lol...
sad sad sad..
first of all, the SBLive series has enough hardware on board (they use a DSP chip on their cards) to do MP3 playback IN HARDWARE. of course AFAIK none of their drivers support it, and you also need programs to support it (read: PLUGIN FOR WINAMP), but hey, they don't care.
why do I think this is funny? because it was one of the main features of Aureal's upcoming SQ3500 that was supposed to be out about a year ago, but not only that, it had Dolby Digital hardware decoding (so games could utilize it, imagine doing that in software, even on todays computers??).
the interesting thing about all these decoders etc, is that the software is what bends around the hardware. WinDVD? they now have the ability to use features from nVIdia graphics cards, they didn't have it before. I'm sure they would have done the same with Aureal's next card (cause they also work around SBLives to work with their 'new' features).
I sure would love a hardware MP3 decoder, I don't want my CPU bogged down at all (it would increase my RC5 cracking rate!) when I'm playing games.
I especially hate how Intel has been pushing software standards more and more, so that things are ever more reliant on their CPU's. USB is a perfect example..
our CPU's make your joysticks work better, your modems connect faster.. etc etc.
I dont see why we need MP3 hardware decoder when a P3/800 can do it using the WinAMP 2.22 decoder (best quality) using less than 2% of the CPU.
if you are running 5 or 6 of these programs, each taking up as little as 2% (oh that's not much), you then have 10-12 % utilization.
that is exactly what I'm talking about, when it comes to these things, you ever so slowly are pushed into a world where everything is software (no hardware acceleration). WinModems? MS+Intel created that one. it's software, and utilizes next to nothing.
btw xtreme2k, winamp 2.666+ has a much better decoder then previous version (xcept the one you're on, which is pretty much the same). I don't remember if this is right, but I think they just tweaked the fraunhoffer plugin so that it was alot faster (optimized, all fraunhoffer encoders/decoders aren't well optimized).
sad sad sad..
first of all, the SBLive series has enough hardware on board (they use a DSP chip on their cards) to do MP3 playback IN HARDWARE. of course AFAIK none of their drivers support it, and you also need programs to support it (read: PLUGIN FOR WINAMP), but hey, they don't care.
why do I think this is funny? because it was one of the main features of Aureal's upcoming SQ3500 that was supposed to be out about a year ago, but not only that, it had Dolby Digital hardware decoding (so games could utilize it, imagine doing that in software, even on todays computers??).
the interesting thing about all these decoders etc, is that the software is what bends around the hardware. WinDVD? they now have the ability to use features from nVIdia graphics cards, they didn't have it before. I'm sure they would have done the same with Aureal's next card (cause they also work around SBLives to work with their 'new' features).
I sure would love a hardware MP3 decoder, I don't want my CPU bogged down at all (it would increase my RC5 cracking rate!) when I'm playing games.
I especially hate how Intel has been pushing software standards more and more, so that things are ever more reliant on their CPU's. USB is a perfect example..
our CPU's make your joysticks work better, your modems connect faster.. etc etc.
I dont see why we need MP3 hardware decoder when a P3/800 can do it using the WinAMP 2.22 decoder (best quality) using less than 2% of the CPU.
if you are running 5 or 6 of these programs, each taking up as little as 2% (oh that's not much), you then have 10-12 % utilization.
that is exactly what I'm talking about, when it comes to these things, you ever so slowly are pushed into a world where everything is software (no hardware acceleration). WinModems? MS+Intel created that one. it's software, and utilizes next to nothing.
btw xtreme2k, winamp 2.666+ has a much better decoder then previous version (xcept the one you're on, which is pretty much the same). I don't remember if this is right, but I think they just tweaked the fraunhoffer plugin so that it was alot faster (optimized, all fraunhoffer encoders/decoders aren't well optimized).
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