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Games that have raytraced audio

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Games that have raytraced audio

Post by rusty_shackleford »

Is there a list anywhere?
I know a lot of games used to have better audio physics thanks to it being pushed by creative(RIP EAX.) I couldn't tell you if it was actually raytraced.


Quick rundown on raytraced audio:



Steam's Audio library also appears to offer ray-traced audio, I'd need to dig into that further and see if any games make use of that feature
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Post by Tangerine »

Modern game devs don't give a **** about audio quality. It's a complete afterthought to them.
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Post by GhostCow »

rusty_shackleford wrote: July 29th, 2025, 14:30
Is there a list anywhere?
I know a lot of games used to have better audio physics thanks to it being pushed by creative(RIP EAX.) I couldn't tell you if it was actually raytraced.


Quick rundown on raytraced audio:



Steam's Audio library also appears to offer ray-traced audio, I'd need to dig into that further and see if any games make use of that feature
**** Creative. A3D was way better, but they bought Aureal and then killed it

Last edited by GhostCow on July 29th, 2025, 22:32, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by mercerxiv »

Dam, this has actually never (at least not off top of my head) occurred to me that you could have RT audio.... Having seen the kind of impact RT shading/lighting and reflections can have, that'd be actually some of the best uses of RT technology considering how bad audio is in so many games, especially the ones that would benefit from accurate audio representation.
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Post by DecadeRiptide »

What about raytraced physics?
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Post by DecadeRiptide »

Raytraced liquids?
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Post by Atlantico »

If they could raytrace plot maybe they'd give half a thought about it
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Post by DecadeRiptide »

Atlantico wrote: July 30th, 2025, 20:40
If they could raytrace plot maybe they'd give half a thought about it
Raytraced writing.
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Post by Norfleet »

DecadeRiptide wrote: July 30th, 2025, 20:36
Raytraced liquids?
Raytraced lazors!
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Post by Norfleet »

mercerxiv wrote: July 29th, 2025, 22:40
Dam, this has actually never (at least not off top of my head) occurred to me that you could have RT audio.... Having seen the kind of impact RT shading/lighting and reflections can have, that'd be actually some of the best uses of RT technology considering how bad audio is in so many games, especially the ones that would benefit from accurate audio representation.
I think if they made the game's audio ultra-realistic, people would actually get weirded out by it because they're not used to it. Players would be perplexed by getting hit by bullets they can't hear only to hear the gunshots afterwards.
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Post by stormvermin »

Thought this was a shitpost but instead I learned something. It would be nice to see something akin this implemented in games like Gloomwood but that's wishful thinking.
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Post by mercerxiv »

Norfleet wrote: July 30th, 2025, 21:55
I think if they made the game's audio ultra-realistic, people would actually get weirded out by it because they're not used to it. Players would be perplexed by getting hit by bullets they can't hear only to hear the gunshots afterwards.
That is correct, but if we never innovate out of fear that people will not like new and will want to stick with what they're used to then we will never move anywhere. Better break that stupid conditioning sooner rather than later if possible.
I have heard that crap excuse before that "players have complained that realistic audio stopped them from being able to hear someone as much as breathe through walls, floors, and ceilings". Sure, it's fine for the games that don't make much use of audio, but I think for something like EFT or similar tactical shooter experience where listening to the sounds around you can mean the difference between life or death I'd like to get the realistic sound model. In those games I don't care what's more mlg420noscope, I want realism and immersion. The mlg crowd can go play call of duty with all their ridiculous skins, they will probably have a jolly good time.
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Post by logincrash »

rusty_shackleford wrote: July 29th, 2025, 14:30
Is there a list anywhere?
I know a lot of games used to have better audio physics thanks to it being pushed by creative(RIP EAX.) I couldn't tell you if it was actually raytraced.


Quick rundown on raytraced audio:



Steam's Audio library also appears to offer ray-traced audio, I'd need to dig into that further and see if any games make use of that feature
Does this also add 50% load on GPU and CPU only for the tiniest difference that I wouldn't be able to hear through my literally $1 earbuds anyway like regular raytracing does with shadows/reflections?
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Post by rusty_shackleford »

logincrash wrote: July 30th, 2025, 22:53
rusty_shackleford wrote: July 29th, 2025, 14:30
Is there a list anywhere?
I know a lot of games used to have better audio physics thanks to it being pushed by creative(RIP EAX.) I couldn't tell you if it was actually raytraced.


Quick rundown on raytraced audio:



Steam's Audio library also appears to offer ray-traced audio, I'd need to dig into that further and see if any games make use of that feature
Does this also add 50% load on GPU and CPU only for the tiniest difference that I wouldn't be able to hear through my literally $1 earbuds anyway like regular raytracing does with shadows/reflections?
Should theoretically be rather negligible, maybe a couple dozen raycasts, doesn't need to be updated very frequently(probably at least a couple hundred milliseconds)
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Post by Norfleet »

mercerxiv wrote: July 30th, 2025, 22:45
That is correct, but if we never innovate out of fear that people will not like new and will want to stick with what they're used to then we will never move anywhere. Better break that stupid conditioning sooner rather than later if possible.
I have heard that crap excuse before that "players have complained that realistic audio stopped them from being able to hear someone as much as breathe through walls, floors, and ceilings". Sure, it's fine for the games that don't make much use of audio, but I think for something like EFT or similar tactical shooter experience where listening to the sounds around you can mean the difference between life or death I'd like to get the realistic sound model.
It'd certainly more expensive to do than regular raytracing, since with regular raytracing, the rays are assumed to propagate nigh-instantaneously, which is mostly true at human-interactable ranges for light, but very much not true for sounds, so now you have a temporal component to your raytracing.
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Post by logincrash »

rusty_shackleford wrote: July 30th, 2025, 23:00
logincrash wrote: July 30th, 2025, 22:53
rusty_shackleford wrote: July 29th, 2025, 14:30
Is there a list anywhere?
I know a lot of games used to have better audio physics thanks to it being pushed by creative(RIP EAX.) I couldn't tell you if it was actually raytraced.


Quick rundown on raytraced audio:



Steam's Audio library also appears to offer ray-traced audio, I'd need to dig into that further and see if any games make use of that feature
Does this also add 50% load on GPU and CPU only for the tiniest difference that I wouldn't be able to hear through my literally $1 earbuds anyway like regular raytracing does with shadows/reflections?
Should theoretically be rather negligible, maybe a couple dozen raycasts, doesn't need to be updated very frequently(probably at least a couple hundred milliseconds)
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Post by mercerxiv »

Norfleet wrote: July 30th, 2025, 23:08
mercerxiv wrote: July 30th, 2025, 22:45
That is correct, but if we never innovate out of fear that people will not like new and will want to stick with what they're used to then we will never move anywhere. Better break that stupid conditioning sooner rather than later if possible.
I have heard that crap excuse before that "players have complained that realistic audio stopped them from being able to hear someone as much as breathe through walls, floors, and ceilings". Sure, it's fine for the games that don't make much use of audio, but I think for something like EFT or similar tactical shooter experience where listening to the sounds around you can mean the difference between life or death I'd like to get the realistic sound model.
It'd certainly more expensive to do than regular raytracing, since with regular raytracing, the rays are assumed to propagate nigh-instantaneously, which is mostly true at human-interactable ranges for light, but very much not true for sounds, so now you have a temporal component to your raytracing.
Eh, from personal experience with game dev: it would not be much more expensive. Simulating delay should be rather straightforward once you have a path the sound should travel along calculated.
If you have the path, then it's a trivial matter to find out its length. Knowing its length it's trivial to do a simple calculation using distance and speed of sound to get a proper delay. Ofc this would be a very simplistic version of it, but I imagine it'd still be by a mile better than sound travelling through thick walls.
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Post by Norfleet »

mercerxiv wrote: July 30th, 2025, 23:19
Eh, from personal experience with game dev: it would not be much more expensive. Simulating delay should be rather straightforward once you have a path the sound should travel along calculated.
The catch is that you don't necessarily. If the player is moving at significant speed, that path doesn't hold true and the sound may thus miss the player entirely. Not terribly much of a problem with light since most games don't let players go anything close to lightspeed, but supersonic and near-supersonic movement absolutely exists.
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Post by Tweed »

Raytrace muh ****.
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Post by mercerxiv »

Norfleet wrote: July 31st, 2025, 01:35
mercerxiv wrote: July 30th, 2025, 23:19
Eh, from personal experience with game dev: it would not be much more expensive. Simulating delay should be rather straightforward once you have a path the sound should travel along calculated.
The catch is that you don't necessarily. If the player is moving at significant speed, that path doesn't hold true and the sound may thus miss the player entirely. Not terribly much of a problem with light since most games don't let players go anything close to lightspeed, but supersonic and near-supersonic movement absolutely exists.
You would have to move at a considerable speed or distance for it to matter when we are talking about speed of sound.
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Post by Norfleet »

mercerxiv wrote: July 31st, 2025, 05:34
You would have to move at a considerable speed or distance for it to matter when we are talking about speed of sound.
Considering how many fighter planes, superheroes, and wizards are present in games, this case would come up pretty often. Even lower speeds can create very observable Doppler effects.
Last edited by Norfleet on July 31st, 2025, 08:22, edited 1 time in total.
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Post by Atlantico »

Wave-trace