TrueAudio is a DSP for audio based on Cadence Tensilica HiFi EP DSP with Tensilica Xtensa SP float support. AMD claimed that a few simple audio effects can use up to 14% of the CPU. Audiokinetic claimed that it is up to 10%. Independent software vendors, such as game developers, can use what is called a Wwiseaudio plugin to offload such computations to the TrueAudio DSPs. The on-die TrueAudio DSPs provide a better "silicon area to computing power" ratio and "power consumption to computing power" ratio for audio processing than the CPU, effectively making it an audio acceleration unit. Any additional benefits of the TrueAudio DSPs, such as "better effects", have been severely criticized. In, AnandTech evaluated AMD TrueAudio using the Thief video game.
True Audio Next
A new version of TrueAudio, TrueAudio Next, was released with the AMD Radeon 400 series GPUs. TrueAudio Next utilizes the GPU to simulate audio physics. The move from a dedicated DSP to GPGPU breaks compatibility with the previous TrueAudio implementation. The TrueAudio Next SDK was released as open source through AMD's GPUOpen suite in August 2016. It also clarified that TrueAudio Next uses the GPU's ray-casting technology to do the audio computation, and can also reserve GCN compute units for lower latency. Support for True Audio Next was added to the beta SteamApplication programming interface in February 2018.
Software support
AMD TrueAudio enables dedicated digital signal processing. Such dedicated audio processing horsepower is specifically for generating immersive soundscapes and saves CPU cycles that can be used for other game processing tasks such as AI and Physics. The video games ', Star Citizen, Thief and ' can be configured to use AMD TrueAudio if present. There is an audio plug-in for Audiokinetic's Wwise to off-load computation to the TrueAudio DSP. Wwise is available for Linux, OS X, Windows, PlayStation 4, Xbox One et al. GenAudio's AstoundSound, a highly optimized collection of advanced DSP C/C++ software available as a library or a plugin for augmenting real-time audio engines on Linux, OS X, Windows as well as Android and iOS, can make use of AMD TrueAudio. AstoundSound is also wrapped for several plug-in formats, such as RTAS and Wwise and has been integrated into several DSP chips. AstoundSound is described as fully programmable audio engine. As of July 2014 there are no news regarding products supporting TrueAudio and LV2.
– special version of "Tuscany" VR demo from Oculus VR; AMD TrueAudio is utilized to calculate the spatialization of an audio environment. Spatialization is a technique that permits the audio engine to create a fully 3D soundfield on a stereo headset. This effect is powered by the positional 3D audio plugin "AstoundSound 3D RTI" by GenAudio, and it includes support for elevation, distance and positioning. AstoundSound is e.g. integrated with the FMOD Studio.
Driver support
AMD has retired AMD TrueAudio Technology support with Radeon Software Crimson Edition 16.40 and introduced a new way for developers to support AMD TrueAudio Technology like features with AMD TrueAudio Next. More information on TrueAudio Next can be found at .
