The Sound of Games: Next Gen Acoustics
By Aditya Deshbandhu The conversations around video game development are often dominated by debates on graphics and visual fidelity. The launches of Microsoft’s Series X and Sony’s PS5 are a case in point where terms like teraflops, throughputs, resolutions, and framerates were all most players and media coverage cared about. This singular focus on the […]
By Aditya Deshbandhu
The conversations around video game development are often dominated by debates on graphics and visual fidelity. The launches of Microsoft’s Series X and Sony’s PS5 are a case in point where terms like teraflops, throughputs, resolutions, and framerates were all most players and media coverage cared about.
This singular focus on the visual is problematic considering gaming is an experience that draws upon several of the players’ senses at the same time (a multi-sensorial experience, if I may say so). This week’s article looks at the transformation of the acoustic in gaming, as gaming experiences pursue to blur the boundaries between the simulated and the actual.
A transformation that is just as large in scale as the visual, most developers of games and gaming devices have been actively pursuing a variety of ways to render sound that is realistic. A search that has resulted in the emergence of audio formats like spatial sound and 3D sound in order to create an experience that immerses the player using both the audio and the visual.
This week, we look at some of the various approaches that game companies are using in order to provide their players with a sound that is not just clear but also laden with the requisite information for players to make vital in-game decisions.
Sony’s Tempest engine
Announced amidst the launch of the PS5, the Tempest engine stands out because Sony walked away from Dolby to create an experience that promises to render 3-dimensional sound. The 3D sound that Tempest can render isn’t accessible on most soundbars and systems today.
The most convenient way to experience it is through a pair of headphones that are plugged into the 3.5mm jack on the DualSense 5 controller. The experience through a pair of headphones is quite impressive and Tempest is an extremely ambitious project that may take years to realize.
Sony hopes that with Tempest it can in the long run turn any sound system (headphones, in-built speakers) into one that can offer a 3-dimensional experience.
Dolby’s Atmos
The most popular experience at the moment, Dolby’s Atmos has become a lot more affordable since its debut in James Bond’s Skyfall. Most modern mid-high range soundbars and systems offer Dolby Atmos and the experience is terrific.
Playing games like Forza Horizon 5, Elden Ring, or Halo Infinite on an Atmos supporting system can be almost surreal at times. Add to this, Dolby’s ongoing developments with DTS: X, and we might see Atmos become the industry standard. Atmos in its current form creates spatial depth in the sound it renders and DTS:X does the same thing with height and as the latest sound systems combine the two experiences (spatial and vertical), a 3D sound experience suddenly seems possible.
Dolby licensed systems though are expensive and not accessible to all gamers. Sony’s Tempest idea thus seems a more democratic and ideal approach to the next generation of gaming sound. It is undebatable that the realism that video games hope to render needs both a photorealistic quality and an “audio realistic” dimension and a 3-dimensional experience seems the most likely way to go forward.
Who will succeed though? Despite my mind’s rationale for Dolby, my heart beats for Sony’s Tempest.
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