In a new collaboration, AMD and Valve are working together to bring support for AMD’s TrueAudio Next (TAN) in Steam Audio, with a target of delivering increased acoustic complexity and improved details for VR content, while at the same time, speeding up audio processing and contributing to improved overall performance.
TAN has two high-level features to maximize audio performance on systems:
- AMD Resource Reservation: Lets developers reserve 20 to 25% of the GPU’s compute units exclusively for audio processing, which can be enabled or disabled depending on the circumstances.
- GPU compute Convolution Algorithms: Allows developers to increase the acoustic complexity and detail in VR games and applications using Time-variation convolution reverb.
These features offer a number of advantages to developers for enabling better performance and more immersive experiences including:
- Greater auditory complexity: Developers can increase the number of audio sources, ambisonics order for indirect sound, and impulse response time among other options.
- Frees up CPU resources: Convolution is moved from the CPU to the GPU, allowing the CPU to be freely used by other tasks, such as physics simulation or AI.
- Reduces/Eliminates unwanted clicks, pops and audio glitches: Audio processing will no longer be slowed down when rendering a complex scene, minimizing unwanted audio glitches.
- Assists with silky-smooth performance: Since audio processing no longer interferes with graphics or CPU processing, any sudden frame-drops or stuttering can be prevented.
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Emman has been writing technical and feature articles since 2010. Prior to this, he became one of the instructors at Asia Pacific College in 2008, and eventually landed a job as Business Analyst and Technical Writer at Integrated Open Source Solutions for almost 3 years.
