Soundstorm to resurface in an unusual place?

[phsstpok]

Apparently straight from the CEO of nVidia

<A HREF="http://www.pcper.com/index.php#NewsID545" target="_new">http://www.pcper.com/index.php#NewsID545</A>

<b>[Addition]</b>
another article

<A HREF="http://www.techreport.com/onearticle.x/7706" target="_new">http://www.techreport.com/onearticle.x/7706</A>
<b>[/Addition]</b>

It sounds bizarre to me.

What would be the advantage of sound being supported by the GPU and why now if games are moving away from hardware sound engines?

<b>A mind is a terrible thing</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 12/09/04 02:33 PM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

You know, someone just has to start PAYING me for these ideas sometime. You can look up my post on the subject from, oh, when was it, July 2003?

OK, back then I suggested nVidia might like to integrate soundstorm into their GPU's and add other features, such as a TV-Tuner, from a bay module. Here are a few advantages:

1.) PCI Express has more output than needed for graphics and will continue to for a while. It also has the same amount of input bandwidth that goes virtually unused by graphics cards.
2.) The cost of adding Soundstorm would be insignifcant over the production of many thousands of chips, compared to it's marketability as a value-added feature.
3.) Since around 1998 I've been telling people "Put the sound and video together and you only have to calculate spacial geometry once". That still holds true: If you have a soldier shooting a gun for example, the same calculations that tell the chip where the flashes of light are comming from could also tell the sound chip where the noise is comming from.

OK, imagine this: ATI has the AIW cards, that require a soundcard, and cabling to connect to the sound card, etc. And when you upgrade your card, you pitch the tuner with the old one.

Now imagine of nVidia came out with a video card with sound on the chip. And imagine of they were to have an inexpensive interface for an add-in TV-tuner. Now imagine if all their cards had that inexpensive interface, and they sold the add-in tuner as a separate package for, say, $70. They'd sell quite a few. They could make it a "must have" product through marketing and design. The trick here is, you'd need one of their video cards to use it. So one market backs the other.

And here's another trick: They wouldn't even need to have soundports on the card, they could interface it directly to onboard sound through the virtually unused PCI-Express upstream. Not that they'd necessarily want to, but they could.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[phsstpok]

Crash you're amazing! You convinced me. You obviously have the ability to look forward while I could only see why do this while the gaming industry is moving the other way, away from hardware sound engines. Clearly what you are describing is a better solution. I can see how sounds could easily be shaped while scenes are being rendered. It seems obvious now. Duh!

Now that I can "see" I hope the whole industry can move in that direction. I'd hate it if nVidia develops one of those we've got the the technology but you can't use it mentalities.


<b>A mind is a terrible thing</b><P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by phsstpok on 12/10/04 00:05 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[Crashman]

Thanks. Back in 1998 everyone said the idea was stupid. When I asked why, they balked, so I assume they actually were saying it was stupid simply because they weren't bright enough to think of it themselves :tongue:

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[jheine]

I vaigly remember that post. The question is, were you smart enough to patent the idea. Not that it's easy or cheap by any means, but maybe you should look into it in case you get another brainstorm. Most of the info you need is on the <A HREF="http://www.uspto.gov/" target="_new">USPTO site</A>.

And why would developers be moving away from hardware sound engines, when software engines will rob more of the cpu cycles their users strive to keep? It sounds counterproductive to game performance (coming from a non-gamer).

Quick, edit the post and put a copyright notice on.

Jarrett

 

[phsstpok]

And why would developers be moving away from hardware sound engines, when software engines will rob more of the cpu cycles their users strive to keep? It sounds counterproductive to game performance (coming from a non-gamer).

Good question.

I heard Doom 3 uses a software engine and I'd like to know the full reason why.

I would suspect that Carmack wasn't satisfied with the results he was getting from the variety of sound cards available. For example, many companies license EAX but only level 1. Plus many times it's added just as an afterthought with no regards to quality or consistency. The end result, sometimes sounds are smeared. Instead of producing echos and reverb you get distortion, or you get exaggerated sounds, or you get no effect at all, or you something else entirely. Aything but clean sound.

I'm sure the issue is more complicated than this and it's just my opinion anyway.

I guess the idea of software engines is that if you, the developer, write the sound engine then every consumer gets the same result, or nearly so regardless of the hardware.

<b>A mind is a terrible thing</b>

 

[Crashman]

Ideas this general in nature are nearly impossible to patent. Companies have an advantage in that when you have a large number of engineers working with an idea, you can figure out nearly every specific way to do it, then get patents for all of those methods in hopes nobody else figures out a different method.

<font color=blue>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to a hero as big as Crashman!</font color=blue>
<font color=red>Only a place as big as the internet could be home to an ego as large as Crashman's!</font color=red>

 

[pat]

I remember, well, back in 85 or 86 when car CD player start appearing and keep skipping on bad road, I tough, since it is digital, why dont they put a small memory buffer and have the player fill the buffer and the music played directly in the buffer...We know the rest. I could have been rich!

-Always put the blame on you first, then on the hardware !!!

 

[phsstpok]

Yeah, yeah sure. All you would have to have done was invent oversampling, design the buffer memory , manufacture it, get the CD player manufacturers to buy it and market it.

You would have been rich!

LOL! Try and sell an idea without doing the work!

<b>A mind is a terrible thing</b>