Last month, Microsoft revealed the Xbox Series X’s specs and a boatload of its key features. Despite this, new information about the next-gen console continues to trickle out. For example, another new feature has been revealed, this time courtesy of Microsoft-owned developer Ninja Theory. According to Ninja Theory, the Xbox Series X will come packing its own dedicated audio chip. What this means is that the quality of sound in games should be considerably improved compared to the audio in Xbox One games. Beyond this, the dedicated audio chip of the console will mean resources will be dished out more equally across a game’s development.
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“It’s extremely exciting,” said senior sound designer at Ninja Theory Daniele Galante “We’re going to have a dedicated chip to work with audio, which means we finally won’t have to fight with programmers and artists for memory and CPU power.”
Adding to this, the studio’s audio lead, David Garcia, noted that this is a first for console gaming. While graphics have had dedicated video cards for awhile, there’s been nothing for audio. This new audio chip is essentially the video card of audio.
“We take for granted that graphics are powered by their own video cards,” said Garcia. “But in audio, we haven’t had anything like that. Now we have some power dedicated to us.”
According to the aforementioned Galante, all of this will mean that when thinking about tackling audio, the team won’t need to worry about all the limitations that have been in place this generation.
“I really like how Microsoft is giving us more tools to improve the sound and to be more creative,” said the developer. “Because at the end of the day it’s not a matter of, ‘we want more memory because we are more cool’, we just want to be able to do our jobs without thinking about limitations.
“Making games always has you thinking about technical limitations. Eventually these limitations become less and less the more you evolve with new consoles, but at the same time it’s always a constant thing: These are the maximum number of voices we can have, because otherwise the game is going to lag.”
The Xbox Series X is set to release sometime this holiday season. If you haven’t already, be sure to check out our list of every Xbox Series X game confirmed so far.
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