v7.0, 20040922, me

Friday, October 29, 11:30 am – 12:30 pm
Session G AUDIO FOR COMPUTER GAMES

Chair: Martin Wilde, Motorola, Inc., Schaumburg, IL, USA

11:30 am
G-1 Establishing a Reference Playback Level for Video Games—Mark Tuffy, THX Ltd., San Rafael, CA, USA
Over the last two decades, there have been dramatic advances in video game technology. In this time, audio for games has moved from monophonic beeps to full 5.1 surround sound, utilizing Dolby Digital and DTS. While the games industry has embraced these technologies, there are no standards or guidelines in place to ensure that game audio exploits the potential of this delivery mechanism. As a result, there is still the push toward “louder is better.” One element key to moving away from “loud” to “quality” is establishing a reference level for playback. This paper suggests such a reference level and why this would be logical for the games industry to adopt.
Convention Paper 6223

12:00 noon
G-2 Can Playing a Computer Game Affect Perception of Audio-Visual Synchrony?—Peter Ward, Slawomir Zielinski, Francis Rumsey, University of Surrey, Guildford, Surrey, UK
The investigation aimed to discover the effect of involvement in an interactive task on the perception of audio-visual asynchrony in a computer game environment. An experimental game was designed to test the investigated phenomenon. The experiment tested only audio lag conditions. It was found that within the confines of the experimental method, the threshold of perception was increased in the interactive game condition by approximately 40 ms (±20 ms), which is a small but statistically significant value.
Convention Paper 6224