Is this a Soundstorm replacement?

[MarkTO]

While browsing through the Soundstorm feedback article on the Inquirer this entry caught my eye:

Hi there,

Len Layton from C-Media here. For over a year we have been shipping a Dolby Digital Live* solution on USB, AC-97 and it's now available on HD audio, from either Realtek (our partner) or us directly. DDL-equipped mobos are out from ASUS, Gigabyte and others right now, but they are all Intel, of course.

You can also buy a little DDL-equipped USB-S/PDIF dongle from some of our customers, and soon some PCI cards based on the C-Media 8768 will be available.

Anyway, happy to discuss further and help you all out. Check out www.cmedia.com.tw

*Dolby's new name for what used to be called DDICE -- Dolby Digital Interactive Content Encoder)

Kind Regards,
Len.
Len Layton
Senior Vice President
C-Media Electronics, Inc. (USA)

The web link is CMI8768+ 8CH High-Performance PCI Audio Single Chip.

Does anyone know of or better yet own one of the motherboards he is referring to? I noticed on the web page the Dolby Digital encoder is listed under software. Even if it is only a software solution it's better then nothing (though if the performance hit is too large it may not be). At least those of us with DD receivers could use 5.1 speakers instead of just 2 when gaming. I wonder if this codec/chip/software could be included on an nForce-4 motherboard.

 

[SynthDude2001]

Hmmm.....that looks somewhat interesting....

 

[Concillian]

OMG, I didn't see that inquirer article. You have to love it.

Inquirer posts rumors of SoundStorm2, even though they are not true according to everyone else in the world.
Inquirer posts MORE rumors of SoundStorm2
Inquirer posts still MORE rumors of SoundStorm2.

All the people who are blinded by their love for SS believe only the inquirer and nobody else.
Then nForce4 doesn't have SS2 and the Inquirer acts surprised and aghast, collecting these responses.

Really someone had a stroke of brilliance when that scheme was devised. I mean they HAD to know months ago, like everyone else did, that ther ewas going to be no more SoundStorm. Rather than let it go quietly, they whipped everyone into a frenzy. Hilarious.

Oh, then if you're really into conspiracy theories, you have to wonder if the whole thing was whipped up in conjunction with C-Media so tehy could move people over to their product. Which, while nice, really won't do anything for gamers who want D3D sound digitally encoded to AC3 while using little to no CPU.

Every USB sound device I've ever seen has been a HUGE CPU suck. Big enough to signifciantly affect frame rates.

 

[MarkTO]

After a little browsing I found some more info on all this. The Asus P5AD2, P5GD2 and some Intel motherboards currently support this. There are two integrated audio codecs that support DD, the Realtek ALC880 and the C-Media CMI9880. They are both reviewed here C-Media CMI9880, Realtek ALC880. The summary of the articles is that the Realtek solution sounds worse in DD mode then in analog and uses an extra 10% processor time. The realtek sounds better has better drivers and doesn't use any extra CPU over analog but they weren't able to get it to work with 3DMark which in my opinion defeats the point since if it doesn't work in directsound 3D mode then you might as well get a SBLive. I also found an add in card that has the C-Media here.

Intel's HD audio seems to be behind the push for dolby digital. They even have certification levels for motherboards, Dolby Master Studio, being the one with DD in games. Maybe other manufactures will take notice and we may get more solutions. Who knows mabye ATI will come through for us.

Really someone had a stroke of brilliance when that scheme was devised. I mean they HAD to know months ago, like everyone else did, that ther ewas going to be no more SoundStorm. Rather than let it go quietly, they whipped everyone into a frenzy. Hilarious

Concillian I can't agree more. The Inquirer seems to have this down to a fine art. Remember all the contradicting stories they had before the latest series of graphics cards were released.

 

[Concillian]

Originally posted by: MarkTO
The realtek sounds better has better drivers and doesn't use any extra CPU over analog but they weren't able to get it to work with 3DMark which in my opinion defeats the point since if it doesn't work in directsound 3D mode then you might as well get a SBLive. I also found an add in card that has the C-Media

My alternate soundcard of choice is the Chaintech AV-710. No money to Creative, you get a good DAC, and you can get the card for under $30 at newegg.

So you have some CPU usage on the 3D audio. I'd rather live with that than unstable and bloated Creative drivers. The SBLive was the WORST for that. I had so many crashes in DiabloII because of my stupid SBLive. I knew it was the SBlive because my Ensoniq Soundscape was fine, but I couldn't stay in DiabloII for more than 20-30 minutes before my SBLive would crash my system. No more Creative for me.

That's probably what I'll do when I upgrade, VIA mobo, VIA chipset audio. VIA hasn't pissed me off yet.

Sorry, I can take things to extremes sometimes, you can have your thread back

 

[AlphaFox]

Anyone know WHERE you can find the C-Media CMI8768+ based cards? BTW, it needs to have the + after it for the DD live