Game Developer Conference Report...
David Gasior has made a HUGE post to A3D Central regarding what he saw at GDC. This is a very, very good read, so go check it out.
Above is from 3dai.com
David Gasior is from Aureal Developer Relations.
A direct link to the article is 3dfiles.com
Full Post Below
Game Developers Conference Report
By David Gasior
For those of you who don't know, this week marked the 13th Annual Game
Developers Conference. Basically one of these big shows like Comdex, but
geared toward the game developer. Of course, Aureal had a booth at the
show, as well as all the major audio players. Anyway, I thought I would
give my own little recap, highlighting what I took away from this show,
from an insider's point of view. Please bear in mind that I write this at
12:40 in the morning after leaving the Microsoft party, so my grammar and
spelling may not be anywhere near accurate (or English even)!
AUREAL
We kicked ass!!! Just kidding. :)
We had a nice booth - mid sized. Three game pods were up and showing off
Unreal Tournament (with A3D 2.0 support), Slave Zero (with A3D 1.x),
Heretic II Enhancement Pack (A3D 2.0), Sin: Wages of Sin (A3D 2.0), and
the wavetracing demo (which surprisingly was one of the biggest draws for
developers). We also had Flatland in our booth showing off A3D 2.0 in
their 3DML engine. We also demoed A3D Pro, our Digidesign Pro Tools plug
in for the Mac. And of course, the big thing was the A3D 2.0 SDK.
We had lots of traffic, got the chance to meet a lot of the guys from the
web sites (although I was disappointed that Kenn and Thresh from Firing
Squad didn't make their way by - or at least I didn't see them), and met
with more developers than I will ever remember to email when I get back to
the office. I am so bad with names; I hope they will forgive me when I
totally forget who they were! People were extremely friendly and seemed
very impressed. Like I said, everyone loved the wavetracing demo. Unreal
Tournament was kinda cool too. :) On top of that, we probably
gave out about 1000 SDKs for A3D 2.0. I think we're going to see some
really cool A3D 2.0 titles. Gosh, there are so many I wish I could just
spill the beans on, but arggghh ... soon, grasshopper, soon ...
One of the highlights that sticks out for me was having Mark Rein (one of
the creators of Unreal, from Epic Games) sitting in our pod playing Unreal
Tournament. He really was doing a great job of showing off UT for us.
The game looks great, and our initial A3D 2.0 support sounded great as
well. But just watching Mark sitting there playing was simply fantastic.
The other highlight was having Jake Simpson (talented programmer for
Heretic II) playing Heretic II in our pod. He was spawning monsters and
using the sword-like weapon to just start slicing through them. He was
flipping and spinning Corvus all around; it was like watching one of those
great martial arts movies. Not that Jackie Chan stuff, but real serious
martial arts. It was great.
We held a sponsored session on A3D 2.0. We had let one of our software
partners borrow a set of speakers that we were going to use for our first
session (we had two scheduled) so we had to borrow some ourselves for the
first session, but when we plugged the speakers into our session demo
system, it fried the hard drive! So, unfortunately, we had to cancel that
session. David Sparks and two other employees of Creative Labs came to
our sponsored session, but didn't ask any questions or stick around
afterwards.
CREATIVE LABS
I could write pages and pages about Creative Labs, but I'll just pick the
more interesting things.
1) EAX Session: I attended the EAX session (hosted by Creative and
presented by David Sparks) with our Developer Support Manager. After
getting past the few jokes the other attendees made about us being there,
the session got under way. It was way too long and David unfortunately
seemed out of his element. Apparently, Jean-Marc Jot, the Chief 3D Audio
Scientist, was supposed to give the talk but something happened and David
gave it instead. Not that he was bad - just that he wasn't quite sure of
some things. There was a lot of information provided, but it was more a
high level overview. What I found the most interesting were:
- EAX 2.0 kind of went away since everything in it is
in I3DL2, so the EAX 2.0 drivers Creative will release
in April will be I3DL2-compatible, although they seemed
a little unsure about this. EAX 3.0 will be the next
step, with a full SDK to be released at Creativity in
May 1999. Creativity is a Creative-sponsored event that
is invitation-only, so I'll be waiting for mine. :)
- David was very good about *not* bashing the geometrical
model that Aureal is using; he simply said that Creative
did not think it was the best way to do it. Fair enough.
He pointed out why Creative feels their statistical model
is better. However (and this is a BIG however), in order
to do occlusions and obstructions, the programmer will
need to use room geometry. Creative will expose "small
knobs" for the developer to create the occlusion effect
they want, but while EAX can create the effect, it will
still be up to the developer to program in an occlusion
engine! Currently, EAX has no mechanism for doing this
automatically like A3D 2.0's wavetracing engine can. The
burden falls on the developer to track the sources and
the listener and determine if there is an object between
them that will occlude or obstruct sound, then use tweak
values to create the effect. Presumably, this must be done
for each frame! So much for geometry being overkill! To
me, this completely validates our model and engine.
- One of the developers asked about using multiple reverbs
at the same time. Apparently (according to Dave), doing more
than one reverb on the 10k1 is currently too much for the
chip to handle. I found this shocking considering how they
love to boast about MIPS and being programmable.
- In discussing how EAX works, David (and Jean-Marc, who was
there) re-iterated that you do need to open DS3D buffers in
order to apply EAX effects to them, but you don't actually
need to position the sources. So, while a game boasts EAX,
and technically is using DS3D, it doesn't mean there will be
3D audio - just 3D buffers created. EAX cannot be applied to
2D buffers.
- One of the slides mentioned that EAX 3.0 will now have "no
need for presets". So, while the 26 EAX presets will remain,
they can be fully tweaked.
- EAX 3.0 will most likely be proprietary to Creative Labs; the
question was sort of skirted with a "we're not sure right now,
but we think so" kind of answer.
So that was the session. I found it very interesting, and while some of
the material on the slides were innacurate (at least in how it related to
us, in the case of the geometrical model), I am certianly glad I attended.
Also note that I and my colleague also did not ask any questions although
we did stick around, leading to number 2 ...
2) Meeting with Creative. I got the chance to talk to one of my
counterparts over at Creative, Liam. Like me, Liam has the title of
Evangelist, and we both have the same goal - convince people to use our
stuff. Simple enough. Liam was very nice, very friendly, commented on my
newsgroup postings, and invited us back to the Creative booth for a
demonstration. He also wanted to get a demonstration of our stuff, so we
arranged for it all to happen.
I had already been to the Creative booth earlier in the day and gotten a
cool reception from the staff (I guess the Aureal logo on my shirt wasn't
what they wanted to see). But when we went back, it was much nicer. In
addition to getting a demo of the occlusions, we also met with Bill,
another Creative Evangelist. (Apparently, they have more evangelists than
the Church of Latter Day Saints!!!) Anyway, the demo sounded very cool,
much like our wavetracing demo without the reflections. Although,
occlusions are occlusions; nothing too fancy there. Their new FPS2000
speakers looked cool, and they sounded nice, although it was very hard to
hear over the noise in the area, especially with their DVD stuff a few
feet from us. They had a lot in their large booth, but I think it was too
much - it was really impossible to hear the audio they were trying to
demo.
Anyway, David had touched on it briefly in the EAX session, but Liam and
Bill mentioned that Creative was totally revamping their HRTF usage in a
future driver update and that all four speakers would get HRTF filtering.
My colleague asked if they would be doing crosstalk cancellation as well,
but they didn't know the answer so they pulled over Jean-Marc. Then I got
real confused. :) We asked Jean-Marc (who is very French, by the
way, and his English seemed slightly broken) about the new 4 speaker setup
and he said that it was doing HRTF filtering on all four speakers, so we
asked about the crosstalk cancellation and he said no, they weren't. So
my colleague said something like "oh, so you'll be doing crosstalk
cancellation on the front, and HRTFs on all four" and Jean-Marc told us
no, HRTF filtering was only on the front speakers. Considering that
Creative doesn't do any HRTF filtering at all in 4 speaker mode right now,
I though the Evangelists may have been confused, or maybe Jean-Marc
misunderstood us. But then Jean-Marc gave a little smile, and basically
said "Why would you want to do HRTF on all four speakers? There is really
no need." So I was totally confused! I think Jean-Marc might have just
misunderstood us, but we let it go.
So, anyway, then we got a demo of the new S3 Savage 4 board they are
doing, and I have to say that their demo was much nicer than S3's demo.
The texture compression they were showing in Half-Life looked so great,
and the speed at which it was running was phenomenal. I personally prefer
quality over quantity so I wasn't paying any attention to frame rate, but
the game never hiccupped and looked awesome. Moving on, we went and
grabbed some beers (lots of drinking this week, let me tell ya) and took
Liam and Bill back to our booth to recruit them. Naw, just teasing. We
brought them over to give them the demo. Basically, we looked at Heretic
II, and chatted some more over the beers.
Liam had made a comment to me that he never goes to a developer and tells
them not to support A3D. He feels (like I do really) that if a game
developer wants to support A3D and EAX, then he should. Game developers
should be doing whatever it takes to sell their game, and if supporting as
many standards as possible does that, then by all means do it. I actually
believe Liam was telling the truth, and I think that's great because that
means that the end users benefit more. Bill and I also had a nice
discussion about supporting each other's technology - I brought up the
Dave Rossum interview where Dave mentioned that for us to support EAX, we
had to submit samples to Creative. I told him I found that extremely
hypocritcal considering Creative's emulation of A3D without providing us
with samples. Since Bill and I were talking informally, I won't go into
specifics of that conversation, but we also talked about a few other
points about each other's hardware/software that "irked" us, and I came
away understanding more from their side. I certainly hope they understood
more from my perspective as well. I think the biggest thing is that we
both want the same things: to provide good products, to further quality 3D
audio on the PC, and to make money.
Personally, I would like to see Creative and Aureal settle their
differences and play more nicely together, because I think together we can
continue to leapfrog each other pushing the audio technology far beyond
what it is now.
Now before it seems like I'm getting all chummy and mushy over Creative, I
will say that my initial reception at Creative was very cool - plenty of
stares. And I was also very disappointed that I left my business card
with someone in their booth to give to Chris Owens because I did want to
meet him and say hi as he and I have shared numerous newsgroup postings
and email discussions, and unfortunately, it just didn't happen. Chris,
you bastard! :) There were also some other stupid little squabbles
between the two camps, but whatever ... moving on ...
3) Perfect scenario. This was just the best situation I could have asked
for. I'm in our booth speaking with a reviewer from a larger
site/publication and I'm doing the spiel about A3D and Vortex and the like
and all the while, there are two Creative Labs guys sitting at our game
pod playing Heretic II. Now you have to understand they look just like
us. Our shirts are exactly the same except for ours have an Aureal logo -
theirs have the Creative one. But the logos aren't that big, so at first
glance, or from the side, you won't notice. So anyway, he and I are
talking and eventually we got to EAX vs A3D - why are we better? And he
brought up the Dave Rossum interview where Dave had said that while Aureal
may be doing things more realistically, they've found that their
perception model is preferred bu users. He said he wondered how Creative
could justify that line of thinking when most reviewers are giving the
nods to A3D 2.0 and the MX300. I told him I wasn't sure either, and
directed his attention over to the Heretic II game pod, and pointed out
the two Creative Labs employees in full Creative outfits sitting there
playing the game - huge smiles on their faces commenting on how cool it
was and how great it sounded. It was perfect. He laughed, and I hope he
makes comment on it because it was just the best.
Anyway, to wrap up Creative, I want to thank Liam and Bill for taking the
time to chat and demo for us. Hopefully, we'll see and talk to them
again, because while we still are competitors, its much nicer when
everyone is friendly in this community.
SENSAURA
Peter Clare kicked my ass for calling ignorant!!! :P
Actually, the folks at Sensaura were great. Peter (who did bring up my
comment about him, though jokingly) and Adam and Neela were all very
friendly and demoed their MultiDrive technology for us. After hearing it,
I've decided to go work for them now. Woo, I'm getting really punchy now
that its 1:30 in the morning!!! But seriously, their effect was very
nice. I can't say it was better or worse than ours, but it is certainly
better than any of our other competitors (who basically have sucked). I'd
love to do some A/B comparisons with our stuff. As I said in a previous
post, I hope their partnership with ESS doesn't doom them since ESS
continually churns out crap. Sensaura shared a small booth with ESS, and
while Canyon3D was all over the booth, I don't know if they had any for
demo or not. Didn't really talk to anyone from ESS, although I did meet
two of their team at the Microsoft party. (When you're trashed,
everyone's a friend!)
Again, I want to thank Peter, Adam, and Neela for their time as well.
They had the funniest t-shirts too.
VLSI
Not much to say about them other than they are either really really
stupid, or I just kept walking by at the wrong time. Seriously, every
time I walked by their little booth (which was about 20 feet behind ours),
they were demoing the game Forsaken. Hey, there's a great idea - show off
your new chipset, dubbed the first true 3D audio accelerator (I know, ESS
says the same thing about Canyon 3D - let em fight it out), with a game
that doesn't support 3D audio!!! I was with a friend (not in the gaming
or audio industries) who I went around with for an hour today just to show
him around and get free t-shirts (the real reason anyone goes to these
things) and sent him up to ask if it was a special version of Forsaken
(maybe they got 3D audio put in it for them) and they tolf him it was the
retail version that he could buy in the store. He listened to it and told
me it sounded crappy. He has the Xitel Storm Platinum card, so he knows
what A3D sounds like. I didn't bother listening myself because I think
its going to die a quick death soon anyway.
TRIDENT
Not there. No one cares. Don't buy a 4DWave chipset-based sound card.
Really.
CRYSTAL
Not there. Wish they were since I used to really like their chipsets, but
I think Cirrus is just killing them off.
YAMAHA
I think they had a suite for press and OEM only - no real display. So I
didn't check them out.
AND JUST SOME GAMES ...
Quake III - looked very cool
Unreal Tournament - looked very cool
Prince of Persia 3D - looked very cool
Drakan - looked cool (when it didn't lock up on ATI's systems)
Homeworld - my friend was just in awe!
And with that, its 2:20 in the morning. I hope you enjoyed a little look
at GDC, from the perspective of someone other than your average reviewer.
The future of PC audio continues to look great.
Now I'm going to go sleep until Monday! :)
------------------------------------------------------------
David A Gasior h: dgasior@home.com
Developer Relations, Aureal w: dgasior@a3d.com
------------------------------------------------------------
Please note that this post reflects my own opinions, and not
necessarily those of my employer. If they want to share any
thoughts, they can post their own messages! :) |
