The Playstation 2's MOST OBSCURE feature: Sony S-FORCE 3D Sound Library in Silent Hill 2 🎧

Channel:

I Drink Lava - 3D Game Audio

Subscribers:

2,200

Published on October 22, 2018 11:03:28 PM ● Video Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=36l1nTb9dNY

Game:

Silent Hill 2 (2001)

Category:

Let's Play

Duration: 4:50

1,622 views

32

Use headphones only with any virtual surround features turned off.

0:15 Sony S-Force (PS2)
2:07 OpenAL Soft (PC)
3:55 Monoaural (PS2)

I have uncovered some long-lost information on Silent Hill 2. It turns out that the PC port of Silent Hill 2 wasn't the first version to have 3D sound...the original Playstation 2 version had it all along! You see, Silent Hill 2 was actually the flagship game for one of the PS2's most obscure and under-utilized features, the Sony S-FORCE 3D Sound Library.
(https://www.sony.net/SonyInfo/News/Press_Archive/200103/01-015E/)
(https://i.ebayimg.com/images/g/8RoAAOSwAYtWQjJQ/s-l1600.jpg)
S-FORCE 3D Sound Library was a proprietary HRTF middleware that was done entirely on the EmotionEngine processor. It worked with both 2.0 speakers and headphones using 10,000 points from HRIR data. By comparison, the average KEMAR tables only use 512.
(https://hcs64.com/mboard/forum.php?showthread=36833)
S-FORCE 3D Sound Library worked in a different way than Aureal A3D or Sensaura. In order to gain access to XYZ co-ordinates, it needed to read sounds from a special .sfc file format.

According to rumors I heard, Sony had originally made a deal with Aureal to use their A3D soundchips on the Playstation 2 before Creative sued Aureal to death. I guess S-FORCE was their way of going around those greedy pricks. Unfortunately, S-FORCE never caught on, likely due to its rather poor sound quality. Compared to OpenAL Soft HRTF via DSOAL (with cubic resampling), you can barely tell where the enemies are in relation to you. Only four known games ended up using S-FORCE: Silent Hill 2, Disaster Report [絶体絶命都市], Siren [Forbidden Siren in the EU], and Kingdom Hearts II. S-FORCE would later be repurposed into cheap Virtual Surround on Sony's various smartphones and DVD players.

Interestingly, this video shows that the problems with Silent Hill 2's spatialization were not actually Creature Labs' fault. The problems with hard panning, rear sounds sounding below you, and front sounds sounding above you were actually present in PS2's S-FORCE!


HRTF grades:
PS2 S-Force - D
PC OpenAL Soft - A

PCSX2 Settings:
Windows Control Panel: Stereo
Internal Resolution: Native
Interlacing: None
Bilinear Filtering: PS2
Interpolation: Catmull-Rom (PS2-like/slow)
Module: 1 - XAudio 2 (Recommended)
Audio Expansion Mode: Stereo (none, default)
In-Game Speakers: Headphones (did PS2 even have a headphone jack?)

PC Settings:
Windows Control Panel: Stereo
IRC_1037 HRTF tables placed in %APPDATA%/OpenAL/HRTF
(in alsoft.ini located in %APPDATA%)
channels=stereo
frequency=44100
stereo-mode=headphones
cf_level=0
sample-type=float32
periods=3
period_size=128
default-hrtf=Built-in 44100
drivers="-dsound"
hrtf=true
resampler=cubic

Links:
https://www.nexusmods.com/newvegas/mods/65094
http://recherche.ircam.fr/equipes/salles/listen/
http://enhanced.townofsilenthill.com/SH2/index.htm

Credits:
https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/silent/images/1/15/SH2.png/revision/latest?cb=20140810064114
https://forums.launchbox-app.com/uploads/monthly_2017_09/59c5b16f4056e_SonyPlaystation2.png.eaf55719f67aeff43454ccd15e0a49bd.png
http://cc.cnetcontent.com/vcs/sony/inline-content/80/709466C7353755CD2E0CC09A1707C73E398AC20F_78F38995F5F3E5F7096EDDFA10893632FMTPNGALPHASCL1_feature.jpg
(Use of these images falls under fair use laws for non-profit usage.)


#3dsound #spatialaudio #binaural #3daudio #360audio #8daudio #hrtf #headphones #audiophile #gameaudio #mod #silenthill #ps2 #sforce #halloween
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