What will the next generation sound cards be capable of ?

[Oric]

I wonder what you predict for new functionalities for near future sound cards on the market.

Currently we need external processing for AC-3 decoding and various other polyphonic formats. Do you think Creative Labs and the competition will reduce this to small DSP chips on a card ?

If not, what do you think the new Creative Card be capable of ? Do you think it is good time to sell my old Live!Value card while it is worth something.

 

[Oric]

33,000+ Members and nearly %90 of them sleeping I should post new threads when America wakes up I guess hehehe.

 

[sandorski]

Higher prices! Sorry, I'm still ticked that CL was able to kill off the only competition they had.

 

[skemlawn]

Now that it is basically just Creative. NOTHING. It will be the same card slightly re-hashed with a different name. That Live that you have in you computer now will be basically the same one that will be in you computer a year from now, only with a higher price tag.

IMHO, anyway.

 

[Zorba]

I don't think there will be any *real* next gen cards, for a while. There might be another round of Live!s, which would be the same as the other Live!s, just trying to milk more money. I believe that sound cards will be idle until NV comes out with theirs (I hope it comes quickly).

 

[Oric]

Any optimistic opinions or forecasts ? Would anyone with enough expertise tell us why it is so hard to decode AC-3 or THX type of encodings on a desktop sound card ? After all when I first bought my Live card I had a PII running @ 266 now my PIII runs @933 MHz, this should be a comparision of how computational power of the silicon chip increased over time. The same thing goes for video cards and image processing. Why should the big (or small) boys of the sound card area not be innovative ?

 

[Workin']

Well, I don't think it's hard to decode AC-3/Dolby Digital, DTS, or as-yet-to-be-named multi-channel formats. I think the problem is that there is a limited market for PC-based "desktop theater". Most families don't want to huddle around the computer monitor to watch a movie, they want to sit on their sofa in the family room and eat popcorn while they watch on a big screen. Plus, not many people have room for 6 or more speakers on or around their desk.

So, I think it is a case of limited demand, not technical prowess, that is keeping the pace of innovation slow regarding sound cards.

 

[AMB]

There is going to be Dolby Digital 7.1, so cards may use this in the future

 

[Workin']

Sure, I can see 8 speakers on my desk! (no sarcasm intended) Actually there already is a 6.1 standard out there (actually 2) - Dolby Digital EX and DTS something, can't recall right now what name they have given it.

But the usefulness of these systems on the desktop and the practicality of implementing them on the desktop instead of in the living room will limit their viability and implementation in computer sound cards, IMO.

 

[bluemax]

I'd like to see SoundFonts dramatically reduced in size! Imagine a super-amazing 64-MB General MIDI soundfont only taking up 8MB or RAM!
That would be great for music quality of MIDI music, for those of us who actually use these things as "music" cards instead of "sound" cards!
Might change the game industry back to much more interesting, changing MIDI soundtracks instead of unchanging CD audio or MP3's.

 

[Noriaki]

The "new" creative cards? I hope you don't mean the MP3+ 5.1, X-Gamer 5.1, and Platinum 5.1

Because they are exactly the same as the old MP3+, X-Gamer and Platinum, except instead of that stupid propritary digital output, they have a center/sub mini-stereo output.

So your new set of SBLive!s will have 3 ways to output 5.1 channels:
SPDIF (RCA or Optical), Creative Mini-DIN and Analog.
Where as the older lives only had the first 2.

The capabilities of the card are exactly the same.

 

[urbantechie]

<< There is going to be Dolby Digital 7.1, so cards may use this in the future >>



Well..actually on my (err dads ) Yamaha DSP-A3090 it is considered a 7.1 reciver. 5.1 for the two front, center and rear speakers. The extra &quot;2&quot; thus 7.1 comes from the two FRONT EFFECT speakers.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Hey, wait a minute. I am a Vortex2 owner, but I've always like the fact that the Live! chip (EMU-10K1) was flash-upgradeable. Those with Live! cards *shouldn't* have to upgrade if my info is correct. Creative may have done themselves in ... if they ever release the flash updates.

-SUO, hoping for a Santa Cruz in my next system

 

[lumpyhed]

<< I'd like to see SoundFonts dramatically reduced in size! Imagine a super-amazing 64-MB General MIDI soundfont only >>



If you use Audio Compositor, you can render your soundfonted midi's channel by channel into wav files, and then import them into a mixer for mp3 encoding.

 

[Zucchini]

soundfonts.. blah. useless for games and stuff.. mp3 acceleration would be better(for game music). Creative labs needs to release cards with better sound quality and REAL 3d sound, something better then a3d 2.0 or whatever.. and definetly better then that eax crap.

 

[lumpyhed]

Soundfonts are for apps like Cakewalk so that you aren't limited to samples, and can have much more structured m00sic. No doubt alot of the games music is done using Gigasampler with instrument banks coming in at $100 or so a pop!

 

[bluemax]

Zucchini, I don't think you were around during the heyday of MIDI music, staring with the Roland MT-32. Some of those dynamic soundtracks sounded BETTER than CD or MP3 because they were made right there on your machine with no loss. It's hard to explain, especially since you probably never experienced it- either you didn't know of it, of you had a SandBlaster FM chip. *ugh*
Some of us remember TIE Fighter and the INCREDIBLE GM soundtrack that went with it... the music would change very subtly depending on your situation, and would either be very quiet to raging intensity and all points in between. You don't get that in today's games with only a few fixed songs on MP3 or CD.

Huge soundfonts that don't take up huge RAM or processing time could bring incredible soundtracks like that back! (And you wouldn't be limited to the General MIDI patchset either!)
MP3 compression for Soundfonts? Why not!

 

[Zucchini]

I admit my experience has been with consumer gaming cards only so far. How big were those soundfonts? I guess it would be nice to have awsome sounding midi, but its going to have to be a quantum leap over the junk we have today(gaming cards)

 

[Madcowz]

6.1 = 2 front, 2 rear, front center, rear center

I have no idea what 7.1 would add but personally I don't think that standard will catch on much less even become a standard

And now that creative labs has destroyed and bought out all competition they have absolute NO reason to innovate and create great new cards since no matter what everyone will be buying whatever the heck they provide us if there are no alternatives from competitors. This is already evident with the new 5.1 soundblasters. The only reason they released this is to squeeze more money out of their soundblaster line. It is the same darn card as the old live except touted with &quot;true&quot; 5.1 dolby digital support. This is just a big gimmick since it is still passthrough digital sound requiring an external dolby digital decoder. The old lives were capable of dolby digital just the same except as long as you had digital out via the digital miniplug or through a daughtercard or live drive w/ SPDIF or digital din connectors. Shouldn't creative be considered a monopoly by now?