NVIDIA RT cores can also do sound ray-tracing

TechPowerUp noticed a little blurb on NVIDIA's website that reveals the RT cores of the new Turing architecture can also do sound ray-tracing. As is typical in discussions about positional audio, the site laments the state of the computer audio market, but praises NVIDIA for attempting to breathe new life into this. AMD tried it with TrueAudio, which was adopted by four games, as well as TrueAudio Next, which saw zero uptake.

The description of RT cores reads that they are specialized components that "accelerate the computation of how light and sound travel in 3D environments at up to 10 Giga Rays per second." This is an ominous sign that NVIDIA is developing a full-blown positional audio programming model that's part of RTX, with an implementation through GameWorks. Such a technology, like TrueAudio Next, could improve positional audio realism by treating sound waves like light and tracing their paths from their origin (think speech from an NPC in a game), to the listener as the sound bounces off the various surfaces in the 3D scene.