Dolby Axon

Dolby® Axon represents the future of voice communication for online games and virtual worlds. Crafted from the ground up specifically for game developers, Dolby Axon enables a realistic voice experience that matches the game environment and greatly expands game-play possibilities.

Surround sound: Dolby Axon delivers an immersing and realistic voice experience complete with surround panning and distance attenuation.

Voice fonts: Dolby Axon features voice fonts so players can alter their voices to better match their in-game personas.

Dolby voice pipeline: Dolby Axon features an innovative suite of proprietary voice processing technologies to deliver a clear voice experience free of unwanted noise, echo, clipping, and leveling problems.

Flexible API: Dolby Axon’s flexible API enables creative integration and game-play options. Developers can create new voice items in games (such as spy microphones) to enhance game play.

Hosted Online Voice Solution

In addition, Dolby's proven server technology allows players to communicate online and provides high reliability and real-time scalability in a turnkey solution.

Infrastructure provided: Dolby hosts the necessary infrastructure, so developers can focus on building the game while Dolby manages the player’s voice needs.

Simple and flexible voice integration: Dolby Axon Network is easy to implement with integration engineering support, flexible APIs, detailed documentation, and sample code.

Multilayer support 24/7: Dolby offers around-the-clock service. Developers can rely on the quality support that Dolby is known for in cinemas, recording studios, and broadcast facilities the world over.

Uptime guarantee: Dolby Axon Network gives online developers peace of mind with high availability and uptime—guaranteed.

Efficient Voice Server Operations

Dolby Axon servers utilize advanced server mixing, networking technology, and a proprietary Dolby codec to achieve massive scalability and efficiency.

Real-time monitoring: Dolby Axon offers game operators a real-time monitoring portal to check the system status and voice usage.

Massive scalability: Dolby Axon seamlessly scales across servers to support very large worlds. It also supports various world architectures and multiple instances.

Bandwidth efficiency: Dolby Axon delivers a high-quality surround voice experience with very low bandwidth cost to gamers. Average bandwidth for complex surround scenes is as low as 16 kbps per player.

Voice Quality

Dolby Axon uses a proprietary voice codec that can operate at different bit rates for varying bandwidth/quality requirements:

Low-bit-rate version—8 kbps (16 kHz sample rate)

High-quality version—16 kbps (16 kHz sample rate)

Dolby Surround Rendering

5.1 channels

Two channels (using Dolby Virtual Speaker technology)

Headset/headphones (using Dolby Headphone technology)

Integration

Server-side API

Client-side API

Server-based massively multiplayer online game

Operational Tools

Web portal with access to real-time system status, voice usage, and statistics

Voice Pipeline Enhancements

Microphone leveling

Microphone clipping prevention

Input noise reduction

Voice activity detection

Multichannel echo suppression

Voice fonts

Channel Types

Spatial channels (attenuated by distance)

Spatial global channels (directional; not attenuated by distance)

Nonspatial global channels (not attenuated, not spatial)

Server Technology

Full 3D virtual world support

Spatial and discrete channels

Instance support

Single point of contact for game operator

Automatic load balancing

Automatic recovery from hardware or software failure

System scaling with no interruption in service and without developer input

Client-Side Efficiency

Average of 10 people within hearing range, 20 percent speaking at any instant:
- Client download bandwidth ~26 kbps for high-quality voice codec
- Client upload bandwidth ~5 kbps for high-quality voice codec

Average CPU usage: 3 percent of 1.8 GHz Intel® Pentium® M 

Average memory usage: 5 MB

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