AMD True Audio

[GoogalyMoogaly]

I can't imagine this audio system will be all that important in Thief or it would give the few people that actually have it an advantage over those that don't.
There will have to be some way for everyone else to tell where something/someone is surely? Making this a nicety, much like PhysX or 3D display (although as said, I'm not that bothered about those either).

I'll give it a try as I got the game free, but neither Mantle nor TruAudio would be enough to make me buy the game otherwise.

 

[LtMatt]

AMD TrueAudio with Genaudio + HD Oculus

 

[SiDeards73]

Thought if better post this here

http://www.maximumpc.com/everything_you_wanted_know_about_amd’s_new_trueaudio_technology_2013

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

One of the reasons they've done this is that apparently there's not much CPU power left to do audio effects. Isn't Mantle supposed to help with that?
If that's the case, doesn't Mantle eliminate or reduce the problem that True Audio solves? And Mantle is usable by more people than True Audio.

Also, does True Audio take up any graphics processing power? Does it mean a higher power draw from the card than 'normal'? Does it produce more heat?

I think it's a pity that it wasn't done as a separate add in card, even if it was only usable on systems with AMD graphics (due to having to use the graphics driver to bypass DirectX Audio limitations and Nvidia drivers not playing nice).

Does annoy me a bit that I paid money for this feature that I don't even need or even want. I can't believe it's free, so must add some cost to the graphics card, unless AMD really do care about the end consumer and it's provided free (thus incuring a loss for AMD. What am I saying, AMD don't make a profit on any of thier stuff do they? They're just doing it to make things better for us. I'm guessing they barely cover costs...).

And yes, I've thought the same thing about PhysX in my Nvidia days.

 

[Rroff]

One of the reasons they've done this is that apparently there's not much CPU power left to do audio effects. Isn't Mantle supposed to help with that?
If that's the case, doesn't Mantle eliminate or reduce the problem that True Audio solves? And Mantle is usable by more people than True Audio.

Also, does True Audio take up any graphics processing power? Does it mean a higher power draw from the card than 'normal'? Does it produce more heat?

I think it's a pity that it wasn't done as a separate add in card, even if it was only usable on systems with AMD graphics (due to having to use the graphics driver to bypass DirectX Audio limitations and Nvidia drivers not playing nice).

Does annoy me a bit that I paid money for this feature that I don't even need or even want. I can't believe it's free, so must add some cost to the graphics card, unless AMD really do care about the end consumer and it's provided free (thus incuring a loss for AMD. What am I saying, AMD don't make a profit on any of thier stuff do they? They're just doing it to make things better for us. I'm guessing they barely cover costs...).

And yes, I've thought the same thing about PhysX in my Nvidia days.

TBH its one of the few things AMD has done that I'm quite interested in - though still not convinced they will support it through to actually being a mainstream product when properly done the difference to the sound is massive - I'm probably one of a very few people who got to experience the version of Aureal 3d where it not only did the binaural stuff but also used the level geometry and surface "material" properties to process the sounds being played i.e. eax style stuff but done in realtime in reaction to the world rather than environment presets - its really immersive when properly done.

 

[drunkenmaster]

Separate add in card means no one would buy it. It has always been the case, always, hardware drivers software support.

The key to trueaudio is getting it into as many devices as possible. It's a dsp, an arm chip is full of them, fixed function hardware is stupidly efficient making it exceptionally power efficient compared to done in software. if it uses more than 2W i'd be surprised, it doesn't take any gpu processing.

As for Mantle reducing cpu overhead, the general idea is you replace this spare cpu usage with something new, that is the way of software, use what you have. Don't forget that current audio can use anything from 5-10% of your cpu time, add in reverb and this would significantly increase. People will not add in reverb and other processor intensive effects because it would suck too much cpu power, offloading it both reduces cpu load to effectively nothing, saving 10% cpu, this is just more spare cpu power that can be dedicated in the near future to more complex games.

In terms of say Star Citizen this will already directly lead to bigger scale battles in higher frame rates. Even the 12 core cpu with Mantle eventually runs out of headroom, offload another 10% of cpu usage and that is 10% usage that can go directly into the engine.

Everything starts off with little support, dx10, physx, tessellation. If AMD weren't pushing Tessellation for the 4 years before it took off, it would have taken even longer, this is how software works. Trueaudio in every gaming oriented APU and every new discrete card into the future means a huge install base in only a couple years, especially considering the probably 15+ million PS4's sold by the end of next year.

The DSP is likely sub 5mm2, likely makes exceptionally little difference in price/yields/heat/power, but by sticking it everywhere we get an install base that software developers WILL target. If it was in a few add on cards people could choose not to buy, wouldn't spend the extra on and wouldn't use it, then software developers would never get around to trying to improve audio.

It's the way the industry works. How long after Nvidia and AMD had dx10 cards out did we get as standard most games being released with a dx10 or 11 version? How long after hardware tessellation was available did it get support(as a hint, there is a tessellation unit in the AMD gpu in the 360, and then the 2900 XT, and everything since).

Hardware manufacturers willing to support things early to push the industry is how we get these things moving.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

TBH its one of the few things AMD has done that I'm quite interested in - though still not convinced they will support it through to actually being a mainstream product when properly done the difference to the sound is massive - I'm probably one of a very few people who got to experience the version of Aureal 3d where it not only did the binaural stuff but also used the level geometry and surface "material" properties to process the sounds being played i.e. eax style stuff but done in realtime in reaction to the world rather than environment presets - its really immersive when properly done.

I think the thing stopping me, like I've said before, is that there is seemingly a requirement to wear headphones. I don't want to do that when gaming. I put up with it for voice comms, but prefer to play without. It's the same for 3D graphics, yeah they're nice, but I don't want to have to wear the glasses while I'm playing.

 

[Rroff]

Ah - yeah it needs headphones to work, doing the same with speakers is extremely difficult.

 

[drunkenmaster]

TBH its one of the few things AMD has done that I'm quite interested in - though still not convinced they will support it through to actually being a mainstream product when properly done the difference to the sound is massive - I'm probably one of a very few people who got to experience the version of Aureal 3d where it not only did the binaural stuff but also used the level geometry and surface "material" properties to process the sounds being played i.e. eax style stuff but done in realtime in reaction to the world rather than environment presets - its really immersive when properly done.

PS4 will help, though it's also worth remembering how most people listen to console games. I'm not entirely convinced that tv speakers will be the best showcase for it. But those who do use a decent speaker setup could well see a vast improvement, and headsets, honestly I've never used a headset/headphones with console, but many do. If it improves audio in fps's in which many gamers are already using headphones, there is an good chance for the better experience to drive people to game with headphones more or get speakers that will work with it.

What will definitely help is if the first few games have particularly good audio and everyone talks about it, pushing people to get headsets on consoles(because that will easily be the quickest install base) to experience better sound, which drives developer enthusiasm to support better audio.

In fact I think the PS4 will be the main driving factor because, cpu audio power on PC's isn't particularly critical on most cpu's, particularly with poor DX threading and lead threads in game engines. but on the PS4, on a cpu at, I forget tbh, 1.6-1.7Ghz and not epic single thread performance, offloading all the sound to a dsp is both power efficient and better for performance.

There is a lot less spare performance on a console, so the drive to offload every last bit they can is much higher.

 

[humbug]

One of the reasons they've done this is that apparently there's not much CPU power left to do audio effects. Isn't Mantle supposed to help with that?
If that's the case, doesn't Mantle eliminate or reduce the problem that True Audio solves? And Mantle is usable by more people than True Audio.

This will also help to reduce CPU overhead, thats the point

Also, does True Audio take up any graphics processing power? Does it mean a higher power draw from the card than 'normal'? Does it produce more heat?

No, it does not take up any Graphics processing power, its a separate chip to the GPU, its dedicated just for Audio

I think it's a pity that it wasn't done as a separate add in card, even if it was only usable on systems with AMD graphics (due to having to use the graphics driver to bypass DirectX Audio limitations and Nvidia drivers not playing nice).

A separate add in card creates more clutter in the rig, and some pepole don't have room or available slots for extra cards. a separate add in card is a bad idea.

Does annoy me a bit that I paid money for this feature that I don't even need or even want. I can't believe it's free, so must add some cost to the graphics card, unless AMD really do care about the end consumer and it's provided free (thus incuring a loss for AMD. What am I saying, AMD don't make a profit on any of thier stuff do they? They're just doing it to make things better for us. I'm guessing they barely cover costs...).

Thats a bit hyperbolic.

Its not going to be free to AMD, but thats a far cry from it causing the GPU to be loss making.
Incidentally, the GTX 780/TI has a die size of 560mm^2, the 290/X is 430mm^2, it costs Nvidia a lot more in wafer costs per GK110 GPU than it does AMD per Hawaii.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

Separate add in card means no one would buy it.

Which suggests to me that nobody really wants it.
I've got onboard audio, but I bought a soundcard because I wanted one. If I wanted True Audio, why wouldn't I buy that?
Hell, AMD are such good guys, they could just give them away for free!

Trueaudio in every gaming oriented APU and every new discrete card into the future means a huge install base in only a couple years

So all new Nvidia cards are getting it too? That will make it much more practical than the 3 models which have it today...


On a side note, it's interesting that there are reports of the XB1 and PS4 having this or similar systems in place as I don't imagine many console gamers use stereo headphones, which seem to be a requirement of the technology. Maybe that's just me...

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

No, it does not take up any Graphics processing power, its a separate chip to the GPU, its dedicated just for Audio

From the link SiDeards73 posted:

the AMD TrueAudio block is 100 percent integrated into the die of the graphics chip.

A separate add in card creates more clutter in the rig, and some pepole don't have room or available slots for extra cards. a separate add in card is a bad idea.

And some people do and some people would prefer the option of not having something they wont use (i.e. me!).

Its not going to be free to AMD, but thats a far cry from it causing the GPU to be loss making.

I didn't mean the card would be loss making, I meant that if AMD weren't charging me for the DSP tech, then including it would be done at their cost.

 

[drunkenmaster]

If we're going to be pedantic to make some silly point, it's far more than 3 models, all Kaveri models have it, I honestly don't know which became available straight away, which were launched and which are incoming(as cpu launches often list everything coming but with varying availability dates), so it's at least a few more chips, another one when you consider it's shipped was it 4.2million chips in PS4's by was it xmas or the new year.

I like how you cut out the quote about how general support for hardware features happen.

If people ONLY bought hardware with features currently existing with huge software support, we would all still be using cpu rendering for games. HArdware drives software, people bought 3d acceleration cards when barely any software supported it and the majority of all games sold were still cpu rendered, people bought them and it drove the software. People bought dx10 cards where there was no DX10 software available, not for months and months after they came out, when DX10/11 support became almost standard in the majority of games was 2-3 years after the first DX10 cards were available.

If Nvidia released a DX9 8800gtx with a add on card that cost £10 for DX10 features? Would you have bought that add in card then, would anyone? Did anyone need DX10 features, did you mind paying for the die space on that core that was required solely by DX10 features which you could not use and did not want because you couldn't use it? The problem being if DX10 support was optional, and no one took that option because no one could use it, then software would not have started to make use of DX10 if there was no hardware to support it.

Hardware drives software, always has, always will.

The cost of an add in card, designing, shipping, power circuitry, pcb, memory, advertising, regardless of the fact that it would take up another pci-e slot, is magnitudes higher than adding a few mm2 to an existing gpu that is already shipping.

True audio is in a console, which has no expansion capability, how would that work if it was sold as an add on, what about small form factor sales, and laptops.

You think it's better to increase the cost by magnitudes, when sticking it into existing cores that already have all those costs accounted for has a negligible effect on cost, is the better way forward? If true audio was not in the consoles and not in discrete gpu's already, Thief and the other games with it, wouldn't have it. They'd go "I like the idea, but we're not putting work into something that no hardware supports, when the hardware support is there, we'll think about supporting it".

 

[humbug]

Which suggests to me that nobody really wants it.
I've got onboard audio, but I bought a soundcard because I wanted one. If I wanted True Audio, why wouldn't I buy that?
Hell, AMD are such good guys, they could just give them away for free!

You miss the point of it, it gives the Developer the tools to create sound in their games specifically for it, its a standardised sound processor that they can develop for.

Its not about people going out to buy it, they don't have to, and what they do buy is not this, games are designed specifically for it.

 

[humbug]

And some people do and some people would prefer the option of not having something they wont use (i.e. me!).

Why is this such a big issue? its embedded on the GPU, its not intruding in your life, if you don't want to use it, don't.

 

[shankly1985]

Stereo isn't a requirement, TrueAudio will work best on multi speakers.

 

[nitram100]

Is this able to work on older games?

 

[humbug]

Is this able to work on older games?

No, unfortunately older card don't have the embedded sound processor.

 

[GoogalyMoogaly]

If we're going to be pedantic to make some silly point,

Yeah, and we all know you wouldn't do something like that would you? I seem to recall someone with a name like yours picking up on John Carmack saying "Could" instead of "Couldn't" and turning that into him admitting he was incapable...
As far as Kaveri, I don't consider this a 'discrete card' (which you'll notice I highlighted in the quote to indicate what I was talking about). So not counting Kaveri for that reason, which other models have the True Audio DSP other than the 290X, 290 and 260X (the 3 models I was refering to).

I like how you cut out the quote about how general support for hardware features happen.

I'm not sure the forums can handle your wall of text and a reply in one post...
I also think you've misunderstood my point. I'm not saying it shouldn't be done now or ever. I'm saying I don't like it force on me and having the option would be nice.

If people ONLY bought hardware with features currently existing with huge software support, we would all still be using cpu rendering for games. HArdware drives software, people bought 3d acceleration cards when barely any software supported it and the majority of all games sold were still cpu rendered, people bought them and it drove the software. People bought dx10 cards where there was no DX10 software available, not for months and months after they came out, when DX10/11 support became almost standard in the majority of games was 2-3 years after the first DX10 cards were available.

If Nvidia released a DX9 8800gtx with a add on card that cost £10 for DX10 features? Would you have bought that add in card then, would anyone? Did anyone need DX10 features, did you mind paying for the die space on that core that was required solely by DX10 features which you could not use and did not want because you couldn't use it? The problem being if DX10 support was optional, and no one took that option because no one could use it, then software would not have started to make use of DX10 if there was no hardware to support it.

For a start it's a bit different to a DX10 add in card. You realise they already make add in card that do sound stuff right? And people buy these, IF they want them. There was a time when motherboards didn't have onboard sound. You had to buy a soundcard seperately if you wanted that and you know what, games still had sound in them. Can you believe it it? I'll say it again. Not every computer had the capability of playing sound, it was an optional add in card. Yet games still developed to have sound.
You even state yourself that people bought 3D accelerator cards. I did!
Like you say, it wasn't because every game supported 3D accelerators, oh hell no they didn't (Orchid Righteous 3D owner here!) I remember when Quake start supporting OpenGL as well as Software rendering. It was great! (Say, Quake has some sort of a connection to John Carmack doesn't it?)

It's a fair point about the consoles, but in fairness they rarely use add-on cards, so suggesting they start with the TrueAudio DSP seems like a silly suggestion on your part.

You miss the point of it, it gives the Developer the tools to create sound in their games specifically for it, its a standardised sound processor that they can develop for.

Its not about people going out to buy it, they don't have to, and what they do buy is not this, games are designed specifically for it.

If it was an add in card then 7000 series owners could benefit too, as could the other R9 owners. It's forcing it on people that I'm not so keen on.
A separate card means the people that want it can have it and the people that don't, don't have to and could save some money. It's not stopping people using it (well except for people that can't fit any more expansion cards in their PC) and even gives more people the option of using it. So when these developers go to the trouble of adding the effects in a decent number of people will get to experience it.
They could even make 2 versions of the cards, 1 with for those that want it and don't want an add-in card and one without, for those that don't. A bit more work I guess, but surely AMD wouldn't mind doing it for us, the customers?

Why is this such a big issue? its embedded on the GPU, its not intruding in your life, if you don't want to use it, don't.

I don't intend to!
They still charged me for it though didn't they?

 

[humbug]

If it was an add in card then 7000 series owners could benefit too, as could the other R9 owners. It's forcing it on people that I'm not so keen on.
A separate card means the people that want it can have it and the people that don't, don't have to and could save some money. It's not stopping people using it (well except for people that can't fit any more expansion cards in their PC) and even gives more people the option of using it. So when these developers go to the trouble of adding the effects in a decent number of people will get to experience it.
They could even make 2 versions of the cards, 1 with for those that want it and don't want an add-in card and one without, for those that don't. A bit more work I guess, but surely AMD wouldn't mind doing it for us, the customers?

You can't please everyone, you get given new tech as a part of your purchase and its not good enough to some, there are always those who take and then still want more, there is always someone who is never satisfied, its a circular argument.