Lets talk about AMD TrueAudio

L

LaCuNa

Limp Gawd
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Jun 3, 2014
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Hello Hard members!

AMD_True_Audio-pcgh.jpg


Well i've got 2 290'xs i'm using at the moment. Been a long time Nvidia fan ever since ATi dropped the ball after the 9800pro (godly).

So far, I like the 290x's. I think they will become even more powerful over time because of things like mantle optimization in games. Let's keep in mind these next gen consoles are all built with AMD hardware, hint hint.

Anyways, TrueAudio is a set of hardware DSP's on these graphics card PCB's. Essentially in a sense, a hardware soundcard tacked on to the GPU PCB.

Supposedly game developers which have tested it have praised it highly (read up on Thief & Trueaudio support). Personally, I haven't played Thief.

I'm wondering about the prospects of this technology. Anybody know the snR of this DSP? I've been thinking about buying a new creative ZX series, but want to know the possibilities of this Trueaudios DSP first. For example, would it be able to run my Winamp and power my MP3's with clarity?

I know this is early tech, thoughts?

Good day :)
 
Um, we kind of need to know how you are hearing the sound? Like headphones or speakers. What kind. How many?
 
spaceman said:
Um, we kind of need to know how you are hearing the sound? Like headphones or speakers. What kind. How many?
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I'm talking about the prospects of the embedded DSP's dubbed Trueaudio, and embedded in these newer ATI cards. I currently have not really used these DSP's yet, nor really know if there's any dedicated software/drivers out yet.

This thread is about speculation, &/or facts, and discussion:)
 
I've looked at several of the demos they've had in the past. Quite interesting. In terms of 3D-positioning, it's much better than the traditional left-right panning, which sounded artificial. When the sound source is hard-panned to the left, your right ear hears absolutely nothing and that can be disorienting and unnatural (see HRTF). Many games simply plop down area-based sound filters in several locations. There are no simulated sound waves in the game that interact with the environment. Someday that'll change, hopefully.
 
brncao said:
I've looked at several of the demos they've had in the past. Quite interesting. In terms of 3D-positioning, it's much better than the traditional left-right panning, which sounded artificial. When the sound source is hard-panned to the left, your right ear hears absolutely nothing and that can be disorienting and unnatural (see HRTF). Many games simply plop down area-based sound filters in several locations. There are no simulated sound waves in the game that interact with the environment. Someday that'll change, hopefully.
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That's cool man, any links to those videos by chance? :)
 
AMD TrueAudio is definitely interesting and I'm very excited for it. But I don't think it will actually see much adoption by being limited to just a few select AMD video cards. What's even worse is that the R9-280 series doesn't have it, and that's pretty much the budget performance card for AMD at the moment. But I personally don't want to be locked into being only able to get AMD for TrueAudio. I'd rather this be a separate sound card, in my opinion.
 
There really isn't that much interest in gaming audio, which TrueAudio seems to be designed for, and add on to it that game developers likely don't want to have to QA test for something else and the number of cards supporting TrueAudio is very small, I'm not optimistic that it'll take off.

I think that TrueAudio's primary selling point was that it is supposed to alleviate audio processing load from the CPU but is that really a problem these days? Hardware-accelerated audio died years ago and now we have audio middleware like Wwise or FMOD that does all of the math and effects for game audio on our powerful multi-core CPUs and since that software is CPU-based it doesn't require any specific configuration to work correctly and gives us one less point of failure.
 
djoye said:
There really isn't that much interest in gaming audio, which TrueAudio seems to be designed for, and add on to it that game developers likely don't want to have to QA test for something else and the number of cards supporting TrueAudio is very small, I'm not optimistic that it'll take off.

I think that TrueAudio's primary selling point was that it is supposed to alleviate audio processing load from the CPU but is that really a problem these days? Hardware-accelerated audio died years ago and now we have audio middleware like Wwise or FMOD that does all of the math and effects for game audio on our powerful multi-core CPUs and since that software is CPU-based it doesn't require any specific configuration to work correctly and gives us one less point of failure.
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I do not agree with this statement at all. Why? Like i said, all these next gen consoles are using AMD hardware, they also have hardware DSP's ----> READ
http://www.anandtech.com/show/7513/ps4-spec-update-audio-dsp-is-based-on-amds-trueaudio
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=715035

Now, back on topic. Because these next gen consoles have this technology, atleast the PS4 does and it blows away the XBOX performance wise, and units-to-date sold wise, and because these newer ATI cards have it, yes indeed we will be seeing this adopted across many games now. It may take time, but it will happen. These hardware components will be used. Both Xbox and PS4 are AMD hardware based, get it? Programmers/designers will use this tech, because at the end of the day it will allow for higher game performance (FPS, higher dedicated memory available), and also a noticeable improvement in the end-result for players & sound quality & immersion. Immersion....immersion = getting a player immersed into a game can make the difference between them giving up in 5 minutes and playing another title, or waiting it out, actually enjoying the game and continuing to play it.

If you think high quality positional audio, with reverb like effects, in a game with a bunch of actions happening at once (especially multiplayer/ MMO games), are easy to process by a CPU, you don't know much at all about audio and/or quality.
 
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I'm still waiting for this, seems it will reach some games soon , i wonder if there will be some way to get it functioning with music players, like a specific DSP or codec that enables trueaudio support
 
Lots of talk but nothing using it.
I hope something uses it before my next gfx card upgrade.

ps
its not a soundcard, its a DSP only.
The gfx card has no audio DAC.

pps
Regarding the CPU use comparison...
Current CPU load for audio is very low because there is hardly any DSPing in order to keep the CPU load low.
If TrueAudio gets used it will allow for much higher signal processing complexity without loading the CPU and hopefully minimal impact on GPU use for gfx.
Its pointless saying that CPU load for audio is low so there there is no need to pass the load to the gfx card, because that comparison is for 2 entirely different results.
 
Well its still possible without a dac , it just means a different hardware setup path.

What about quality ?
 
A soundcard is where the DAC is situated.
The DAC and analogue circuits define the sound quality.

You wouldnt call a CPU a soundcard.
Yet that effectively can do the same thing as TrueAudio but isnt best suited for the job.
So TrueAudio is not a soundcard, its just a DSP, similar to the CPU.
 
I still can't wrap my head around how something like true audio would ever have any benefit for myself with an internal sound card, since i would always feed off my creative card. But i admit theirs a lot i don't understand with this tech...is this mainly for people with out sound cards?:) Course i never understood people who purchase usb speakers/headset with high end sound cards since you can only use one or the other:D
 
When you send audio from a gfx card, its your AV receiver/processor or TV that becomes the soundcard because that is where the DAC and analogue circuits are.
This does away with the need for a sound card.

If you have a high quality AV processor or very high quality AV amp (built in processor + DAC), you can beat the analogue out quality of the best soundcards.
But you will pay a fair bit for the privilege and many have limits on the different bitrates and highest bitrates that can be used. The latter doesnt matter for games, but can for high res multichannel music and movies.
Decent soundcards are good value for the quality you get, but they are limited in their processing power.

AMD are looking to put high precision environmental effects back into game audio, but this will only be available via HDMI/DVI/DP and for now only a few gfx cards have it.
Instead of loading the CPU with the task, the gfx card will do it.
It should be a higher quality version of EAX and perhaps more effects that are easily programmed.
Using the gfx card is the better choice because...

CPUs are good for general processing but are not the best for stream processing.
It would make CPU occupancy creep up quite a lot for just a small increase in quality or more effects.
The slower the CPU, the worse the hit.
GFX cards are stream processors with a ton of processor units that are extremely fast.
Dedicating a few of these to audio wont harm framerates much.

But if you have a decent soundcard and only want to use audio out from that, its an annoyance because you cant use True Audio.

Thats basically it, programmers have got to use it or its pointless.
Early days though.
 
No reason TrueAudio can't do a bunch of DSP - 100% offloaded - & stream digital 5.1 to your card.

(Imagine TA feeding Soundblaster Z output device. Z encodes Dolby Headphone.)

So long as devices can talk the format(s), digital audio has a lot of flexibility.
 
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