Nvidia RTX Voice removes background noise picked up by microphones

Nvidia released a useful little tool called ‘RTX Voice’ which removes background noise while using the microphone through certain apps. One of its usefulness applies on VoIP services like ZOOM, Skype and Discord. This is also benefitted by streamers who use Twitch Studio, OBS Studio and XSplit for live broadcasting. Nvidia describes its application as:

RTX Voice creates a virtual device on your system, and it is this virtual device that we want to use in your voice chat apps to denoise background noise from chat only, and not from your general Windows audio (as it would denoise unwanted audio feeds, like YouTube videos, Spotify music, or game audio).

RTX gamers who live broadcast/ podcast, voice/ video chat, remote conferencing and streaming usually in less than ideal home setup now have an added feature. It just goes to show that Tensor core’s usefulness is not necessarily limited.

Along with an RTX graphics card, you need to have Windows 10 and GeForce 410.18 driver & above. Once you installed the utility, you just need to flip the ‘Remove background noise from my microphone’ option. This voice only with RTX graphics cards as it uses Tensor cores.

At the time of writing, this software is in BETA. But noise cancellation has become an important factor. Discord signed up with Krisp and enabled a BETA option to do the same. As people are staying indoors and wider userbase for noise cancellation. Though it works through Discord, Krisp provides a standalone software. Interestingly, this is not locked to any particular hardware or relying on proprietary cores. Just like RTX Voice, Krisp uses AI learning. This is because Krisp has its AI process it via its cloud network.

Compatible applications

Nvidia’s RTX Voice gives a wide range of benefits to the following applications:

  • OBS Studio
  • XSplit Broadcaster
  • XSplit Gamecaster
  • Twitch Studio
  • Discord
  • Google Chrome
  • Skype*
  • WebEx*
  • Zoom*
  • Slack*

You can download it from here.

The usual BETA Testing disclaimer

Since its in BETA mode, there are issues with suppressing speak output. Hence, Nvidia states one should disable speakers unless required when using RTX Voice through the last four applications.

And yet, Nvidia states the following:

We recommend turning on RTX Voice for your microphone, and turn it on for your speakers only if needed. While quality remains almost the same, it is possible to see a small difference in some cases, and the solution takes system resources that you can avoid using if you don’t need it.

So… just try not to use your speakers when RTX Voice is enabled as much as possible for best results. But it is more predominant with Skype, WebEx, ZOOM and Slack.  It should be noted that ZOOM is controversial for its alleged security issues.

It also requires to turn off your microphone’s software-enabled background noise cancellation effects (such as noise gate in OBS Studio). There’s an issue where you cannot adjust the volume on a software level. The only way possible is by disabling, adjusting and re-enabling.

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