Creative SB Audigy Announced

Didn't Creative Labs say that the EMU10K on the original Live had soooo much untapped potential? Didn't they claim that only 14% of its power was being used? So why do they need to indroduce a chip 4x more powerful? Weren't we supposed to double the performance of our Live cards through endless driver upgrades? So far the Live driver upgrades have mostly addressed compatiblity issues. Could it be that this was all marketing crap, and that this is also just marketing crap? Could it be that Creative isn't so creative after all?

Environment Morphing, that takes the cake. After years of competing against a smaller company Creative still isn't capable of producing real-time calculated 3D sound, and they must use these shitty static presets. So what do they do, do they come out, three years late, with some real-time 3D sound (an implementation of which they even bought out from the ashes of their smaller competitor which they sued into the ground)? No, they put a freakin' patch on their crappy static preset scheme that's supposed to make it "better". It sickens me that these guys just market themselves everywhere with their inferior products. I'm not a fan boy, I own both an SBLive with digital out, and an MX300. The Live, with digital out, doesn't sound any better then the MX300 using my digital SPF 2000 speaker system! The only difference is that Half-Life now sounds crappy and the EAX static presets get all screwed up and sound phoney. A3D was a much better tech for games and sounded better. It was the real deal. I hate how Creative does absolutely nothing for gamers by pushing this backward technology on them. Screw Creative.

As a regular joe, I don't get the point of this new card.

Yes, the SBLive sucks, I can tell the difference between it and my Hercules GTXP (still better IMO0.

I don't see what's so great about 3D sound. I have a two-speaker setup. I technically have four speakers, but put the rear ones away so the cats and clumsy people don't keep tripping over them and knocking them down (one of my rear speakers has hit the floor over 50+ times now).

Does this make the performance over my headphones or two speakers any better than what I'm getting right now? I doubt it.

I really REALLY REALLY don't give a SHIT for 3d sound that is proprietry home coded shit.

Use an industry stantard like dolby or don't fucking bother I say.


EAX and A3D = total ass in my opinion unless you have a perfeft speaker setup, with the right shaped room, and equal powered speakers infront and behind you.


I REALLY couldn't care less for the 3D sound bullshit out there, I still run my SB live as a standard pci stereo soundcard with "lots-o-channels" for games which need lots-o-channels (most now) that's all I need it for.

As for "low quality" on the SB live, I find that hard to believe, sure it's not a proffessional card but in "standard" non 3d mode it sounds IDENTICAL to my MX300 in "standard non 3d mode" stereo 44,000 = stereo 44,000 in my opinion and that's that not "live = worse than mx300"

(and I always used the MX300 in "standard" mode because it used 1/3 of my cpu time on a Celeron 450 in Half life..... ONE THIRD)

Audigy so far:

Signal to noise is very clean, much cleaner than the Live! Enviroment morphing actually works like they say it does. For first person games, especially single player this makes enviroments sound much more realistic. From the looks of the control panel you can now apply seperate environment, effects and EQ to each audio input source. ASIO support out of the box finally. Built in Firwire port is a great idea, kicks the crap out of USB speed wise. Basically this is a decent entry level small studio card.

As for the people bitching about 3D sound, maybe sound isn't that important for you, but it's what I do for a living and the advances in 3D sound are long overdue. Believe me, once you have a properly set up system you'll never want to go back. Hell, even Half Life rocks with EAX. I got through a lot of situations in Max Payne using 3D positioning to tell where the enemies were and to make it throught the maze puzzles.

Cool. I hope they don't bundle all those games/crappy software with it. Just gimme the sound card - if they wanna sweeten the deal to suck me in quicker, offer me a rebate or something.

Completely Redesigned Audio Architecture Delivers 24-bit/96kHz/100dB SNR

Well it's terribly close to my Protools DSP card, I might finally go back to using a single soundcard for playback and recording

High Definition Audio Realism: EAX ADVANCED HD delivers unprecedented realism in PC gaming through Multi-Environment(TM), Environment Morphing(TM), Environment Panning(TM), Environment Reflections(TM) and Environment Filtering(TM) technologies.

This is the biggest load of marketing hype crap I have ever seen. Maybe they could quit wasting time filing ludicrous trademarks and updating their drivers.

Heh. I suspect that 8 out of 10 fanboys can't hear the difference between one sound card and another. For most people, it's all about acquiring some new gear because it's new. :)

I couldn't be happier with my Hercules Game Theater XP. The Audigy even has COPY PROTECTION in it and that makes me happier that I have a Hercules card. Which btw, sounds 2X better than the live... and my Klipsch 400's don't buzz at low volume anymore.

Philips,I think my next sound card will be a philips edge-that new one out.

3d sound is a joke. how many games actually make good use of it? most games have options to enable a3d or eax, but it hardly ever works. when it does work, it usually slows the framerate terribly. sblive is a decent sound card, but i could easily do without eax ...

Who the hell makes up the name for these products, anyway? I think that Creative and Nvidia must be using the same company...

i like their Live! Value. It doesn't come with all that shit I won't use.

Should I even be partially excited about this?

How do you pronounce that?

"Audi-gly"?

"Ugly"?

I hope Creative or some other company start taking sound seriously and really improve upon their products like Nvidia does with graphics. Also, I would love it if we could just download reference drivers for our sound cards instead of their bulky applications that "enhance" our sound cards. Keep it simple guys, we don't want your crappy software that fucks up our computers or makes them slow.

mofo.

Where do I get one? Hmmmm, sometimes I wonder if they want me to buy their products. Then you really wonder why companies drop like flies. *POORDISTRIBUTION'D*

I hope the new cards are as big as my old AWE32. That thing was as big as my motherboard.

sweet! i might have to get one, i already have those damn 300$ speakers of thiers.

Does it compete with the nforce specs (ON PAPER?) or ??

yea, when do these hit the streets, i've been waiting for them for a while. I gots a new credit card to max, where can I order?

Sign me up. I will order mine today!

i posted pics yesterday!!! :-)

Whoa.