How The PS5’s New 3D Audio Technology Works

The PS5’s new 3D Audio technology promises players a more realistic and situational sound experience, thereby drastically improving gameplay.

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It’s been promised that the next-generation of consoles will release by the 2020 holiday season, and as the time draws nearer, more details regarding Sony’s PlayStation 5 have become available, including aspects of its Tempest 3D AudioTech. The new technology promises to drastically change the audio of PlayStation consoles moving forward by offering a more realistic and situational sound experience.

The PS5 has been revealed to sport a clunkier design that its predecessors, but the need for thermal casings in order to accommodate the console’s increase in power made it a necessary design feature. It will feature an AMD Zen 2-based CPU with 8 cores at 3.5GHz. Similarly, it includes an RDNA 2 AMD GPU, which provides the console with 10.28 TLFOPs of processing power, in addition to 16GB of GDDR6 memory. The PS5 will incorporate expandable storage, something previous models have failed to include. In terms of backwards compatibility, over 4,000 PS4 titles will be instantly available to play once the console eventually debuts.

The PS5’s DualSense controller also promises to be an upgrade when compared to earlier versions. It will feature haptic feedback, allowing players to experience increased sensations during gameplay. It will also include adaptive triggers on the L2 and R2 buttons, again allowing players to experience varying levels of resistance. But it’s not only the DualSense controller that promises to offer players a more realistic gaming session. When coupled with the 3D AudioTech, players will be able to simulate an incredibly life-like experience, with various audio and physical sensations. The PS5’s 3D audio technology is truly one of the most impressive aspects of the console, which is going to change the way people game.

What Is 3D Audio Technology?

The Tempest 3D AudioTech is the PlayStation 5’s newest audio technology, which promises to provide a more immersive experience by simulating sound from a variety of different directions and sources. The Tempest Engine powering the technology will be able to support hundreds of different sounds, appearing as though they’re coming from countless directions, creating an immersive feeling.

In other words, different sounds will appear as though they’re coming from different locations. This will furthermore allow players to track locality – where the sound is coming from – during the game. Players can hear footsteps behind them while there’s also someone screaming in front of them. The audio will be delivered in a multidimensional way so that it feels natural and as though the player is truly immersed in the game’s environment, adding to its realistic and situational feel.

How It Differs From The PS4’s Audio Technology

The Tempest Engine is much more powerful than any technology featured in the PS5’s predecessors. The engine’s strong processing power is required in order to process the variety of sounds coming from different directions. The current PlayStation 4 doesn’t devote nearly as much processing power to audio, and even more telling, the PS3’s Cell processor does even less, speaking to the impressive power of the Tempest Engine.

The PS5’s audio technology does share similarities with technology used in the PlayStation VR headset, which imitates audio coming from 50 different sources. But the PS5’s technology will differ in that it uses object-based spatial sound tech to produce a more varied, wider soundscape that will offer an audio experience unlike any of its predecessors.

What Is The New Tempest Engine?

The Tempest Engine is the technology powering the deliverance of 3D audio. It’s essentially a tiny sound processing chip located in the console which uses AMD graphics processing technology. Sony has managed to re-engineer an AMD GPU computer unit, an important aspect of the graphics processor. By using this unit, it thereby allows the system to process a wide variety of sounds from different locations within the game, simulating a realistic experience. In this way, the PS5 itself is able to directly deliver 3D audio. Players won’t need to own expensive sound systems or headsets to get the 3D audio experience.

“The first goal was to create audio for everyone, not just VR users or sound bar owners or headphone users. That meant audio had to be part of the console, it couldn’t be a peripheral,” Mark Cerny, lead architect on the PS5, explained to Games Radar. “The second goal was to support hundreds of sound sources. We didn’t want developers to have to pick and choose which sounds would get 3D effects and which wouldn’t. We wanted every sound in the game to have dimensionality.”

It’s not enough for the Tempest Engine to simply support a variety of sound sources. One of the challenges is that people hear sound differently; since everyone’s ear canal is shaped differently, the path sound takes to go towards the ear drum varies. Therefore, in order to make the audio experience even more realistic, Sony has incorporated a featured called the Head-Related Transfer Function, which allows the sound to be tailored to the player’s unique ear shape. HRTF allows the 3D audio system to simulate sound from sources in different ways, depending on what’s best for the individual player’s ear type, thereby offering a clearer and more situational audio experience.

By using a sampling of 100 people, and measuring how they hear sound frequency and direction, Sony created five advanced profiles that PS5 players will be able to choose from. However, it’s been implied that, in the future, this technology could require players to send in images or videos of their ears and head to make the sound experience even more customizable. “Maybe you’ll be sending us a video of your ears and your head, and we’ll make a 3D model of them and synthesise the HRTF,” Cerny explained, Tom’s Guide reports. “Maybe you’ll play an audio game to tune your HRTF, we’ll be subtly changing it as you play, and home in on the HRTF that gives you the highest score, meaning that it matches you the best. Ultimately, we’re committed to enabling everyone to experience that next level of realism.”

Will PS5 Players Need To Use A Headset?

Although the PS5 will be able to play 3D sound through the player’s TV audio setup, whether that be normal TV speakers, a soundbar, or the like, the best experience, for the time being, will be achieved by using a headset. Existing TV and audio hardware isn’t set-up to for Tempest engine compatibility, therefore it won’t be able to play the 3D audio in all of its glory. For players looking to get the most crystal-clear audio experience, try Sony’s official PS5 gaming headphones, which are said to be “fine-tuned” for the new 3D audio technology.

In the future, however, Sony devices, like TVs and home cinema systems, will likely incorporate Tempest Engine compatibility so players don’t need to use headphones to get the full experience. But at the PS5’s launch, a quality headset will be the only way to get the full 3D audio experience.

Although a lot is known about the PS5’s specs and features, including details about its 3D Audio technology, some of the most important details are still up in the air. This includes the price and release date. Even though Sony has said the console is not being delayed by the COVID-19 pandemic, there has been some concern it could increase the market value of the console. But for now, it appears the PlayStation 5 is still on track to release by this year’s holiday season.

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