Exactly this .....^
MS damaged audio features and made any soundcard useless with every update to windows.
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What do gamers actually think about Ray-Tracing?
- Thread starter Purgatory
- Start date
Exactly this .....^
MS damaged audio features and made any soundcard useless with every update to windows.
Didn't they update it so that in game play, your car has RT reflections but yes it is a poor game for show casing RT. Also, that game uses RT audio (avatar also uses RT audio, which sounds incredible!). In terms of racing games and RT, F1 23 is fantastic especially in motion with the shadows and reflections on a wet track.
Soldato
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Without going for the obviously differences like actual reflections, indirect lighting and correct shadows are the next step where PT destroys raster easily. Not to mention that raster is limited with the shadow casting lights - aka all the lights that DON'T cast a shadow in almost all games, although they're a light source...
Prebacked with everything being static. There isn't really a comparison.
Soldato
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Is not just the hardware acceleration, but more about good sounding effects for what you do or what the world state is- stuff like a true sync between how windy is outside and how you hear it; how the rain or sound should be muffled once you step inside; how each object should generate a sound when it actually happens something to it and not just have some "background noise" to artificially make the world "fit". In graphics would be akin to not have proper tracks in the dirt or mud when passing with a car through it or stepping in, falling, etc. Is basically about the details of the world from each perspective: graphics, sound, physics.
For instance, War Thunder has updated its graphics from a "useful effects" perspective. Some examples on how big explosions generate a HUGE realistic cloud or how big fires with smoke can generate shadows upon themselves and on the surrounding ground adding a great deal to the immersion.
Anyway, AMD tried something with True Audio, but in its characteristic style, nothing came of it.
That's not what happened and it had little to do with Microsoft. Creative and the likes couldn't write proper drivers which were back then working pretty much on kernel level. Not only it's these days dangerous and a stupid idea to do (because of security, malware etc.) but also these bugs were causing huge amount of windows crashing. After few years of pushing hard on 3rd parties to sort their drivers MS finally gave up and just kicked them out from kernel level. And suddenly Windows became much more stable - we hardly see any crashes these days at all, don't we?
That said, modern CPUs are way faster than audio DSP from back in the days and can easily calculate sounds of higher quality than previously. AMD even had it hardware accelerated in their GPUs for a while and it worked great but market adoption was close to nil - seems devs just didn't care enough to bother implementing it. Nowadays Devs have things available like Dolby Atmos - and still barely use it. Devs simply don't care and there's not enough push from gamers either. Most gamers seem to have awful audio hardware anyway and ears destroyed by noise pollution and too loud music so they can't tell a difference anyway, I dare to say.
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Urban legend. Plenty of good soundcards, even modern ones, that even still have eax support and the likes (from creative, etc.). It's just not implemented in games, as neither gamers nor devs seem to care.
Associate
Yes I was referring more to realistic propagation and physical sounds. It's not something we've ever heard done well because audio is way more complex to do than light and the hardware that might be able to support it is still in its infancy.
We could probably make some huge improvements with just a little GPU power for PT if there was an industry push, but it just doesn't sell as well and is certainly harder to market than lighting effects.
At least we're getting better spatial audio support these days.
We could probably make some huge improvements with just a little GPU power for PT if there was an industry push, but it just doesn't sell as well and is certainly harder to market than lighting effects.
At least we're getting better spatial audio support these days.
Soldato
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Devs simply don't care and there's not enough push from gamers either.
This, basically true for pretty much everything.
Personally find using a decent audio interface for audio out just way better.
If you want surround you can buy the dolby Atmos thing on the Windows store.
When setting up, ensure the audio setting is no higher then 24 bit 96khz otherwise dolby Atmos won't work but it's plenty.
Audio interfaces actually have drivers and they are kept updated and working.
This is why I never look at sound cards any more like the above have said, the software support is terrible, creative aren't very good and definitely moved to a more hardware lifestyle company now.
If you want surround you can buy the dolby Atmos thing on the Windows store.
When setting up, ensure the audio setting is no higher then 24 bit 96khz otherwise dolby Atmos won't work but it's plenty.
Audio interfaces actually have drivers and they are kept updated and working.
This is why I never look at sound cards any more like the above have said, the software support is terrible, creative aren't very good and definitely moved to a more hardware lifestyle company now.
Man of Honour
Audio for me is all about high quality stereo imaging, that's why I have big bookshelf point-source speakers that envelope my ears in almost holophonic surround sound. Obviously that type of setup requires a dedicated amplifier to drive them, but these aren't exactly expensive either, my current amp is no larger than 2 DVD cases on top of each other yet kicks out some serious audio quality for well under £200. Sound direction in games matters just as much as the visuals for me. If the graphics are great but sound not so great, then that can break the game for me, but not the other way round. Sound is always #1.
And yeah soundcards are defunct nowadays. Direct USB out to an amp or DAC or optical out from your motherboard's onboard sound (don't worry, it;s basically 1:1 to a USB connection regardless of what some on online groups might say) and actually maybe optical is the better method because you quite literally isolate the signal from any potential interference or timing issue that can come from USB depending on how many USB devices are connected, the quality of the mobo's USB subsystem, any electrical noise on any part of the PC/house electrics etc etc. As USB is a physical connection going over copper, you can get noise and interference due to the above, but you cannot get the same issue with optical out, it's just light and ignores any copper instabilities.
This is a common misconception. ray racing (especially path tracing) is incredibly demanding on any GPU. Look at Pixar movies for example, going back to the dawn of time it has taken and still takes an ice age to render uncompressed frames and it's only in recent times with upscaling and frame gen has that reached a realistic level of performance. Now with newer gens of GPUs coming with more and more RT cores, this becomes less of an issue with less reliance on upscaling going forwards as the number of RT cores and Tensor cores increases on the GPU die (as fabrication processes get more dense).
It isn't a simple case of industry push, the technology has to evolve, and RT core generation has to advance, and currently there is only one vendor advancing in that area, never guess who
For years AMD just didn't care, the CEO even publicly stated as such, only Nvidia put the R&D into ray tracing and came up with ways to get high performance ray tracing for games. And it's only within the last year really that Intel has taken notes and started their introduction into this whole RT/upscaling field with Samsung not far behind with SoCs for mobile devices pushing ray tracing effects in equal real-time.
Edit*
Here are some fresh comparisons to really drive home the visual impact of RT vs PT vs Raster when all 3 are set to their highest methods in Cyberpunk.
1: https://imgsli.com/MjQ1ODU0
2: https://imgsli.com/MjQ1ODUz
And yeah soundcards are defunct nowadays. Direct USB out to an amp or DAC or optical out from your motherboard's onboard sound (don't worry, it;s basically 1:1 to a USB connection regardless of what some on online groups might say) and actually maybe optical is the better method because you quite literally isolate the signal from any potential interference or timing issue that can come from USB depending on how many USB devices are connected, the quality of the mobo's USB subsystem, any electrical noise on any part of the PC/house electrics etc etc. As USB is a physical connection going over copper, you can get noise and interference due to the above, but you cannot get the same issue with optical out, it's just light and ignores any copper instabilities.
This is a common misconception. ray racing (especially path tracing) is incredibly demanding on any GPU. Look at Pixar movies for example, going back to the dawn of time it has taken and still takes an ice age to render uncompressed frames and it's only in recent times with upscaling and frame gen has that reached a realistic level of performance. Now with newer gens of GPUs coming with more and more RT cores, this becomes less of an issue with less reliance on upscaling going forwards as the number of RT cores and Tensor cores increases on the GPU die (as fabrication processes get more dense).
It isn't a simple case of industry push, the technology has to evolve, and RT core generation has to advance, and currently there is only one vendor advancing in that area, never guess who
For years AMD just didn't care, the CEO even publicly stated as such, only Nvidia put the R&D into ray tracing and came up with ways to get high performance ray tracing for games. And it's only within the last year really that Intel has taken notes and started their introduction into this whole RT/upscaling field with Samsung not far behind with SoCs for mobile devices pushing ray tracing effects in equal real-time.
Edit*
Here are some fresh comparisons to really drive home the visual impact of RT vs PT vs Raster when all 3 are set to their highest methods in Cyberpunk.
1: https://imgsli.com/MjQ1ODU0
2: https://imgsli.com/MjQ1ODUz
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Associate
- Joined
- 22 Nov 2020
- Posts
- 1,513
Tbh I see no appreciable difference worth bothering about in your screenshot comparison examples- actually think raster looks better lol!Audio for me is all about high quality stereo imaging, that's why I have big bookshelf point-source speakers that envelope my ears in almost holophonic surround sound. Obviously that type of setup requires a dedicated amplifier to drive them, but these aren't exactly expensive either, my current amp is no larger than 2 DVD cases on top of each other yet kicks out some serious audio quality for well under £200. Sound direction in games matters just as much as the visuals for me. If the graphics are great but sound not so great, then that can break the game for me, but not the other way round. Sound is always #1.
And yeah soundcards are defunct nowadays. Direct USB out to an amp or DAC or optical out from your motherboard's onboard sound (don't worry, it;s basically 1:1 to a USB connection regardless of what some on online groups might say) and actually maybe optical is the better method because you quite literally isolate the signal from any potential interference or timing issue that can come from USB depending on how many USB devices are connected, the quality of the mobo's USB subsystem, any electrical noise on any part of the PC/house electrics etc etc. As USB is a physical connection going over copper, you can get noise and interference due to the above, but you cannot get the same issue with optical out, it's just light and ignores any copper instabilities.
This is a common misconception. ray racing (especially path tracing) is incredibly demanding on any GPU. Look at Pixar movies for example, going back to the dawn of time it has taken and still takes an ice age to render uncompressed frames and it's only in recent times with upscaling and frame gen has that reached a realistic level of performance. Now with newer gens of GPUs coming with more and more RT cores, this becomes less of an issue with less reliance on upscaling going forwards as the number of RT cores and Tensor cores increases on the GPU die (as fabrication processes get more dense).
It isn't a simple case of industry push, the technology has to evolve, and RT core generation has to advance, and currently there is only one vendor advancing in that area, never guess who
For years AMD just didn't care, the CEO even publicly stated as such, only Nvidia put the R&D into ray tracing and came up with ways to get high performance ray tracing for games. And it's only within the last year really that Intel has taken notes and started their introduction into this whole RT/upscaling field with Samsung not far behind with SoCs for mobile devices pushing ray tracing effects in equal real-time.
Edit*
Here are some fresh comparisons to really drive home the visual impact of RT vs PT vs Raster when all 3 are set to their highest methods in Cyberpunk.
1: https://imgsli.com/MjQ1ODU0
2: https://imgsli.com/MjQ1ODUz
Last edited:
Man of Honour
That's probably because you're so used to seeing rastered (and incorrect) lighting/shadows!
The reflections are wrong in raster, the shadows under cars etc simply don't even exist lol, and then areas of darkness because no light is hitting them are lit up as if something is lighting them up. Lighting in raster is typically always wrong unless baked lighting is used which doesn't always work well and requires much more time to implement as it's labour intensive work vs RT/PT where the dev can just say "here's the light source, I want 2 rays 4 bounces" and then the RT cores simulate the path of light using the specified rays and bounces, just how light would naturally react in real life.
Raster also has no reflected diffuse bounced lighting on walls and other surfaces from coloured bright objects in front of them. The first link shows this well on the wall in front of V's car, it's there in RT, but more accurate in PT.
The reflections are wrong in raster, the shadows under cars etc simply don't even exist lol, and then areas of darkness because no light is hitting them are lit up as if something is lighting them up. Lighting in raster is typically always wrong unless baked lighting is used which doesn't always work well and requires much more time to implement as it's labour intensive work vs RT/PT where the dev can just say "here's the light source, I want 2 rays 4 bounces" and then the RT cores simulate the path of light using the specified rays and bounces, just how light would naturally react in real life.
Raster also has no reflected diffuse bounced lighting on walls and other surfaces from coloured bright objects in front of them. The first link shows this well on the wall in front of V's car, it's there in RT, but more accurate in PT.
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Both light and audio are waves, same physics apply - it's ray tracing in both cases. Just audio carries relatively less information, so should be much easier to do raytracing on it, even with existing hardware. It's been tested and it's in development, but will it ever see the light for consumers? That is hard to predict, as not much demand is for that, so far, as mentioned earlier.
USB is a digital connection with control sums etc. hence on short range (within limits allowed by USB standards) noise is irrelevant, as you physically don't get it transmitted (any faulty packets of data are just retransmitted till they reach the target in proper form). USB has potential for much higher bandwidth than old optical cables too. Not that it matter for audio.
Tensor cores for graphics aren't needed in any greater numbers currently - denoising, upscaling (DLSS) and FG use a small number of available cores as is. They're more than enough for much more complex AI models already, as is - adding more will change 0 in FPS, even on low end RTX cards. RT cores might also not help much, as CPUs are still carrying a big portion of RT - we need more acceleration added to GPUs of RT and not more cores currently.
Gamers aren't their target and it's now mostly push for AI and not graphics/RT anyway. We'll see what next series of GPUs bring, but I wouldn't hold my breath about some big RT improvements.
Mostly the movie industry, to sell them more and new expensive GPUs. Same with tensor cores (enterprise). Gamers just got it by the way. Currently main push is for AI, CEO of NVIDIA branded it few times already as an AI company first and foremost.
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Man of Honour
You can and do get noise over USB too introduced by components on the mobo. It's less of an issue on higher end boards but can happen still depending on the quality of components the mobo maker has chosen, the quality of the PSU and suchlike. That's why people can hear pops and crackles on USB at times, but not via optical. Again, totally depends on the number of devices, quality of the USB controller, quality of surrounding components feeding off the same power etc etc.
My previous mobo had dedicated USB ports designed to be used by DACs and other audio devices, it was called the AMP-UP USB port, isolated from the rest of the mobo so could not get any interference from anything else. Not all boards have this type of setup.
If all is well, then 99% of setups should see zero audible difference between USB and optical out from the mobo.
This is not accurate, look at previous cards vs current cards, more RT cores has meant better fps in RT situations. The CPU isn't that relevant when playing at 1440p or above as evidenced by every screenshot showing an RTSS overlay, the GPU is doing all the work, the CPU just has to pass along the next frame instruction which isn't that much of a task. As an example a 12600K or greater CPU will still smash through path tracing on a high end GPU with ease, the fps difference will be there but it won't be huge as the bulk of the workload is being done by the GPU.
If the resolution is at one that is CPU bound like 1080p, then this all changes, again evidenced by any screenshot or video showing an RTSS overlay.
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Associate
- Joined
- 22 Nov 2020
- Posts
- 1,513
Tbh I never really hang around long enough in one place in games to be able to appreciate all of that. RT is mostly lost on the general gamer.
Slower paced games it will shine through more I suppose, but fast paced shooters the effects are either not going to be that noticeable due to the nature of the game or turned off in favour of framerate.
Any conductor captures noise - they're literally antennas. It's still irrelevant to audio quality for the stated reasons. It's not the USB connection there that produce the audible noise, nor the used chip but the analogue part after DC/AC converter on the mobo (again, it's an antenna and will gather noise from all over inside the PC). Bypass the DC/AC conversion and pull signal out from the mobo audio by USB alone and you have 0 audible noise (aside what is in the audio chip specs - but that's in most cases totally outside human hearing).
Again, analogue part will always catch noise (antenna!) and without heavy shielding of it (not gonna happen, it seems) it's unavoidable inside PC. Too many components generating noise there.
Different reasons for this: bad data timing, other USB devices eating bandwidth, bad drivers etc. - digital issues, nothing to do with noise. Optical doesn't go through USB and so avoids issues with USB itself.
That is absolutely correct and this is why my USB external soundcards never had any issues - no noise captured by analogue path from the PC (as it's outside the PC casing, which is a good shield in itself) and with good drivers avoid other USB issues. Currently sporting Creative one for nice amps and few extras in the software. 0 issues.
Audio for me is all about high quality stereo imaging, that's why I have big bookshelf point-source speakers that envelope my ears in almost holophonic surround sound. Obviously that type of setup requires a dedicated amplifier to drive them, but these aren't exactly expensive either, my current amp is no larger than 2 DVD cases on top of each other yet kicks out some serious audio quality for well under £200. Sound direction in games matters just as much as the visuals for me. If the graphics are great but sound not so great, then that can break the game for me, but not the other way round. Sound is always #1.
And yeah soundcards are defunct nowadays. Direct USB out to an amp or DAC or optical out from your motherboard's onboard sound (don't worry, it;s basically 1:1 to a USB connection regardless of what some on online groups might say) and actually maybe optical is the better method because you quite literally isolate the signal from any potential interference or timing issue that can come from USB depending on how many USB devices are connected, the quality of the mobo's USB subsystem, any electrical noise on any part of the PC/house electrics etc etc. As USB is a physical connection going over copper, you can get noise and interference due to the above, but you cannot get the same issue with optical out, it's just light and ignores any copper instabilities.
This is a common misconception. ray racing (especially path tracing) is incredibly demanding on any GPU. Look at Pixar movies for example, going back to the dawn of time it has taken and still takes an ice age to render uncompressed frames and it's only in recent times with upscaling and frame gen has that reached a realistic level of performance. Now with newer gens of GPUs coming with more and more RT cores, this becomes less of an issue with less reliance on upscaling going forwards as the number of RT cores and Tensor cores increases on the GPU die (as fabrication processes get more dense).
It isn't a simple case of industry push, the technology has to evolve, and RT core generation has to advance, and currently there is only one vendor advancing in that area, never guess who
For years AMD just didn't care, the CEO even publicly stated as such, only Nvidia put the R&D into ray tracing and came up with ways to get high performance ray tracing for games. And it's only within the last year really that Intel has taken notes and started their introduction into this whole RT/upscaling field with Samsung not far behind with SoCs for mobile devices pushing ray tracing effects in equal real-time.
Edit*
Here are some fresh comparisons to really drive home the visual impact of RT vs PT vs Raster when all 3 are set to their highest methods in Cyberpunk.
1: https://imgsli.com/MjQ1ODU0
2: https://imgsli.com/MjQ1ODUz
Absolutely crazy how much improved the image is in every way with PT, the textures look considerably more detailed when you have proper lighting too.
This.
Having been mostly only playing games with RT for the past 2-3 years, when I go back to raster only games, all the flaws and how un-natural the image looks really stands out for me now to the point, it's actually quite jarring and off putting, like I said before, for me it's like going from 60 to 144hz, tn/ips to oled and so on, you notice the improvements but it's only when you go back to the older tech, it really becomes noticeable.
Man of Honour
When I say noise I mean noise that exhibits itself through the speakers, the "noise" at a circuitry level is irrelevant in that context as output noise is all the same regardless, so yeah I am on about noise that you can hear, whether hiss, pops or crackles etc. This is why some mobos have USB ports specifically engineered to eliminate this, like my last mobo as mentioned already.
All it takes is a USB clock rate hitch or a conected USB device to do something dodgy and you end up with audio clicks and stutters even if it's a 1 second thing. That's the sort of thing I am referring too.
All it takes is a USB clock rate hitch or a conected USB device to do something dodgy and you end up with audio clicks and stutters even if it's a 1 second thing. That's the sort of thing I am referring too.