benefit much from virtual surround with HRTF. If I was into FPS's or something I'd definitely be bitter about how much potential was being left at the table.
 

bradjiman

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It’s covering the whole system, but this section (40min mark) shows how serious Sony is taking audio in games.

I’m surprised this is currently #1 on trending on YouTube, as it’s not like Apple doing a Keynote for a new product, it’s simply Mark talking about how they created the PS5.
The current top comment is pretty funny:
View attachment 54971
This is disappointing. I'm not seeing any support for 7.1.4 Dolby Atmos or DTS:X games in their marketing.
 

bboris77

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So, the PS5 reveal was yesterday and still no information on whether it will include the Toslink output. All that was obvious from the video is that the console includes 2 USB ports on its front panel - a standard USB-A port and an USB-C jack. There were no shots of the back of the console. I know that they are playing some kind of poker game with Microsoft so they are being very tight on disclosing information but it really sucks for us audiophiles who also like to play games.

I really hope we will not have to resort to using HDMI extractors to connect to our DACs. Maybe it is time to test a few of these. Sigh.
 
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