VR Audio Latency Reduction via Pre-computed Impulse Responses
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Solution Overview
Problem
Current VR systems face significant challenges in reducing audio latency, which can lead to a detached gaming experience and motion sickness due to the intensive computational requirements of geometric acoustic processing, especially in client-server gaming systems where real-time ray tracing is necessary for accurate sound propagation.
Innovation Solution
The solution involves pre-computing impulse responses (IRs) based on predicted motions of a user or object, allowing for the selection and use of pre-computed IRs when positional changes occur, thereby reducing the computational load and latency by offloading processing to the client device.
Engineering Contradictions & Design Principles
Engineering Contradiction Analysis
1Measurement precision
If real-time ray tracing is performed on the server to compute impulse responses for geometric acoustic audio processing, then audio accuracy and spatialization quality are improved, but audio latency increases beyond comfortable levels
Solution Approach 1:
The patent pre-computes impulse responses for multiple predicted user positions and directions before they are actually needed. By anticipating future head positions and pre-calculating the corresponding acoustic impulse responses, the system eliminates the need for real-time computation when the user actually moves, thereby reducing audio latency while maintaining accuracy.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent dynamically adjusts the computation strategy by predicting future user positions based on current motion trends. Instead of static pre-computation or reactive real-time computation, the system adaptively pre-computes impulse responses for predicted positions, optimizing the balance between accuracy and latency based on actual user behavior patterns.
2Measurement precision
If impulse responses are computed in real-time on the server when user position changes occur, then audio accuracy is maintained, but computational load and processing time increase
Solution Approach 1:
The system performs preliminary computation of impulse responses for multiple predicted user positions before actual position changes occur. This advance preparation stores pre-computed acoustic data that can be quickly retrieved and applied when the user actually moves, avoiding time-consuming real-time ray tracing operations.
Solution Approach 2:
The patent implements dynamic prediction of user motion patterns to determine which impulse responses to pre-compute. By analyzing current user behavior and predicting future positions, the system optimizes computational resources by pre-calculating only the most likely needed impulse responses, improving processing efficiency.
3Measurement precision
If the server performs all geometric acoustic processing and convolution operations, then audio quality is improved, but network bandwidth requirements and end-to-end latency increase
Solution Approach 1:
The patent extracts the computationally intensive impulse response computation from the server and performs it locally on the user device. By moving the ray tracing and impulse response generation to the client side, the system reduces network traffic and eliminates server processing delays, while maintaining audio quality through local real-time computation.
Solution Approach 2:
The system pre-computes impulse responses locally on the user device based on predicted positions, allowing immediate application without network round-trip delays. This local pre-computation strategy eliminates network bandwidth constraints and reduces end-to-end latency while maintaining audio quality.
Data Source
AI summary
A virtual reality (VR) audio rendering system and method using pre-computed impulse responses (IRs) to generate audio frames in a VR setting for rendering. Based on a current position of a user or a VR object, a set of possible motions are predicted and a set of IRs are pre-computed by using a Geometric Acoustic (GA) model of a virtual scene. Once a position change is actually detected, one of the pre-computed IRs is selected and convolved with a set of audio frames to generate modified audio frames for rendering. As the modified audio frames are generated by using pre-computed IR without requiring intensive ray tracing computations, the audio latency can be significantly reduced.