The Next Generation of Audio
As the year rolls on we inch closer and closer to the release of the Xbox Series X. Microsoft has already released information regarding the utilizing of twelve teraflops, as well as Hardware Accelerated DirectX Ray Tracing, and now we’ve received an update on what sort of audio processing we can expect come this fall.
In a recent interview with VGC, Xbox Studio Ninja Theory’s audio team had a few things to say about the dedicated audio chip that Microsoft is using in the Xbox Series X.
“It’s extremely exciting,” senior sound designer Daniele Galante said of the new console. “We’re going to have a dedicated chip to work with audio, which means we finally won’t have to fight with programmers and artists for memory and CPU power.”
The dedicated audio chip promises to eliminate the need for a system to sacrifice sound quality to facilitate other console needs. In other words, no longer will developers need to downgrade audio quality, for example, in order to have a game look better or run more smoothly. The Audio Lead for Ninja Theory, David Garcia, went on to add:
“We take for granted that graphics are powered by their own video cards. But in audio, we haven’t had anything like that. Now we have some power dedicated to us.”
“I really like how Microsoft is giving us more tools to improve the sound and to be more creative,” Garcia said. “Because at the end of the day it’s not a matter of, ‘we want more memory because we are more cool’, we just want to be able to do our jobs without thinking about limitations.”
“Making games always has you thinking about technical limitations,” he added. “Eventually these limitations become less and less the more you evolve with new consoles, but at the same time it’s always a constant thing: These are the maximum number of voices we can have, because otherwise the game is going to lag.”
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