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> What I think will be the killer feature over Occulus Rift is that Project Morpheus has 60 virtual speakers, which (from the liveblog commentary) could lead to

> What I think will be the killer feature over Occulus Rift is that Project Morpheus has 60 virtual speakers, which (from the liveblog commentary) could lead to audio taking a bigger part in gaming. With old fashioned two-speaker headphones and binaural recording, you can already achieve a surprising level of audio spatialization: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IXm6SuUigI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8IXm6SuUigI

plaguuuuuu 13y ago
Yerp. Games just don't simulate it very well. People are hyperfocused on graphics and nobody pays attention to audio. However I seem to recall Creative acquiring some audio company that had products with superior audio positioning technology, & basically axed the other product in favour of EAX or whatever its called..? Could be wrong
- rasz_pl 13y ago
  Aureal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor Creative bancrupted them with legal cost while at the same time using their patented tech without paying. I have Diamond Sonic Impact 90 (Vertex AU8820) next to me on the wall :/ That was and is my best sound card to date.
  - dTal 13y ago
    Wow, it's so great that patents are here to protect the little guys from the big guys. Imagine, without patents, Creative might have just ripped off Aureal instead of ripping them off and suing them to death.
- epsylon 13y ago
  The vast majority of speakers and headsets usually have abysmally bad technical specifications, even those sold at inflated prices.
samizdatum 13y ago
Currently, headphones are pretty much required hardware for VR, because the positions of the speakers relative to the ears are fixed. Achieving realistic binaural audio with external speakers isn't currently feasible because of the need to compensate for reflections and interference, let alone maintaining positionally invariant virtualized audio sources through head rotations and translations. I'm not sure how the "60 virtual speakers" would work (it sounds like marketing terminology), but currently, the state-of-the-art in immersive in-game audio involves constructing an acoustically realistic head model, and harnessing the raytracing abilities of game engines and graphics cards to apply a material-based frequency attenuation curve at each bounce.
- justincormack 13y ago
  You can do it with a very large number of speakers and phase differences but headphones is much easier.
mistercow 13y ago
Actually, with two speaker headphones you can achieve any level of spatialization perceivable by human ears.
- 72deluxe 13y ago
  This must be true because although our ears are funny shapes, they only have one ear drum each, so we hear in stereo.

plaguuuuuu 13y ago

Yerp. Games just don't simulate it very well. People are hyperfocused on graphics and nobody pays attention to audio. However I seem to recall Creative acquiring some audio company that had products with superior audio positioning technology, & basically axed the other product in favour of EAX or whatever its called..? Could be wrong

rasz_pl 13y ago
Aureal http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aureal_Semiconductor Creative bancrupted them with legal cost while at the same time using their patented tech without paying. I have Diamond Sonic Impact 90 (Vertex AU8820) next to me on the wall :/ That was and is my best sound card to date.
- dTal 13y ago
  Wow, it's so great that patents are here to protect the little guys from the big guys. Imagine, without patents, Creative might have just ripped off Aureal instead of ripping them off and suing them to death.
epsylon 13y ago
The vast majority of speakers and headsets usually have abysmally bad technical specifications, even those sold at inflated prices.

samizdatum 13y ago

Currently, headphones are pretty much required hardware for VR, because the positions of the speakers relative to the ears are fixed. Achieving realistic binaural audio with external speakers isn't currently feasible because of the need to compensate for reflections and interference, let alone maintaining positionally invariant virtualized audio sources through head rotations and translations. I'm not sure how the "60 virtual speakers" would work (it sounds like marketing terminology), but currently, the state-of-the-art in immersive in-game audio involves constructing an acoustically realistic head model, and harnessing the raytracing abilities of game engines and graphics cards to apply a material-based frequency attenuation curve at each bounce.

justincormack 13y ago
You can do it with a very large number of speakers and phase differences but headphones is much easier.

mistercow 13y ago

Actually, with two speaker headphones you can achieve any level of spatialization perceivable by human ears.

72deluxe 13y ago
This must be true because although our ears are funny shapes, they only have one ear drum each, so we hear in stereo.