Creative buys Aureal..

Stephen24

Senior member
Jul 21, 2000
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Creative Labs is a very good company. All their video cards have been high performers and have very good prices. The SB Live sound cards are excelent and are also a very good price. I am not sure what will happen now but I am not worried about Creative labs taking advantage of the consumer. Besides, I can't see myself needing to get a new sound card any time soon. My sound card has amazing surround sound and for the most part I don't think getting a more powerfull sound card will speed up my machine that much.
 

Mday

Lifer
Oct 14, 1999
18,647
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you're a bit late with the "news"

but who cares...

i say creative never lost their monopoly ;-)

anyway, this is good news to 3d sound in games actually... creative will make eax + a3d more useful, since gamers don't have to choose and neither do developers.

either way, it's no "big" deal at least we have different speaker manufacturers to choose from, well a few if we want good speakers.
 

obeseotron

Golden Member
Oct 9, 1999
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Creative will simply kill the technology that at one time threatened to unseat it as king.
 

$pade

Senior member
Oct 9, 1999
664
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actually creative's newest enemy in the sound card buisness will be nvidia. Nvidia is providing the sound chip on the xbox. It probably won't be long until they come out with a pc version of it. On top of that Nvidia hired key aureal employees and the sound chip on the xbox incorporates techs as reflection, oclusion and some other stuff. Sound familiar?
 

dawks

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,071
2
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I've been seeing rumors thrown around, but this is the first hard piece I've seen. So im not really late.

$pade.. have a look here
 

Sephiroth_IX

Diamond Member
Oct 22, 1999
5,933
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<< actually creative's newest enemy in the sound card buisness will be nvidia. Nvidia is providing the sound chip on the xbox. It probably won't be long until they come out with a pc version of it. On top of that Nvidia hired key aureal employees and the sound chip on the xbox incorporates techs as reflection, oclusion and some other stuff. Sound familiar? >>

The sound chip in the Xbox also does broadband support, and is as powerful as &quot;a high end pentium 3&quot;

Looks to me like Nvidia will be coming in and hard.
 

IBMer

Golden Member
Jul 7, 2000
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<< actually creative's newest enemy in the sound card buisness will be nvidia. Nvidia is providing the sound chip on the xbox. It probably won't be long until they come out with a pc version of it. On top of that Nvidia hired key aureal employees and the sound chip on the xbox incorporates techs as reflection, oclusion and some other stuff. Sound familiar? >>



The only problem is that if Nvidia uses any of the patents that Creative now owns, they will be brought to court and killed just like Aureal.
 

yellowperil

Diamond Member
Jan 17, 2000
4,598
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I ordered an SQ2500 OEM (w/optical out) last week. Still waiting for it to arrive. Did I make a big mistake by not getting an SB Live Value? My main rationale was to record onto MD, but I also wanted to do some MIDI functions on my keyboard as well. I heard the Live outperforms the Aureal on MIDI. Anyway, I paid $35 shipped for the SQ2500. What's the cheapest price on the SB Live Value?
 

Sephiroth_IX

Diamond Member
Oct 22, 1999
5,933
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Yelow you got a great card. Im sure you will be more than happy with your SQ2500. And yes, the Live is better for Midi, but the SQ is nice also.
 

Goi

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
6,766
7
91
The Live! may be better at midi stock, but Vortex2 cards have the ability to add in wavetable daughterboards via the on-board &quot;waveblaster&quot; connector. With a good daughterboard, it kicks the crap outta the Live! in midi.
 

Sunner

Elite Member
Oct 9, 1999
11,641
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IBMer, even if they did, which I doubt they will, there's no way Creative would not treat them the same way they did Aureal.

One reason is that nVidia is FAR bigger than Aureal, they have tons of cash, that would be one tough fight for Creative, that I dont think any of them would want.

And secondly, how many GFX boards do you think Creative would sell if nVidia went down or simply stopped supplying them with chips?
In fact do Creative even sell any non nVidia based GFX cards today?
 

$pade

Senior member
Oct 9, 1999
664
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&quot;The only problem is that if Nvidia uses any of the patents that Creative now owns, they will be brought to court and killed just like Aureal&quot;


Last year ago that would be possible but todady Nvidia has grown into a monster on the stock market. Its unbelievable how much respect Nvidia has on the market and their present market value (close to 5 billion) exceeds that of creative (1.5 billion) on the us stock market. If creative goes to court against nvidia, it would be creative who could get killed off not only in court but on the market itself.
 

nateholtrop

Diamond Member
Jun 8, 2000
5,349
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so does that mean my mx300 is not driver dead?? or will creative put out drivers for it?? i personally hate creative because of their crappy tech support but hey that's me.:D:eek:
 

yellowperil

Diamond Member
Jan 17, 2000
4,598
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What are the minimum reqs for the SQ2500? Does it put much strain on CPU resources? I'll be using it with a Celeron 400 but I ordered one for a friend of mine, and he's using a P166 MMX.
 

dawks

Diamond Member
Oct 9, 1999
5,071
2
81
As long as he doenst use A3D in 3D games like Half-Life.. (you shouldnt even play half-life on a 200..:))

Other then that, the card should be fine. As long as he has PCI 2.1 slot.. Not sure about those older mobos, so I couldnt confirm.
 

Hossenfeffer

Diamond Member
Jul 16, 2000
7,462
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The SQ2500 shouldn't have troubles with the P166. It might even speed up his system a tad (read: itsie-bitsee tidbit).
 

robisc

Platinum Member
Oct 13, 1999
2,664
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I just hope this means that somebody will come up with some good drivers for my SQ2500 and Win2k and not those crappy beta ones.
 

nateholtrop

Diamond Member
Jun 8, 2000
5,349
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so does that mean my mx300 is not driver dead?? or will creative put out drivers for it?? i personally hate creative because of their crappy tech support but hey that's me.

:confused:
 

Erasmus-X

Platinum Member
Oct 11, 1999
2,076
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<< With a good daughterboard, it kicks the crap outta the Live! in midi. >>



Very true, but a stock Aureal card can't match the Live's MIDI capabilities (and this is mainly because of the superior EMU wavesets included with the Live! cards). Add a good daughterboard to an Aureal and then you have a combo that costs twice as much as a Live!.

Nonetheless, the population of PC gamers far exceed the MIDI crowd. Most MIDI composers end up buying REAL MIDI boards (although the Live! a great beginner's card).
 

Goi

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
6,766
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Erasmus-X, I already conceded that the SB Live! has better MIDI capabilities than any Aureal card stock. The thing is, Aureal cards have the option of upgrading to better MIDI via a wavetable daughterboard, and SB Live! don't. The price issue isn't really a factor here because of the fact that the SB Live! doesn't even support it. Beside, with a good daughterboard, the Aureal really does kick the SB Live!'s butt in MIDI, so why shouldn't it cost more? I think its logical and reasonable that if A is better than B, then A should cost more than B, even if A is made up of 2 other separate entities C and D.

As for your last statement, I agree full-heartedly. However, there are still quite a number of MIDI hobbyists and amateurs who don't have wads of cash lying around, that might like the soundcard + daughterboard combo, me being one of them. It just allows for more flexibility.
 

yellowperil

Diamond Member
Jan 17, 2000
4,598
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How much is this daughterboard? Also, anyone know where I could get a good MIDI adapter for cheap (<$20)? The one that connects to a joystick port and attaches to a MIDI keyboard.
 

Goi

Diamond Member
Oct 10, 1999
6,766
7
91
yellowperil, I'm using a Yamaha DB50XG. I bought it like 4 years ago when it just came out for a short while. I think I paid $100+ for it, but it has lasted this long, in fact longer than any other part in my system other than my FDD, so I have no regrets paying that price for it. I think it should be pretty cheap now if they're still making it, though I don't know the exact price.