Bye Bye Aureal?

I suggest you go read the A3D whitepapers.

Wavetracing and position audio are two seperate things. Wavetracing takes the positional sound signal, simulates that sound reflecting off of the surrounding environment, and calculates the resulting sound. An enemy firing a gun from behind you is purely Positional Audio. You then also hearing that sound being reflected off the wall in front of you is wavetracing.

and wavetracing only works with A3D titles, not DS3D titles.

Get your facts straight ;) Go read those whitepapers and get back to me.

Vantage.

I told you ID should have put in EAX support instead of A3D.. Dumb, dumb, dumb..

"I don't appreciate you talking down to me, the only person you're making look bad is you."

Sorry dude, I was just trying to bring you down to earth.

"Of course that thread is really old and nobody's going to bother digging it up so you can safely deny everything."

Of course that thread is really old and nobody's going to bother digging it up so you can safely claim I said anything that suits your purpose.

"Excuse me, you can write new drivers to add features in hardware?"

Yes. that is absolutely correct. You can reprogram the DSP to do whatever you want, within the ability of said DSP.

"My point is that the Live cannot be upgraded to support ALL the advanced hardware functions that the Vortex2 does just because it has this DSP."

1: You don't know that.
2: I never claimed that it could.
3: Stop taking my fricking statements out of context.

Since arguing with you is obviously a pointless exercise, I am done here.

Vantage.

"You understood what I was saying though, Aureal's technology gives you real-time 3D effects while CL does not, that's what I meant by "dynamic" vs. "static". Sorry if I confused you."

No. Aureal's technology gives you real-time REVERB, while CL does not, and that is it.

I never said Aureal's cards were useless.. that is you putting words into my mouth to support your argument. Both Aureal's and CL's cards are excellent products.

"I've heard all of your thoughts before on the Q3A message board where you were trying to convince newbies that Aureal cards are useless and the Live is better at everything."

Again, you putting words into my mouth. Try countering my real arguments, instead of making up fake arguments that are easier to avoid.

"because I said that the Live is the first CL card that brings somethign new in 8 years"

No you didn't. You said (and I quote) that "Creative hasn't released an innovative product since the Sound Blaster."

"Also you seem to think that your SB Live can be upgraded to infinity with any kind of features and you won't need a new card for the next 10 years."

Hey, good plan! If you ignore what I say, and just make stuff up, it's a whole lot easier to argue!!! good stuff!

"This is simply not true, 1000 MIPS is a limited number and you CANNOT create the same real-time effects using it as Aureal cards have, otherwise CL would have done it in the past two years."

Ever heard of Obstruction and Occlusion? They are real-time effects that Aureal cards support in hardware. The SB Live did not when it was released. GUESS WHAT? a little while later, CL released Live!Ware2 which added support for those two features, and now the SB Live supports Obstruction and Occlusion in hardware just like the Aureal cards do. They have done similar things many times within the past two years. You just choose to ignore the facts.

I don't know where all this hostility comes from. I was merely pointing out the differences b/w the two technologies. I'm sorry if I offended you by "dissing" your pet company.

Like I said previously (since it doesn't seem that you actually read my last post), competition is good, and the demise of Aureal is bad. Try to read and understand my post this time instead of seeing the words "SB Live" and "Good" and then flying off the handle. geez.

Oh yes, and Dolby Surround is not a 3D sound technology as far as I know, it has nothing to do with EAX or A3D. So saying "screw A3D and EAX and just suppord Dolby" is not really a valid point as far as I know.

vertical pans are indeed more convincing with headphones than with speakers. Rear sound is more convincing with 4 speakers, and yes, I have heard the A3D demos.

I have a Vortex2 card, and all this 3D audio positional tech is nice, but it still sounds like an algorithm trying to fool my brain rather than a natural 3D environment, you know? maybe I'm way too analytical about it, but all I can hear is a little phase shift here, a -8db cut in 8-12khz there....I mean, it *works*, it's simulating the frequency and phase variations your ear would hear in a real environment, but it still sounds "fake" to me

oh yeah, I far prefer headphones too....my little apartment is way too cramped to set up a perfect acoustic environment

The original Monster Sound (and all vortex 1 chipset cards) used some sort of traditional panning scheme, I imagine. The vortex 2 uses wavetracing for positional audio with a3d 2.0 and possibly (not sure) ds3d supporting games. If you want to believe that it's only for reverb, that's your choice, but I suggest you go read any in-depth article on the wavetracing/A3D 2 technology.

The SB Live, with EAX 3.0, does obstructions and occlusions too. DS3D not sound as impressive?? I beg to differ. It is true that DS3D is purely positional audio (where as A3D is the whole shebang), but DS3D+EAX is just as capable as A3D. The only difference is the reverb model. Feature-wise, other than that they are comparible.

Aureal didn't get wavetracing until the Vortex 2 chip. How did the original Diamond Monster Sound do positional audio?

Okay, I've learned that DS3D actually just passes the location of the sound to the audio card, which uses its own algorithms to place it in 3d space (if the card supports EAX, ds3d gives it the environment flag too). If the card can't do 3d positioning, DS3D has its own software emulator that's pretty slow and crappy. The reason pure DS3D titles don't sound as impressive as A3D 2.0 on a vortex 2 card is because its hardware wavetracing requires much more complex environment data (the location and properties of the obstructions/occlusions, etc).

"Wavetracing _IS_ real-time positional audio. Everything else is faking it. Period."

errr.. so DirectSound3D does "fake" positional audio? I still think you are confusing real-time positional audio with real-time architecturally generated reverb.

Vantage.

I don't quite understand why people are dissing 4+ speaker surround sound vs. two speaker pseudo-surround.

Multiple speaker placement is always going to be more true to reality, if they are placed correctly, than two speakers, no matter how good the math. Simply, in reality, when sound is behind you, it really is behind you.

To use a different example, which would be a representation of depth, the simulated 3D that we have on your monitors today, or true holographic 3D?

Now, if someone developed headphones with multiple speaker locations that could properly connect to the outputs for surround, that would kick ass....

All I said was that currently, a 4-speaker setup was superior to headphones to 2 speakers for 3D positional sound. With ideal technology, headphones might be better, but since nobody currently has "ideal" technology, your point is moot.

Multiple speaker setups are nice because in order to play a sound from "behind you", instead of running the sound through complex positional algorithms, they simply play the sound from the speakers behind you. In a perfect world, we would simply "jack in" and all visual and aurel data would be sent directly to the brain, negating the need for headphones or speakers. Headphones are hardly the perfect solution.

Statements like "With ideal technology (that aureal was persuing), headphones are best." are ignorant. Since noone has access to "ideal technology", who knows which is the best? Perhaps with ideal technology, speakers are the best. How can you know?

Wavetracing the most important advance?? I beg to differ. Positional Sound is far more important than real-time reverb calculation (which is all wavetracing is).

Not to be rude, but I love it when clueless people act like they know what they're talking about indeed.

Vantage.

Heh.. go to www.headphones.com to learn that headphones are better than speakers!!!

that's not a biased opinion.. nooo....

My Live came with Unreal ;)

Er, or you could use the EAX support in the original Unreal and get actual 3D speaker placement in all 4 speakers. ;)

Right. Wavetracing gives you accurate reverberation based on the surrounding architecture and material.

EAX is far more than "stadium" and "jazz club" presets... but then, you knew that right? ;)

Aureal was stupid to try to make their own cards. 3DFX was able to do that because they had brand recognition, but Aureal had little to none. Splitting with Diamond was stupid, as everyone associated their technology with the Diamond Monster soundcards. Everyone knew that the Diamond Monster Soundcards were great, but few (besides the hardcore like ourselves) knew who made the actual chip.

Maybe Yamaha should buy out what's left of Aureal. They currently use that shitty Sensaround package that emulates A3D, EAX and about 4 other 3D sound formats, translates the commands in DirectSound3D. It chew processor time and I have found the card (XG-192) to be pretty unreliable. The one thing it does have is fidelity. Yamaha are probably among the best in the business for that. oh and the MIDI kicks ass... but, it's MIDI??!!

If you coupled Yamaha's fidelity with Aureal's technology you'd have a damn fine soundcard with a recognisable brand name.

Not to be rude, but I love it when clueless people act like they know what they're talking about. Aureal actually didn't support hardware reverb until the latest driver release, it was included with EAX support and allows the addition of real-time reverb, which isn't much better. That said, wavetracing is probably the most significant advance in 3d sound technology ever. Anyone who's played Half-Life with headphones and a vortex 2 card knwos what I'm talking about, and that's first-gen technology. It doesn't matter how many speakers you have when it comes to 3d positioning. With a 4+ speaker setup, one can do simple panning to simulate 3d, hence why Creative cards sound more immersive that way. Aureal's A3D 2.0 was/is based on the premise that since you have two ears, 3d sound can theoretically be perfectly simulated with a pair of headphones. Instead of playing a sound at different volumes per speaker, it actually sends out rays to simulate sound waves, and returns which rays return to the target's ears and at what intensity - then applies this data to a traditional panning scheme. General statements like "8 speakers are much better for 3d sound then headphones" are ignorant. With ideal technology (that aureal was persuing), headphones are best.

wtf... this is weird. fucking aureal, they owned.

A few points, Creative already has 2 or 3 major companies claiming they are going to start making sound chipsets. Diamond was one of them, and I though Intel may have also announced this, so it does not look like Creative is going to get the free ride everyone thinks they will. I had not considered Dimaond buying it, but that is also a possibility. What was that no-name company they decided to go with for thier next Monster sound card again? Maybe they will buy Aureal and cancel that deal. Though I don't know that this is such a good thing. Diamond is known for great products that lacking great drivers for the products. it would be nice if someone could get the tech and alter it to be less CPU dependent though.

I am following you.

Belzebutt - you obviously don't know a lot about sound technology ;)

First, You are confusing yourself when you compare A3D to EAX. A3D is Aureal's entire positional sound technology, including reverb, occlusion, obstruction, and the actual positional audio. EAX on the other hand is an add-on to DS3D. DS3D does real-time positional sound, while EAX adds things like Reverb, Occlusion, Obstruction etc. When you say that "ACCURATE DYNAMIC 3D sound as opposed to a few static presets" you are not talking about actual 3D sound, as the SB Live's 3D sound engine is just as "accurate" and "dynamic" as Aureals. The only technological feature that Aureal has over the Live is "Wavetracing", which calculates reverb in real-time, as opposed to using pre-determined settings. The funny thing is, just because wavetracing is dynamic, and more "accurate" doesn't mean that it sounds "better" or more "realistic". Reviewers have actually stated quite the opposite, that the SB Live's reverb sounds superior to the Vortex's reverb. Realism != more fun (necessarily).

No innovative products since the SB? you are on crack. The SB Live is hugely innovative (for the consumer soundcard market) because of it's use of a DSP instead of a hardcoded chip like the Vortex cards. This means that the SB Live is programmable, and features can be added IN HARDWARE, unlike a vortex card. So, to keep up with the competition, CL only had to upgrade the capability of the existing cards instead of forcing people to buy a Vortex2/Vortex3 card. This benefits us consumers because our purchased hardware has a far longer lifespan.

CL has far superior support for their cards then their competitors. features like Occlusion and Obstruction get added for free. Linux Drivers, Win2K drivers etc... LiveWare is a beautiful thing.

Now, this does not mean that I think Aureal's demise is a good thing, so please don't put words in my mouth. I own an SB Live, but competition is always good. Aureal has pushed the soundcard market further forward than it would have gone without them. Sorta like the 3DFX of soundcards. If they die, then CL's only competitor will be ESS (whose chip powers the MX400). Let's hope ESS can keep up and push CL to keep innovating instead of slacking off.

Vantage.

I do recall SB soundcards are Linux friendly as well. Why doesn't Aureal get off their butts and support that? I do see CL updating their drivers with better features.. (not sitting on their thumbs), when's the last time Aureal has added anything?

Point is: regardless of who innovated first or who is sitting on who's thumbs, features don't mean squat if drivers are limited to only one platform.

Someone mentioned NT being compatible with A3D, well not really, sure it WORKS with NT, but only enables 2 speakers (not 4). I tried installing NT with my MX300 and only heard two speakers. I don't see any advantage to A3D cards right now. Wavetracing sure may sound good, but it's not enough to justify limiting yourself platform-wise.

Belzebutt

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Maybe Creative will buy up Aureal's assets. Then you Creative hating foo's will be SOL.

My SB Live value digital was a total score at $39... I don't get you "evil empire" hating dudes.

I hate morons who put words in people's mouths. I never said I liked monopolies. It's just stupid people who think in the 'evil empire' though pattern (good and evil companies).
I myself have a Diamond MX 300 and Win2k. Aureal has been stupid in not supporting Win2k and was going to switch cards anyways- this confirms that decision. At least Creative has Win2k drivers out to begin with. You can argue on and on that Aureal innovated this and that... their service as of lately has gone down the tubes. Let's hope someone big (NVidia?) comes along and buys them up to continue the cards and actually release some drivers.

One more thing- I don't ever recall seeing full (working) EAX support in drivers like they advertised.

I'll stick to q3d and my thinderbird.. Go QSound!

Sucks to be developes using a3d... oop.. did I say that?