We saw the premiere trailer for upcoming strategy action first person 3D game 'Thief' in April last year. As a stealthy game the awareness of sound, the environment and use of silence are key to gameplay so what better game for AMD to enhance with its new TrueAudio Technology? The game is due out this year and publishers Square Enix were at the CES demonstrating the title, being developed at Eidos Montreal.

AMD interviewed Jean-Normand Bucci, Technical Art Director, Square Enix who confirmed that audio is "taken very seriously," within the upcoming Thief game coming to PCs, current and next gen consoles this year. He explained that the sound in the game is used for immersion and for "many different gameplay aspects".

Sound design considerations in Thief include; sound to distract guards and different surfaces in the game exhibiting different sound characteristics – this is part of the core game design. The developers have worked to create "more realistic sound environments in different areas".

All this is good but the audio processing required can cause CPU overheads for the many and complex calculations required which also require a lot of RAM, explained Bucci. However, if you have an AMD GPU with TrueAudio it will be able to handle all these overheads he said, which should mean that the game can run smoother with your CPU and RAM devoted to the other non-audio, non-graphical gaming calculations without hindrance.

More information about AMD TrueAudio technology can be found on AMD's site here.