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The Week in
Review: September 2-8, 2002
Last week's features at
3DsoundSurge
Last week's sound news
Drivers and bugs New nForce drivers
nVidia has released new (v1.13) unified
drivers for the nForce chipsets. They are dated August 22 but was not posted until
yesterday according to nVidia. Here's what's new:
- Updated Detonator XP video drivers
- Updated audio and networking drivers
- New Audio Control Panel, 5.1 support, multi-band EQ and presets
- Improved 3D audio and EAX compatibility
- General compatibility fixes
- International Language Support
New
games, demos, patches and bugs
Colonies may support EAX
Game Arena has conducted an interview with
three people from Acidstorm Entertainment, including the lead Sound technician, about
the Torque engine powered Colonies. Here's some interesting Q&A:
GameArena: Do you have your own studio, where sounds are
recorded?
I.A Kilpelainen: Yes, Acidstorm currently has a studio(at my place)
which we use. It is a 50 sq. meter studio with all the modern “candy” in it. The
studio is a mixture of both modern and classical outlook and gear. I have this new gear
there, such as recorders with massive capacity, synths with enormous polyphony, and even
working stations created specifically for sound engineering. Along with that I have some
real vintage stuff, such as a 3 pair of legendary 70’s analog Moogs (Memory, Prodigy,
Minimoog), Roland TB303, Juno, Yamaha DX7 etc. Acoustically, we have one piano, electronic
bass and electric guitar.
With such equipment, I can create some natural sounding
compositions, or create some never before heard sounds by running them through my Kyma
System, or create kickass breakbeats without ripping out my hair with tricky MIDI
preparations.
GameArena: Is there going to be support for high quality sound and
EAX?
I.A Kilpelainen : I’ve been actually planning to add EAX to
game, so that people who are having more advanced sound cards could choose EAX support.
And yes support for high quality sound will be in the game.
GameArena: What type of sound format will you be using?
Ward De Langhe: We plan on using the ogg vorbis format. It’s a
free sound format that should be as good as mp3.
I.A Kilpelainen: Because of .mp3 formats expensive price we had to
search another as good format as mp3. After a small search of competitive audio
alternatives, we decided go to ogg vorbis format because of its format quality &
flexibility.
GameArena: Can players make use of sound input devices and software?
Such as Roger Wilco?
Ward De Langhe: If all gooses well, chatting ingame will be
possible. For now the engine doesn't support things like this... but we are working on it.
- Fusion of Live and Electronic: Getting the Best
Sounds
Composer Ron Jones (Star Trek: Star Fleet Command and Star Trek: Star Fleet Academy and
Star Trek: TNG) has published an article on the
fusion of electronic and live orchestral music for interactive media. Here is an
excerpt:
I had to be creative in the use of electronics, because in
scoring many projects for television and low budget feature films, these projects demanded
epic sounds to equal the big budget features that could afford full symphonic orchestras,
yet only had a third to a quarter of the budget. So I took the strengths of both worlds
and developed techniques of orchestration which can give all the power and expressive
quality, but at an affordable price."
- Age of Myth Music Interview
PC.IGN.COM has posted an interview the focuses on the music
development for Age of Myth. Specifically they chatted with music and sound director
Stephen Rippy and music and sound artist Kevin McMullan to find out a bit more about the
process of creating and recording the music for the game. Here's
a snip:
IGNPC: You've said that the soundtrack fades from one section to
another depending on context? How does this work exactly? How do you design music in a
modular form so there's unity and flexibility?
Stephen Rippy: We went back and forth on this stuff probably more
than any other piece of the game that we touched. The system we eventually decided on is
able to seamlessly crossfade between two mixes of a given song depending on how the player
is doing in the game. Most of the time, the player will hear a nice, full-sounding track,
but if he or she gets run over by the enemy or loses a lot of population, the music
downshifts to a more ambient, somber mix. Additionally, if a player is involved in
attacking a significant building or uses particular god powers, the music will quickly
shift to a totally separate playlist of "fighting" tunes. These will play until
the event that caused them finishes
- Asheron's Call 2: Inside the Engine
Gamespy has posted the fourth part in
it's Asheron's Call 2 interview series. This time the focus is the Engine that powers
it. Here's the audio related bit:
GameSpy: The game engine does a lot of things -- we've touched
on the graphics and the animations and the quest system. But one really clever feature in
Asheron's Call 2 is the dynamic music. Every monster has its own theme, Peter and the Wolf
style, and these themes can combine. Was this difficult to do? What do you think of the
end results? Does it actually work?
Jason Booth: Yes, it actually works if you know what to listen for. We try to keep the
"peter and the world" part of it fairly subtle, but that didn't stop one of our
developers from realizing his monster spawns were awry when he heard one of the melodies
play in an area a monster shouldn't have been.
More interesting and challenging than the monster melodies was the
player music, which allows players to play over two dozen instruments together, each with
10 melodic lines. These lines not only have to work over each other, but over multiple
background scores, in multiple key signatures, adapting to complex chord progressions, and
no matter what they have to sound good. The entire thing was hugely experimental, and I
wasn't sure if it would work when we started creating it, but it's actually worked out
really well. I'm really excited about this system because not only is it the first thing
of its kind ever created, but it becomes a unique social game which brings people
together.
I've already spent a lot of time playing music with people in the beta, and it's only
going to become more interesting as time goes on. Like everything we do at Turbine, we
designed the system to be extendable, and we plan on adding new instruments and music as
time goes on.
I'm currently writing a lot of material on the difficulties with
creating such a system from both a compositional and technical end, and plan to publish
the results with a few other composers in a book on interactive music.
Reviews
of soundcards, speakers, headphones and MP3 players.
- Cambridge SoundWorks MegaWorks 210D
Tweak3D has posted a very positive review of Cambridge SoundWorks $279 2.1
multimedia system, the MegaWorks 210D. A couple of comments follow. While the
satellites of the MegaWorks are from the Newton series the MC50s are the entry level of
the series and retail separately for $50 each. Secondly, in the review they state the for
speaker resistance, the lower the better. In fact most amplifiers are rated to use
speakers with an 8 ohm nominal resistance and that's the most common impedance for
speakers. Going lower on an amplifier recommended for 8 ohms can cause problems. To use
speakers with a lower impedance rating you need an amplifier rated to handle them as it
generally takes more power to run a speaker with lower impedance rating. When it comes to
the 210D it's a moot point since it's an integrated system.
- Plextor PlexCombo 20/10/40-12A
BlargOC has posted an overall very positive review of the Plextor PlexCombo
20/10/40-12A. This is Plextor's first drive to incorporate CD/CDR/CDRW and DVD all in
one single unit. The bundle includes Ahead's Nero Burning ROM 5.5 and PowerDVD XP.
- Samsung SM-332 Combo Drive
Hardware Extreme has posted an overall very positive review of the Samsung
SM-332 Combo Drive. This 32x/10x/40x-12X unit is currently the fastest and newest
combo drive Combo Drive offered from Samsung.
Other sound news
- ESS Technology Announces Dolby Pro Logic II
Products
ESS Technology, Inc., the world's leading provider of DVD and VCD decoder chips announced
today the integration of Dolby Pro Logic® II in its Vibratto DVD chip family. Dolby Pro
Logic II, the latest step in the evolution of Dolby Pro Logic, enhances its original Pro
Logic technology with improvements in surround decoding and audio expansion to deliver a
"5.1-like" surround experience when listening to conventional stereo audio
recordings. Pro Logic II is also backward compatible with existing Dolby Surround encoded.
For more background on Dolby Pro Logic II and ESS you can check out the full press release.
- SRS Labs Continues Relationship with Microsoft in
WMP 9 Series
SRS Labs, Inc. has announced that its technology and marketing alliance with Microsoft
Corp. continues with the beta release of the new Windows Media 9 Series from Microsoft
that includes SRS Labs' WOW technology. The SRS WOW stereo enhancement technology, which
has been included in all Windows Media Players since the July 2000 release of Windows
Media Player 7, continues to be embraced by Microsoft as their stereo enhancement solution
for the new Windows Media Player 9 Series. SRS Labs also announced today that its premier
multichannel audio technologies, Circle Surround (CS) and TruSurround XT, are available to
Windows Media Player 9 Series users as software plug-ins. These plug-ins will be released
by SRSWOWcast Technologies, a subsidiary of SRS Labs and will soon be available for
purchase directly from SRS
Labs' ecommerce store. The new software products
available for sale include both CS encoding tools for content creators and software
upgrade plug-in products for all computer users. The company anticipates that beta
versions of these new software products will be available in the next two weeks.
Additional details on the SRS technology and the relationship with
Microsoft can be
found in the full press release.
- Microsoft Unveils Windows Media 9 Series
Yesterday evening at the Hollywood and Highlands Complex, Microsoft Corp. Chairman and
Chief Software Architect Bill Gates announced the immediate public beta
release of the Windows Media 9 Series platform. With innovations such as
high-definition video at six times the resolution of DVD, the first 5.1-channel surround
sound streaming audio, and a faster, more-television-like experience with media on the Web
using Fast Streaming, the Windows Media 9 Series platform offers benefits for the media
and entertainment industry, consumers in the home, and in how businesses communicate. The high-definition video and 5.1-channel surround sound capabilities of
Windows Media Audio and Video 9 Series offer filmmakers and recording artists compelling
new ways to reach new audiences. International recording star Peter Gabriel's upcoming
album, "UP," will be the first album ever to be made available digitally on the
Web offering a 5.1-channel surround sound audio experience. The album will be released
using the new Windows Media Audio Professional (WMA Pro), the Web's first digital
5.1-channel surround sound audio codec. This breakthrough audio experience on the Web will
be released for download simultaneously with Gabriel's new CD on Sept. 25, and only be
experienced with the new Windows Media Player 9 Series available today. You can read lots
more in the press release linked above as well as in a second press release on the
subject.
In addition to the 5.1 streaming ability Microsoft is also stating
that Windows Media Audio 9 provides a 20 percent improvement in quality compared with the
previous version, and the new variable bit rate mode further improves audio quality. The
release also states that the new Windows Media Audio 9 Lossless codec provides bit-perfect
copying of personal CDs at one-half to one-third the size of the original CD. Time will
tell...
The beta version of the entire Windows Media 9 Series platform
including the new versions of Windows Media Player 9 Series, Windows Media Encoder and
Windows Media 9 Series SDK is now available for public download
from Microsoft.
- Napster Dead
If you check Napster.com you will
now only find a image saying Napster was here. The latest and final blow to this once so
popular service was the decision by a federal judge Tuesday to block the $9 million sale
of Napster to German media giant Bertelsmann. For more details about this decision and a
brief overview of Napster history and analysis of other swap filing services check out this CNET
News.com story.
- GDCE & ECTS 2002 Report
Music4Games has published
their GDCE & ECTS 2002 report covering all the news and hot gossip from the game
audio world. Includes details on soundtracks for forthcoming game titles such as Breed,
Splinter Cell, The Getaway, Broken Sword: The Sleeping Dragon, Superman, and Vietcong, as
well as commentary spotlights on The PlayStation Experience and the annual Video Game
Musicians (V.G.M.) meeting.
For more news from last week check out our news archive.
Upcoming features at 3DsoundSurgeReviews that we are currently working on:
Updated Santa Cruz/Sonic Fury and GameTheaterXP reviews
Hercules Fortissimo II
Terratec DMX Xfire 1024
CMedia CM8738 Reference Review
Full Audigy Review
Full Philips MMS305 Review
There are several other hardware reviews in the pipeline
including, but not limited to the following:
Guillemot Maxi Sound MUSE
Terratec m3po
DigMedia MusicStore
Philips Seismic Edge
Lots of other stuff on the go in including several guides and major site revisions that we
will soon be releasing more details on.
As always if you have any ideas for products we should review or features we should do,
please let us know.
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