Editorial Do We Really Need AMD TrueAudio?

[Arif420]

How amd Transfer The AMD Trueaudio?? Is it Via Hdmi Or any others Sources Like Improves the Cpu's Deafault Sound card audio Quality????

 

[Mathragh]

Afaik, its essentially an accelerator, so the CPU sends some data to the Trueaudio block, which then sends its processed data back to the system after which it'll end up at your audio device.

 

[Steevo]

Considering that most devices are now the built in HDMI or DP audio it never leaves the card except to the display or receiver.

 

[NeoXF]

I've heard some demos, and maybe it's placebo, but with my trusty ("fake") 7.1 Plantronics headset and my untrusty abysmal laptop soundcard, I can certainly hear something that is more interesting than stereo...

Heard people at CES trying it out w/ the Occulus Rift... and pretty much losing touch with reality... Now that's some good stuff right there.

 

[mikeangs2004]

How does AMD True Audio come into effect? I have R9 290X DSP audio acceleration with SB ZxR cards. My motherboard has Realtek 1150 CODEC but not plugged into speakers. Would audio acceleration be heterogeneous enough to include the Realtek 1150 on top of True Audio and ZxR? Is there a memory buffer for PCI-E sound cards?

 

[Pathfinder]

It's true AMD is doing something that has been done in the past. The question is, can AMD do it better? I think they have. I too have been working with Audio for years, and Music Composition was my major in College. Rest assured, I know audio and I know the history of the industry ever since the days of Ad-Lib, RolandMT32, Sound Blaster 8-Bit, and even earlier, Tandy 1000 and IBM PC Jr's early audio solutions. I'm glad to see fresh faces in the Audio industry, because we quite frankly have not seen many newer innovations lately. This is partly because audio technology has in some respects "tapped out" or reached limits that the human brain can no longer perceive.

I'm pretty sure that if AMD was talking about TrueAudio technology while they were talking about their Radeon series graphics cards, they were telling you that it was coming with it. Of course it's been months since this article was written; anyone can hop down to a local computer shop or electronics store and pick up a R series video card with AMD's TrueAudio onboard now, and it's been known that some Radeon HD 7000 series cards actually also had TrueAudio (And Mantle) but the feature was not yet enabled. AMD has CLEARLY been working on it's solutions for a significant amount of time and hasn't exactly made a secret about it. I don't know why the author of this article repeatedly implies that AMD is coming out of nowhere with something "half baked" or immature.

It's true that programmers worked tirelessly on Unreal and Crytek to program the heck out of the integrated audio solutions in most motherboards. AMD is asking a single question; WHY make the CPU do all that work especially when the technology as this author has pointed out, has been around a while? The reality is that the CPU can use more than 10% of it's processing power working up positional audio for your speaker system especially when working with an onboard Realtek solution for example. Your CPU does not need to be burdened with this; not when the technology to off-load this has been available for years. It makes you wonder how Realtek has managed to survive all this time, and if AMD makes it's next leap with TrueAudio and integrates it into A series APU's for Desktop / Mobile (and consoles) then Realtek, VIA, and SiS are probably going to be knocked out of the integrated audio market unless they come up with audio processors instead of codecs because someone else came up with something better. Intel will like usual see AMD has done something impressive and move to copy it / enhance it / outperform it.

Oh and as for the "hearing more voices claim" while it's true Windows allows many voices, for years discreet audio has hung around up to 64 voices because of hardware limitations. Discreet cards and integrated solutions have not had the horsepower to deliver as many voices as Windows can support, and SNR also determines whether or not the signal is "clean" enough that the number of voices don't get muddled together. I have not been able to find out what AMD's SNR is on their TrueAudio solution but if it has the horsepower and clarity to do around 150 voices obviously they have done some serious work on the quality of their audio output. Let's not forget that since their solution is reliant on HDMI that it is a 100% digital signal, and not an analog solution. This is a huge difference between AMD's solution and traditional analog audio.

In conclusion, this article was written by a guy who didn't have a clue what he was talking about. Even at the time this article was written, there was plenty of information about AMD TrueAudio being released. He just didn't research it, assuming he knew all he needed from a single presentation. Then he condemned it as pointless. As for me, I was until recently using a USB Sound Blaster X-Fi for my audio. When I decided to give TrueAudio a try, I connected my Klipsch 2.1 THX Promedia speakers into my flat panel and see what AMD had come up with. Rest assured, if I can hear a noticeable improvement in clarity between a very current $100 Creative Labs X-Fi and the FREE AMD TrueAudio bundled with my new Radeon R7 260x, I don't know how Creative Labs or Realtek are going to stay in business.

 

[AsRock]

Well i am just glad they did not break or require games to have updates for the new changes, although the sound from a 290X sounds and does the same things that my own 6970 does.

 

[Mobius Pizza]

The author of this article really need to do basic research first. A lot of the points he raised is already covered in here:

http://www.maximumpc.com/everything_you_wanted_know_about_amd’s_new_trueaudio_technology_2013

For example, author stated:
"there are too many factors stacked up against its successful proliferation. Want better sound? Go get a nice sound card and/or better speakers/headsets."

The interview above AMD said already True Audio does not get in the way of sound cards, one can use sound card's high quality Op amp and DAC and leave True Audio to do the computation, and this is all seamless because the GPU has all the positional information, and audio is intercepted well before the Windows audio stack.

 

[Ahhzz]

/creeeeeeaaaakkkkkk


said the dead thread.....

 

[AsRock]

How ever i have had 0 issue's with AMD onboard sound going back as far as 4870, were as add in card can have massive headaches never mind the space they take up which can be a total pain if your in to CF or SLI.

I have always been able to get my 5.1 sound to if the game supports 5.1 unlike a lot of add in cards having one issue or another with clipping and lockups due to sound.

So say all you like and it's not if i would trust a ad magazine anyways which holds about 4% of any thing what you would want to read.

/creeeeeeaaaakkkkkk


said the dead thread.....

hehe

 

[W1zzard]

I can hear a noticeable improvement in clarity between a very current $100 Creative Labs X-Fi and the FREE AMD TrueAudio bundled with my new Radeon R7 260x

Interesting, especially when TrueAudio REQUIRES game support, added by the developer. No software or game will automagically use TrueAudio, because TrueAudio is not a sound card.

So over 1 year later, 4 games support TrueAudio, 3 of them suck and are a commercial disaster, the 4th is yet unreleased.

 

[cadaveca]

The author of this article really need to do basic research first. A lot of the points he raised is already covered in here:

http://www.maximumpc.com/everything_you_wanted_know_about_amd’s_new_trueaudio_technology_2013

Maybe so, but the article here was published first, so you've got things backwards. September 2013 here, October @ maximumPC. So, sir, your troll comment has failed and exposed itself.

 

[AsRock]

Maybe so, but the article here was published first, so you've got things backwards. September 2013 here, October @ maximumPC. So, sir, your troll comment has failed and exposed itself.

Near every time some one shouts troll i always think of a crap lager from a advert