Shack Giveaway: Mighty Switch Force (3DS)
Tales from Space: Mutant Blobs Attack preview
Alan Wake 2 would be 'much quicker' than first game, says Remedy
Darksiders 2 releases June 26, pre-order bonuses announced
PlayStation Home getting avatar 'fighting' game
Creative's X-Fi Audio
by Chris Remo, Aug 09, 2005 11:17am PDTSoundBlaster manufacturer Creative Technology issued a press release regarding their new Sound Blaster X-Fi sound cards, powered by the Xtreme Fidelity audio processor. The cards feature up to 64MB of onboard RAM and support up to 128 hardware voices. They also feature fairly steep price tags, with the "Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS" model (obviously targeted towards gamers) retailing for $279.99 and the "Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro" for a staggering $399.99. What with graphics cards already commanding the premium they do and with the upcoming dedicated physics processors and now this, PC gamers could be in for some seriously expensive upgrade options in the near future.
"Sound Blaster X-Fi heralds the beginning of a new epoch in audio, where X-Fi enabled audio products will eventually and completely replace the old hi-fi equipment in the home. ...With the arsenal of high-end audio products, technologies and intellectual properties that Creative owns, you can expect Creative to release more and more audio product lines that support this new Xtreme Fidelity audio standard."
Comments
the most attractive reason to get this is the fact that i can use this card for BOTH studio work AND gaming-- the fact i can plug it in and use my guitar with Native Instrument's Guitar Rig, throw down a beat and sample it into Cubase, master it, than add some midi keyboard effects live, all while having close to 1-10 ms latency, and than go and play Battlefield 2 with kickass sound AND reduced framerates, makes it a VERY appealing package. The "Ring-Architechture" that they talk about is truely a marvel to design architechture, allowing seperate modules to add effects into the signal on the fly with other units applying them at the same time, unlike a regular design which does one after the other in a line.
I'll be buying for sure. But unless you ppl will take advantage of it, stick with ur old crappy sound cards :P
With quality onboard audio becoming more and more common, I don't see how Creative can justify $300 for a souncard that doesn't even support DD.
But there is actually room for new technology in the audio arena. The sound engine needs to be tightly integrated with the 3d engine so "object synthesis" and "sonic raycasting" can be done.
"Object synthesis" would allow the soundcard to generate rendered sounds for physical objects in realtime. For example, a barrel in half life has material properties for its physics. Those properties could be used to generate its audio envelope, so instead of the same static "donk" sound the barrel and every other object would make more lifelike sounds depending on their materials, weight, and whats happening to them.
"Sonic raycasting" would accurately compute the sound as it bounced off everything near you. Sounds from adjacent rooms or down hallways would also benifit from this technology and you could actually have game play elements based upon carefully listening to your environment.
Ok, so there is my cool idea of the day. Borrow a couple million and make a better mousetrap than Creative, and then please run them out of business.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 8 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
11x the number of transistors? Twice the clock speed? For sound? Anyone care to explain in layman's terms how this is going to be better?
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 7 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 22 replies.
Who wants to bet there will be an "xtreme" skateboarder or Linkin Park on the box?
That being said, I was kind of looking forward at something that would give me superior headphone audio but .. $270? You're on crack, Creative.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 6 replies.
Of course, you do lose those ports that way, but I have a Logitech USB mic for talking during games, so who needs the port?
The only downside is that it doesn't support any of those funky "total theater 12.5-speaker surround sound by using one speaker and a tin can!" software technologies like EAX and X-Fi and fuck-all. I always thought these things only distort the audio output, though, and don't really provide any good substitute for real speakers?
I mean, it's not like the Herc GTXP (I hated that breakout box) I replaced with onboard supported that stuff, either.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 4 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 14 replies.
It doesn't list the only feature I and anyone else care about! Real time dolby digital encoding! Do all that whatever you do with that fancy card and then pass it out through an analog connection?! Boo-urns.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
The one good feature is that older recordings of music or say live recording ( not in a studio) sounded a lot better, but this one new feature alone isn't worth a purchase in my opinion.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 4 replies.
These prices are just ridiculous. I just can NOT imagine what kind of capabilities could be provided to make the price anywhere near justified. I'm sure they have to cover the costs of throwing in so much hardware, but whether or not that hardware is actually of value to the consumer is cast into serious doubt.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
116 dB SNR? I'll believe it when I see it measured; I'm expecting 85 dB with some high frequency loss. Also, let's see if this thing can play 44.1 kHz without downsampling or mangling. And of course the drivers.
The soundcard market just plain stinks. On one end you have cost-cutting built-in chipset makers going cheap on DACs and capacitors, and on the other you have unstable drivers. Now and then there's a product that stands out, but it's drowned in a sea of noise. And most of the "advances" are just marchitecture; it's all about "how can we make the consumer THINK they're getting the ultimate experience? Hell, most of them don't have a hearing bandwidth above 16 kHz; they won't know the difference!"
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
My last Creative sound card was an original SB16 in my 486 DX2.
The sad thing is that stupid people will actually shell out the cash for this.
their drivers suck.
next sound card I buy, I will be looking for a different company.
Video Memory: 512MB
Audio Memory: 64MB
Check, check, and check. Not really, but gah what's next? The next generation Creative card will sell for the same price but feature 128MB memory!
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
I've got a SoundStorm motherboard. I'm more than fine.
Too much to ask? Probably - from Creative at least.
Wait, this is a PC sound thread without the word Soundstorm in it... yet.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 3 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 5 replies.
If it can't do 44.1 khz native without resampling I am NOT touching it.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.
But I guess I'm still a little irked that EA and Creative co-advertised and marketed BF2 and Audigy2ZS (which I've had over a year, so that's not the point) and yet you can't set the sound options to their highest. Tho on the flip side Dice is supporting tech that isn't out yet, which is good.
I guess I'm just a terribly jaded and broke college student.
Thread Truncated. Click to see all 2 replies.