You really bought into Sony's marketing, huh?
The PS5 is using virtual surround. 3D audio (for headphones) is virtual surround.
Virtual surround tech has been creating a "simulated binaural" signal using HRTFs since the '90s.
The thing that makes Tempest different is that it can process a lot of objects at once (hence the name). By itself, that doesn't really have a lot to do with virtual surround. They also have selectable HRTF profiles, rather than a single HRTF.
Selectable HRTFs is not a new thing either though. Rapture3D has been bundled with PC games for years and has several HRTFs to choose from.
Lol, how can you say that I bought into Sony's marketing when in the very post that you are replying to, I'm saying that I'm doubtful about Sony achieving what they are claiming 😂
I think that due to the terminology, we are getting a little confused here, and I don't know if you have read all the previous posts I was exchanging with the other guy, so I'm going to try to clarify.
This person claimed that the 7.1 virtual surround sound that you find in many headphones is the same that the binaural audio that PS5 is marketing, and I say that this is not correct. It is true that for simulating a virtual acoustic environment, they use HRTF, which is the same concept that was shown in the Road to PS5 video. But the use that they are making of it is completely different.
In these Virtual Surround Headphones, HRTF is used to simulate 5 or 7 speakers in a fixed position in the virtual space, and then, the game engine will feed them with audio signals like if you were using a real home theatre system. This mean that the engine of the game, will modify sound objects output with level, panorama, filtering, etc. but not in the same way like if the final output was going to be Binaural Audio, 3D audio or whatever you like to name it. I'll give you an example: in Assassin's Creed Origins, when an object is emitting sound from behind the player, the game engine will automatically apply it a high frequency filter and some reverb (even in open air spaces, which is horrible xD), and then, the HRTF process made by the headphones for simulating that the sound is coming from a speaker behind you, will again apply some filtering and maybe some other stuff, so you'll get a very artificial sound that won't match with the one that you would get in real life.
As you see, this is very different from 3D audio (or binaural audio), where an infinite number of positions can be simulated thanks to HRTF and interpolation methods. In this case, the developers will treat the audio in a different way than if they were targeting a surround system, and the final result will feel different.
I hope this clarifies the point I was trying to make 😅
I haven't tried myself Rapture 3D, never heard about it. My only experience with binaural audio has been with recordings and a live concert I went some time ago (it was really cool). I have also tried PSVR and 3D audio modes of Ghost of Tsuhishima and Last of Us 2, but I found them quite disappointing. I prefer the sound that my 5.1 system provides.
That said, I'm very hopeful with PS5, with the processing power of Tempest (also meaning that devs don't have to choose between usage of the CPU for sound or other things) and the HRTF profiles, I think that we can really fell an improvement next gen regarding the sound experience we get, but we will see...
