Soundstorm R.I.P.

[PARANOiA]

So that's like the least important feature to me EVER...

Yes but not for everyone. That's the beauty of choice, isn't it?

 

[Supasso]

EDIT: or do you mean I'll get no DD from a game at all with other cards, also not through emulation?

Exactly. Thus far, Soundstorm has been the only piece of hardware on which that has been possible.

Two years ago, that was true. Right now, many Intel-based motherboards and sound cards can do that (Dolby Digital Live).

But it's becoming less and less important now that newer games start having DD encoded built-in to the software.

 

[swaaye]

Actually the Vortex 2 cards, especially Monster Sound MX300, had horrible DACs and the 3D audio sounds a bit weird at times. HL's audio is ok, but is like 11Khz and the reverb engine is done in software because Valve's reverb engine was more flexible than Aureal's or EAX. I loaded up my MX300 and HL1 a few months back, before HL2's release, and played around. It was neato for sure but those cheap DACs.....uhg.

A3D 2.0 was an interesting tech that sounded pretty good, but compared today those games will sound hollow due to low quality sounds. And, the bad DACs sound terrible - very muffled. It would have been great to see where it went, but Creative saw audio wavetracing as a dead end. We can't dismiss that opinion simply due to them being a competitor.

And Aureal pulled a 3dfx and managed themselves into the ground, basically. Hell they even had great OEM deals going on back in the day so you know the money was coming in. Lots of people I know had Vortex 1's in their Sony Vaios and Dells, etc (I have a Dell/Turtle Beach Montego A3D at home). The lawsuit from Creative didn't help I'm sure, but obviously that wasn't what killed them off overall. Actually, Aureal was formed out of the old Media Vision, who died from management problems as well, ironically.

Basically, the newer cards with good DACs, such as Audigy and Envy24, sound a lot better than those old goodies. And the 3D audio of the Audigy 2 in particular is pretty damned good.

 

[Accord1999]

But it's becoming less and less important now that newer games start having DD encoded built-in to the software.

There aren't any games that do real-time DD encoding.

 

[Wassup Doc]

who cares about soundstorm when there's a new card in town the does hardware encoding DD.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=511204

 

[martrox]

who cares about soundstorm when there's a new card in town the does hardware encoding DD.

http://www.avsforum.com/avs-vb/showthread.php?threadid=511204

Well, not exactly.......

I got one of these cards a few weeks ago and I took it out only hours after testing it and went back to my soundstorm.
First and foremost, it has abhorrent CPU usage. Download Audio Winbench 99, it gets as high as 18% in some cases where the same tests don't even crack 2% on the soundstorm. Games were noticably much choppier running this versus goold old soundstorm.

Lets hope it gets a lot better than this.......

 

[Supasso]

But it's becoming less and less important now that newer games start having DD encoded built-in to the software.

There aren't any games that do real-time DD encoding.

I stand corrected. I thought PoP: WW could do that, but apparently it's not.

 

[swaaye]

Yeah that's the problem with cards without hardware acceleration. Especially if you switch on EAX in games. The CPU utilization on even a high end P4/A64 will shoot up to 20%+, at least on Realtek chips.

 

[Fox5]

EDIT: or do you mean I'll get no DD from a game at all with other cards, also not through emulation?

Exactly. Thus far, Soundstorm has been the only piece of hardware on which that has been possible.

Two years ago, that was true. Right now, many Intel-based motherboards and sound cards can do that (Dolby Digital Live).

But it's becoming less and less important now that newer games start having DD encoded built-in to the software.

Every game that I've tried that claims it supports Dolby Digital only does so on boards with Azalia or Soundstorm. My audigy 2 zs never switches over to a 5.1 channel digital signal, it still outputs 2 front over digital, and the rest over my analog connections when I select dolby digital in a game.

 

[mito]

bump.... to be continued...

 

[mito]

Still regarding Soundstorm, who has compared the sound quality between the analog and the spdif (digital) output using the same motherboard?

 

[Sxotty]

The digital out sounded better to me when I heard them both on an nf7-s.

I no longer use it though.

 

[mito]

The digital out sounded better to me when I heard them both on an nf7-s.

I no longer use it though.

Using the same receiver, right? What differences did you notice? bass, treble, etc...

 

[mito]

Soundstorm was and still is the ONLY solution for realtime dolby digital 5.1 encoding. There is NOTHING currently on the market (other than the old Soundstorm motherboards still on sale) that does that. Go ahead and try it. Hook your Audigy 2 ZS (or any other sound card) up to your stereo using a digital out (not analog), and try getting anything other than front right and front left from it. It won't work, period, unless the digital signal is pre-encoded like it is for DVDs. You've got a glorified digital STEREO signal there my friends.

Whoop-dee-doo, but Creative and everyone else want you to think they have digital surround audio solutions. They do, just not at the same time. Their surround is analog, their digital is stereo. The only way you get digital surround is with pre-encoded content.

Just do the surround sound speaker test. When you can only hear the front left and front right speakers, you'll find out for yourself what we're talking about, and why people loved Soundstorm, and what the big fuss is about.

http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=23919&ATVAR_START=41&p=3

Is the above statement correct?

 

[_xxx_]

Yes.

 

[Sxotty]

Mito, I don't have my board in there anymore, so I don't know. I hooked up my old game theaterXP and anolog into my receiver (an onkyo 6 channel one) instead. I gave the nf7-s to my brother who lives in another state.

I just remember that the analog did not sound as full even when messing about with equalizer settings. I know that is very vague but it is the best I can do.

I am actually somewhat dissapointed with my gametheater XP as well, it doesn't sound quite as good as I remember, thus it seems I actualy got used to soundstorm and liked it.

Anyway there is that new soundcard that does do DD encoding from mystique I believe, and a company named blue gears will be distributing it in the US. It only does 5.1 DD encoding (the same as sound storm) and it utilizes the CPU to accomplish it, but CPU utilization is supposedly very low. Unfortunately it has been suggested that the sound is converted from digital to analog and back to digital, if so that seems a bit silly. Unfortunately for me my reciever has only 6 discrete inputs, and it has 6.1l surround, thus unless I have a sound card doing 6.1 DD encoding I am still stuck at 5.1 anyway.

 

[kyleb]

Soundstorm was and still is the ONLY solution for realtime dolby digital 5.1 encoding. There is NOTHING currently on the market (other than the old Soundstorm motherboards still on sale) that does that. Go ahead and try it. Hook your Audigy 2 ZS (or any other sound card) up to your stereo using a digital out (not analog), and try getting anything other than front right and front left from it. It won't work, period, unless the digital signal is pre-encoded like it is for DVDs. You've got a glorified digital STEREO signal there my friends.

Whoop-dee-doo, but Creative and everyone else want you to think they have digital surround audio solutions. They do, just not at the same time. Their surround is analog, their digital is stereo. The only way you get digital surround is with pre-encoded content.

Just do the surround sound speaker test. When you can only hear the front left and front right speakers, you'll find out for yourself what we're talking about, and why people loved Soundstorm, and what the big fuss is about.

http://www.anandtech.com/news/shownews.aspx?i=23919&ATVAR_START=41&p=3

Is the above statement correct?

Actually the Audigy cards do suppord digital surrroundsound out. However, it is a propritary out that only works with a couple of different Creative brand PC speaker systems, so don't expect to be able to hook it up to a home theater recever and get surroundsound like you can with soundstrom.

 

[Fox5]

Yes.

Actually, creative sound cards can do digital surround sound in games, but only with select creative receivers. They don't do real time dolby digital though, but only the creative receivers are able to handle > 2 channel uncompressed digital audio.

 

[Guden Oden]

thus unless I have a sound card doing 6.1 DD encoding I am still stuck at 5.1 anyway.

There is no 6.1DD per se; the 6th surround channel is fake. Thus, don't worry about it...

 

[Fox5]

thus unless I have a sound card doing 6.1 DD encoding I am still stuck at 5.1 anyway.

There is no 6.1DD per se; the 6th surround channel is fake. Thus, don't worry about it...

Well, all the channels were fake in Pro Logic 1 and 2, but it didn't stop it from being a nice addition...