Guru3D.com
  • HOME
  • NEWS
    • Channels
    • Archive
  • DOWNLOADS
    • New Downloads
    • Categories
    • Archive
  • GAME REVIEWS
  • ARTICLES
    • Rig of the Month
    • Join ROTM
    • PC Buyers Guide
    • Guru3D VGA Charts
    • Editorials
    • Dated content
  • HARDWARE REVIEWS
    • Videocards
    • Processors
    • Audio
    • Motherboards
    • Memory and Flash
    • SSD Storage
    • Chassis
    • Media Players
    • Power Supply
    • Laptop and Mobile
    • Smartphone
    • Networking
    • Keyboard Mouse
    • Cooling
    • Search articles
    • Knowledgebase
    • More Categories
  • FORUMS
  • NEWSLETTER
  • CONTACT

New Reviews
G.Skill TridentZ 5 RGB 6800 MHz CL34 DDR5 review
Be Quiet! Dark Power 13 - 1000W PSU Review
Palit GeForce RTX 4080 GamingPRO OC review
Core i9 13900K DDR5 7200 MHz (+memory scaling) review
Seasonic Prime Titanium TX-1300 (1300W PSU) review
F1 2022: PC graphics performance benchmark review
MSI Clutch GM31 Lightweight​ (+Wireless) mice review
AMD Ryzen 9 7900 processor review
AMD Ryzen 7 7700 processor review
AMD Ryzen 5 7600 processor review

New Downloads
CPU-Z download v2.04
Intel ARC graphics Driver Download Version: 31.0.101.4090
AMD Radeon Software Adrenalin 23.1.2 (RX 7900) download
GeForce 528.24 WHQL driver download
Display Driver Uninstaller Download version 18.0.6.0
Download Intel network driver package 27.8
ReShade download v5.6.0
Media Player Classic - Home Cinema v2.0.0 Download
HWiNFO Download v7.36
MSI Afterburner 4.6.5 (Beta 4) Download


New Forum Topics
Monitor turns black and windows disable my GPU driver SteelSeries releasing three models speakers, including 5.1ch surround Arena 9 Amernime Zone AMD Software: Adrenalin / Pro Driver - Release Discovery 22.12.2 WHQL Seagate will release 22TB and 24TB hard disk drives, and in Q3, HAMR HDD with 30TB or more AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition 23.1.2 for AMD Radeon™ RX 7900 Series NVIDIA GeForce 528.24 WHQL driver download & Discussion 7-Zip decompression speed test, the Intel Core i9-13900K is 60% faster than the i9-12900K. Forspoken implements Microsoft's DirectStorage API, faster load times; lowers FPS; raises FPS? 4th proprietary graphics driver is now available exclusively for AMD Radeon RX 7900 XTX and XT Intel Shares Fourth-Quarter and Full-Year 2022 Financial Results




Guru3D.com » News » Valve Introduces Steam Audio

Valve Introduces Steam Audio

by Hilbert Hagedoorn on: 02/24/2017 07:49 PM | source: | 29 comment(s)
Valve Introduces Steam Audio

Steam Audio is has been released, delivering an advanced spatial audio solution for games and VR apps. Steam Audio includes several exciting features that significantly improve immersion and open up new possibilities for spatial audio design.

The Steam Audio SDK is available free of charge, for use by teams of any size, without any royalty requirements. Steam Audio currently supports Windows, Linux, macOS, and Android. Just like Steam itself, Steam Audio is available for use with a growing list of VR devices and platforms.

Steam Audio SDK is not restricted to any particular VR device or to Steam.

Download the tools[valvesoftware.github.io] at Steam Audio on GitHub, then visit the Steam Audio Community Hub for the latest news and discussions, or to just share your thoughts and feedback. 

What is Steam Audio?

Steam Audio adds physics-based sound propagation on top of HRTF-based binaural audio, for increased immersion. Sounds interact with and bounce off of the actual scene geometry, so they feel like they are actually in the scene, and give players more information about the scene they are in.

What can Steam Audio do?


Binaural Rendering
The simplest thing that any spatial audio technology must do is HRTF-based binaural rendering. This refers to a way of recreating how a sound is affected by a listener's head, ears, and torso, resulting in subtle cues that allow you to pinpoint where a sound is coming from.

Steam Audio's implementation of HRTF-based binaural rendering has a very low CPU overhead; you can handle hundreds, even thousands of sources using a single CPU core. It also minimizes the frequency coloration of audio clips, while maintaining good localization.

Occlusion
Steam Audio simulates how objects occlude sound sources. In addition to the typical raycast occlusion that many game engines already support, Steam Audio supports partial occlusion: if you can see part of a sound source, Steam Audio will only partly occlude the sound. Steam Audio uses your existing scene geometry to occlude sounds, so you don't need to create special occlusion geometry just for sounds.

Physics-Based Reverb
Reflections and reverb can add a lot to spatial audio. Steam Audio uses the actual scene geometry to simulate reverb. This lets users sense the scene around them through subtle sound cues, an important addition to VR audio. This physics-based reverb can handle many important scenarios that don't easily fit within a simple box-model. 

Steam Audio applies physics-based reverb by simulating how sound bounces off of the different objects in the scene, based on their acoustic material properties (a carpet doesn't reflect as much sound as a large pane of glass, for example). Simulations can run in real-time, so the reverb can respond easily to design changes. Add furniture to a room, or change a wall from brick to drywall, and you can hear the difference.

Real-Time Sound Propagation
In reality, sound is emitted from a source, after which it bounces around through the environment, interacting with and reflecting off of various objects before it reaches the listener. Developers have wanted to model this effect, and tend to manually (and painstakingly!) approximate sound propagation using hand-tuned filters and scripts. Steam Audio automatically models these sound propagation effects.

If your geometry is mostly static, you can bake reverb during design. If a sound source is fixed in place, you can bake sound propagation effects during design. For VR experiences where you have only a few listener positions, but multiple moving sources, you can bake sound propagation effects during design too.

Putting It All Together
Steam Audio can apply binaural rendering to occlusion, reverb, and sound propagation effects, so you can get a strong sense of space and direction, even from reflected sounds, reverb entering a room through a doorway, and more. 

Download the Steam Audio SDK Beta[valvesoftware.github.io] now and try any of these features today. Steam Audio is currently available as a plugin for Unity and as a C API for integration into custom engines and tools.







« Gigabyte Announces AM4 Ryzen Support · Valve Introduces Steam Audio · AMD X370 B350 A320 X300 and B300 / A300 Compared - Only SLI for X370 »

6 pages 1 2 3 4 5 6


Aura89
Senior Member



Posts: 8361
Joined: 2008-07-31

#5397590 Posted on: 02/24/2017 07:55 PM
If this is the same thing they added to CS:GO, i wasn't that impressed, and turned it off.

AMD4Life
Senior Member



Posts: 177
Joined: 2005-08-27

#5397606 Posted on: 02/24/2017 08:27 PM
I've never been much of a fan of virtual surround/reverb effects and always preferred a properly implemented stereo signal with quality headphones. That said, I understand some people feel differently and this has its place.

Glidefan
Moderator



Posts: 12481
Joined: 2000-05-23

#5397618 Posted on: 02/24/2017 08:40 PM
Bounces, audio occlusion... that was EAX back in Win95-WinXP...

Fox2232
Senior Member



Posts: 11808
Joined: 2012-07-20

#5397622 Posted on: 02/24/2017 08:43 PM
If this is the same thing they added to CS:GO, i wasn't that impressed, and turned it off.

Wasn't that thing already in Portal? When it came I was bugging around everything. And even at start where there is long fall, you get to hear Wheatley from above with all the echoes.
But if you hack yourself upwards to source of audio, it shifts as you get closer and becomes clearer while echoes go more to background and have time delay.

malitze
Member



Posts: 89
Joined: 2015-07-23

#5397633 Posted on: 02/24/2017 08:54 PM
If this is the same thing they added to CS:GO, i wasn't that impressed, and turned it off.


Did the same at first but after some patches now I feel locating is easier, especially when it comes to height.

6 pages 1 2 3 4 5 6


Post New Comment
Click here to post a comment for this news story on the message forum.


Guru3D.com © 2023