Původně odeslal hoak
From a Sound Designer's perspective a much larger issue and limitation to "What’s up with computer audio?" is that most of the market is driven by game sound and the status of what is regarded as 'State-Of-The-Art' in game sound render is laughable to be generous.
To be fair, until recently sound render capability and fidelity in games has really not been much of a concern with good reason; games and game design haven't offered the level of play detail and subtlety to take advantage of much more then crude 'positional' sound render capabilities, and as far as fidelity is concerned most game Fans listen to game sound on the most abject sound hardware as far as fidelity is concerned even when under the illusion they have purchased State-Of-The-Art rig.
There are a slew of issues and challenges unique to game sound rendering that will only be overcome when some generous or concerned Developers and Programmers assumes the onus of seriously addressing them -- to date no one has. Fundamental issues and serious limitations of game sound render that bring it in way below the bar of what's technically feasible can be summarized (in no particular order):
· limited dynamic range (due to the following)
· crude sub-mixing of multiple sound channels
· gross compression/companding
· simplistic, crude compression and companding algorithms
· gross interactions between mixer, compression and companding
· lack of sound and level designer control over aforesaid parameters
· complete lack of even the most basic engineering documentation of the aforesaid
· no (or very crude) steridian based boundary effects
· use of cheap canned DSP & positional libraries
· very poor perspective (first to third person) and proximity effects
· crap-tastic tools (worst in the industry)
· no security
· poor sync
· undocumented black-box sound manipulation
As just about everything that can be wrong with sound render in games is wrong even the smallest concerted attempt at addressing some some of these issues with the crudest of solutions would be a God Send. In many cases issues and limitation of crusty sound renderer 'back planes' and features could be overcome by the simple expedient of documenting how they perform and at the very least offering Sound & Level Designers means to disable mixer compression, ACG, and DSP effects and features, and create or adjust these effects statically/manually.
Arguably the largest issue confronting fidelity in game sound render is having automated dynamic mixing of an indefinite and changing number of sound sources, of dynamic position and not have them overload. In essence sound renderers are required to automate the task of live show Sound Engineer that is setting up for multiple performers, performing different kinds of music with different instruments, different number of performers in each ensemble, and different musical genera on-the-fly -- a virtually impossible task with no automation, only crude DSP, and very crude compression schemes.
The current solution has bee to use massive amounts of audio compression and companding (not to be confused with digital file compression) reducing dynamic range on a heinous scale -- and while this is a better sounding solution gross digital overload -- the dynamic range achieved and double digit distortion figures obviate any need for high fidelity audio hardware beyond the cheapest EAX compatible card and discount headphones that aren't physically painful to wear. The surround sound processing offered by even the best audio hardware and game renderers is little more then laughable marketing gimmick to be polite.
The value of decent sound render performance capability won't be readily apparent unless or until it's available for a capable Sound Designer and Game Designer to collaborate and exploit and the results won't be the 'knock your socks off' kind of thing like HUGE explosions and cheap positional panning effects of jets, or magical plasma balls screaming past or behind you... The value and benefit will be realized in subtlety and deep immersive aspects of atmosphere. When acoustics environmental transition effects match the virtual space being rendered a lot of the subtle cues and atmosphere of the kind that can raise hair on your neck, make you shiver, uncomfortable, awe-struck, or those spooky jolts of adrenaline you don't quite understand will be achievable in games. Wind won't have to sound like the choofing on the news anchor mans microphone, and the subtle sonic density of the game world will be rich on a scale that is larger the the visual difference from Doom to Doom III. With decent sub-mixing, and control over compression schemes compelling dynamic range and transient effects can be had without a mud-slide of slew distortion offering even the most jaded drama and intensity freaks a case of the 'WoWoWs™'.
Summarily with decent sound render capability there is the potential for realistic sound that will consistently lift you out of your seat and when environmental acoustics and ambient Foley match the spacial geometry of spaces rendered there is a powerful sense of what I call 'WoWoW™' because of ear/eye/brain psycho-visual-acoustic fusion in processing this environmental information -- to date no games are able to offer this consistently.
A substantial improvement doesn't require massive engineering, a million lines of code, or even any real innovation. Just hire capable Game Sound Designers and PAY them!
A lot of the code for much higher quality DSP, compression and automated mixing processing then found in games today is available for free in low resource open source DSP DirectX and VST audio plug-ins library projects; and even better work is available commercially. Game engine architecture that could use DX or VST plugs would be a real breakthrough allowing Sound Designers to do what Level Designers are finally just able to do with modern IDE Level Tools: sound design, and post production in real time on-the-fly. Programmable DSP in audio hardware that was more akin to the Nvidia's 'Programmable Graphics Technology' would really usher in a 'Next Generation' of audio DSP -- EAX needs a lot of work to even approach parity with what's possible in graphics processing and render.
I'm well aware when I hoof, choof with a rant like this I'm suggesting looks time consuming expensive and 'way down the line' as far as feasibility and marketability. But there are incremental, low/no cost and code solutions that would be a huge step in the right direction. My Big Three are (in order of importance/value):
· documentation
· separate status assignable sound channels
· on/off control for games sub-mixing and DSP
Documentation should be priority number one; having to design sound for black-box DSP and mixing, where you don't have a clue of the thresholds, range, or actual specifications of the DSP being applied by the game's sound renderer -- you're screwed into an enormously wasteful situation of trial and error, and half-assed results. This (and the state of the industry) is probably why there are so may amateur game Sound Designers that 'seem' to get acceptable results, and so few real Sound Designers/Engineers that are willing to bother or take the work seriously.
The whole EAX, Miles, AC3 HTRF positional foo-faw in current sound renderers is to be blunt -- dated crap. In the words of of Audio Engineer Frank Van Alstine it's 'Marketing' i.e. 'using fraud and deception to sell crud to fools' or 'selling the package rather then the contents'. The difference calculated on first to third person perspectives, positional, indoor and outdoor acoustic paths is so simplistic that it's cruder then the graphics equivalent of using DooM's 2D sprites for player models. To be fair some of these products are being worked on and will see progress and improvement, but some are little more then 'Marketing Brands' for dated work that's an embarrassment to Audio Engineering and Sound Design.
Manual setup and greater control over mixing and DSP effects would allow for using much more capable and powerful DSP in post processing sound for a games. Comparisons between SoundBlaster Audigy II's laughable EAX reverbs and modern convolved and sampled reverbs are differences anyone can easily hear and appreciate. Being able to control the threshold of AGC and companding and the ratio of compression would be a dream come true, but just being able to turn the crappy processing off or set a threshold would be a huge leap forward.
These results and improvements that can be had are not small; a good analogy is you can tell the difference playing a stereo music CD vs monophonic AM radio through the cheapest and crudest audio hardware, even a three inch PM speaker driven by a half watt audio amplifier is adequate for nearly anyone to appreciate the difference and potential.
