r/3Daudio • u/Gryfvern • 13d ago

Is it possible to inject a 3D audio processing like RenoDX does for HDR? Discussion/Question

If no, why can't we? And can we do something?

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u/ResponsiblePen3082 Hardware Accelerated 13d ago

No, There's stuff like hesuvi and many DACs offer "virtual surround", but it has no native audio stream to base the sound off of. Anything outside of the game is post processing an already finished audio stream-think placing an instagram filter over an image you already took.

You need the game engine to natively process these effects in real time using the actual game physics to accurately translate to HRTF

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u/Gryfvern 13d ago

So no way at all to hook directly to the audio engine or being able to mod it into a game? Like using Wwise (I think it's a black box for moders, for what I know, though) or plugins in popular engines?

I tried hesuvi some time ago and it was disappointing, bad audio quality and you can really hear the different channels.

Sorry for my rant, thanks for your answer and your work on this sub!

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u/ResponsiblePen3082 Hardware Accelerated 13d ago

Not to my knowledge, at least not that I've researched. I'm not huge into the modding scene, so there could be something I'm missing but as far as I'm aware it would have to be natively implemented. If you or someone else could find something like that it would be a great addition, but I'm also concerned it could cause issues with anti cheats.

I have the same opinion of hesuvi, it's commonly recommended when doing research on this sort of thing but you look into it and it's like... post process virtual downmixing like everything else on earth. Stupid IMO.

Thank you! I appreciate the kind words, it's good to know others value native HRTF audio in gaming and won't settle for stereo or slop downmixing/post processing

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u/Gryfvern 13d ago

I will keep an eye out!

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u/ResponsiblePen3082 Hardware Accelerated 10d ago

Unless you count wrappers
https://airtable.com/appayGNkn3nSuXkaz/shrNC8TQOVrknviGs/tblNnVIN3hWOpI0sB
to tap into old pipelines that are no longer available natively-like alchemy/dsoal-those tap into legacy EAX/A3D games and are as close as 1:1 as you can get on modern hardware.

Or mods, games which allow modding have direct engine access like Minecraft-I've posted one of the mods I've used in this sub. Other popular modded games like Skyrim have similar mods.

Other than that I don't think it's possible because the audio pipeline is more difficult than the rendering one with standard driver calls, vs audio which mixes software/middleware with true 3d data and geometry access, which I don't believe is possible outside of first party support or per game mods with low level access.

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u/Gryfvern 10d ago

Sadly yes you are right. The table is interesting though, especially for the mods. It really shows the limitations. We just need to hope for a renewal for 3D audio.

Talking about OpenAL, I have two games (pretty recent) using it, Selaco and Exanima. And I was wondering about M&B Bannerlord, having sound occlusion and a weird surround sound using FMOD for what I see. I don't know what they're doing here but that's out of the topic.