Last month (July), Sony unveiled a new version of the operating system with various software improvements such as accessibility features, tactile feedback on the system interface, improvements to social features, among others.
But one of the announced features that has attracted the most attention is the implementation of Dolby Atmos, a 3D sound codec that is widely used in various entertainment products, including Xbox. Although it has its own 3D system, Tempest 3D, the possibility of using Dolby Atmos is very valuable, and I'll explain why. But first, let's talk about...
What is Dolby Atmos?
Dolby Atmos is a surround sound codec that can use both virtual and physical audio channels to bring greater immersion and make you feel as if you were really inside the scene.
There are other similar systems on the market such as Spatial Audio from THX, Waves NX from HyperX, DTS: X from DTS and Sony itself has two similar codecs on the market, Tempest 3D and 360 Reality Audio. But Dolby Atmos has one thing over all: availability.
As I said, a large proportion of entertainment products are compatible with Dolby's codec, and that includes most of the TVs available on the market. The fact is that in order to have this feature, you usually have to invest in a premium mid-range TV, but even so, it's available for a multitude of devices on the market.
The PlayStation has a powerful 3D system, which even supports a greater number of channels than Dolby Atmos itself, but in contrast to this, it is only available on the PS5. And although it is possible to use it via the TV, it is noticeable that the quality is not the same as Dolby Atmos.
How will it work on PS5? Better than on Xbox?
The application of Dolby Atmos on the PS5 curiously has a very important role to play with Tempest 3D, because the Sony console was built in total sync with the 3D sound system. The PS5 was developed from the outset with the Tempest Engine, which is responsible for controlling the video game's audio channel system natively. In other words, through Tempest 3D, surround sound is created in such a way that no post-processing is required.
And that's where Sony's big break comes in: using the Tempest Engine to provide Dolby Atmos. But again, how does this work? The TVs on the market, as well as soundbars and receivers, that are capable of using Dolby Atmos automatically output the PS5's surround sound as Atmos.
And for this, the Tempest Engine uses Dolby channels, so Tempest 3D, which was limited by the hardware, is no more. And this makes Atmos work "smoothly" on the PS5, surpassing even the Xbox, which has already had the feature for two generations, allowing you to connect up to 10 Xbox Ones.
Because it was developed synchronously with the video game itself, Tempest 3D allows the audio to be transmitted without any kind of delay or lag. In the case of the Xbox, because it is post-processed, there is a delay between what we see on the screen and the sound, which should be a maximum of one second, but which is still noticeable. Not to mention the fact that Xbox requires a separate subscription, while PlayStation has it at no extra cost.
I need help getting more data so we can get to the bottom of this Atmos thing. If you use Atmos on Xbox or Win 11, film your screen using slow motion from your phone and post results! Also post your sound hardware. pic.twitter.com/F8eOOV9S2z
- John Linneman (@dark1x) August 14, 2023
What does Mark Cerny have to say about it?
If our explanation wasn't enough to make you understand what's going on between the PS5 and Dolby Atmos, our dear Mark Cerny, the engineer responsible for developing the PS5 (and possibly the PS6) has sent a letter directly to Digital Foundry telling us exactly how the feature will be used.
In the words of Cerny:
"It's probably easier to talk about Tempest-based 3D audio and Dolby device support in terms of Ambisonic audio, which is increasingly popular these days (note that there are other strategies for 3D audio, including those that use discrete 3D audio objects, but the situation is quite similar).
Ambisonic audio can be seen as a rather radical extension of stereo audio. With stereo audio, the game's audio engine (or the middleware used) will add a sound source to one or both channels based on its location - if the source is to the right of the listener, it will mostly be added to the right channel, and so with Ambisonic audio, there are many more channels - the fifth order is very common and uses 36 channels, so it allows for good localization of the audio.
A sound source is then added to these 36 channels based on location; the math is a little more complex than when using stereo, but not overwhelmingly so. As the audio processing is channel-based (albeit on 36 channels rather than 2 channels), the audio designer retains very good control of mixing, filters, etc., and strategies such as dynamic range compression (where the audibility of certain important audio, such as the player's character voice is guaranteed) can be used normally.
The Ambisonic audio channels are then transferred to the Tempest 3D Audio Tech engine for rendering, which means that the Tempest engine uses the player's HRTF and the location of the speakers to create an appropriate audio stream for each speaker. The Ambisonic audio channels encode all directions, including above the player; even though it's rendered for headphones, this is very important, as it allows sound "above" the player to be processed so that it sounds as if it's really coming from above - of course, this is where the HRTF with its encoding takes in the shape of the head and ear.
Until the most recent update, the Tempest engine rendered Ambisonic channel information in headphones, TV stereo speakers and 5.1 and 7.1 audio configurations. Now 7.1.4 has been introduced, with its four overhead speakers, but nothing really changes in Tempest's overall rendering strategy - the 36 Ambisonic channels already include audio coming from all directions, including above the player. In other words, support for the four overhead speakers is "first class" support. Also note that the rendering latency for these new speaker configurations is identical to what it has been in the past for stereo, 5.1 and 7.1. As a result, the 7.1.4 experience for existing games should be very good. It's true that game teams haven't been able to test these speaker configurations, but support should be fairly automatic, the necessary game audio data is already there in Ambisonic format. In the future, there is an opportunity for improvement, as sound designers can also check the highest audio quality at 7.1.4 speaker settings."
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