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Steam Now Supports AMD TrueAudio Next. Here's Why That Matters

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Valve and AMD have announced that the latest beta of Steam Audio now supports AMD’s TrueAudio Next (TAN) technology for games and VR applications. This allows developers to dedicate up to 25% of a GPU’s compute units for complex audio processing on a scene-by-scene basis. But why does this matter to you and me?

On a high level, in-game audio processing is a time-intensive, computational task. One such process is called Convolution, which encompasses a bunch of different real-time effects like echoes, 3D audio and reverb. In VR especially, a range of audio effects are being filtered right as they’re played, which needs to happen as quickly as possible to increase presence and realism.

When audio filtering like this happens on a CPU, it limits the flexibility and overall quality a developer has. You probably know how a GPU has multiple compute cores just like a CPU has multiple cores. With CPUs though, developers can’t reserve groups of cores on a CPU for a task like audio processing. Because of that, some developers can only have a few audio engines running at once to avoid taxing the CPU.

This is where AMD’s TrueAudio Next enters the picture. TAN lets developers reserve compute units (CUs) on the GPU for stuff like Convolution, freeing up the CPU to do things like physics simulations or AI tasks. They can only use up to 25% though, to still allow the GPU to do what it does best which is rendering beautiful graphics.

Here’s a chart that illustrates the difference between CPUs and GPUs handling Convolution:

AMD / Steam

In a nutshell, this serves to increase the number of audio sources a developer can use in any given scene. And using AMD’s GPU compute Convolution Algorithms, those developers can ramp up the audio detail and acoustical complexity of their games.

This is an admittedly high-level perspective and doesn't dive deep into detail, but how does this benefit us? AMD says it prevents sudden framerate drops and stuttering since audio processing doesn’t interfere with graphics rendering or CPU usage. We also get richer, more complex audio and ideally a greater sense of presence in VR games. Audio is crucial to immersion, so if this opens up more possibilities, bring it on!

Here are the key reasons Valve is leaning on for why Steam is supporting TrueAudio Next, which highlight the gains for both gamers and developers:

  • "If we can provide developers with more flexibility in choosing how their audio processing workloads are balanced on a user's PC, we want to do that. TrueAudio Next allows developers to choose how CPU and GPU resources work together to provide a compelling audio experience on the user's PC.
  • If we can allow developers to offer an optional higher level of audio detail with their existing content on PCs that are powerful enough, we want to do that. With Steam® Audio, developers just specify higher settings to be used if a TAN-capable GPU is installed on the user's PC. Developers do not have to re-author any content to work with TAN. Steam® Audio can be used to seamlessly select either CPU- or GPU-based convolution, depending on the user's hardware configuration."

This Steam blog on the topic has a wealth of resources for developers and more detailed information for anyone else curious about the benefits.

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