IGN gamescom award show
IGNcube: Tell our readers, what exactly does Dolby Pro Logic II do? And what does it mean for GameCube titles?
Julian Eggebrecht: DPLII allows for real-time encoding of full five-channel audio. Every developer on GameCube who uses MusyX and works on a 3D game should also use the built-in 3D audio API which automatically places sounds correctly in space. Up to now the encoded output was limited to Mono, Stereo, and Dolby Surround Pro-Logic. Now the developer just throws a switch and MusyX Pro-Logic Output is changed to Pro-Logic II and you have full cinema-like five channels of sound.
IGNcube: How do you think Dolby Pro Logic II competes against other sound formats including Dolby Digital? What are the advantages of going with Dolby Pro Logic II, as a developer?
Julian: The main advantage is the ease of use. As I said before - for all current MusyX developers it is literally a switch. If they have 3D sound in their work-in-progress game it takes minutes and it will be automatically encoded in five-channel sound. To the listener PLII is extremely similar to Dolby Digital. It has a few advantages and disadvantages compared to Dolby Digital. The advantages are the downwards compatibility - a game using Pro-Logic II can be played on any Stereo or Pro-Logic system and will take full advantage of these without any changes in the game setup. Secondly, there is no delay due to the encoding and finally, the audio is non-compressed, whereas Dolby Digital applies heavy compression.
The disadvantages of PLII are that the channel separation is even better with Dolby Digital and that DPLII doesn't have a specific bass channel.
IGNcube: How do developers working on GameCube gain access to the Dolby Pro Logic II technology?
Julian: There will be a MusyX update within the next few days. It should be a matter of minutes to get it going for everybody who is already using MusyX 3D API.
IGNcube: What kind of audio feats have you been able to achieve using Dolby Pro Logic II through MusyX?
Julian: Listen to Rogue Leader on a DPLII system and you have all of the audio feats in one package. There is nothing better than a swarm of Tie-Fighters behind you, panning from left to right in the back just before they come into view. You can actually use the five-channel audio to your advantage when playing the game.
IGNcube: What kind of hit on the GameCube hardware does using the technology cause? Can you give us a few examples?
Julian: Practically nothing. We did not notice any difference in performance in Rogue Leader when we switched to DPLII encoding. There is maybe a 1% hit on the audio DSP but that s something only we could measure. The slight hit on that is easily being compensated by the MusyX DSP load-management system. For developers out there, there won't be any perceivable performance changes.
IGNcube: Great. Finally, will Factor 5's next game, or games, run in Dolby Pro Logic II?
Julian: Of course we will use Dolby Pro Logic 2 for everything we have in production. What that is? You will have to wait a bit longer to find out.