Creative has officially anounced X-Fi product variants on Soundblaster.com

The 2 higher-end models of the 4 have a featuer called X-RAM which is supposed to further increase performance. I have no idea what this is, but I guess we'll find out more at QuakeCon later this week, where Fatal1ty will probably be promoting it.

The only thing that I can think of regarding X-RAM, is that perhaps it is some onboard storage for audio samples so that you don't have to keep transfering them over the bus if you want to play the same sound effect multiple times. However, I'm not sure how you could get this to work transparently without any programmer support, so this probably isn't it....

Originally Posted by thomase

The 2 higher-end models of the 4 have a featuer called X-RAM which is supposed to further increase performance. I have no idea what this is, but I guess we'll find out more at QuakeCon later this week, where Fatal1ty will probably be promoting it.

The only thing that I can think of regarding X-RAM, is that perhaps it is some onboard storage for audio samples so that you don't have to keep transfering them over the bus if you want to play the same sound effect multiple times. However, I'm not sure how you could get this to work transparently without any programmer support, so this probably isn't it....

http://www.soundblaster.com/products...troduction.asp

Donnie27

There is a press release as well.

Its interesting that they are marketing the CMSS-3D Headphone mode so aggresively. I wonder if this will have a significant dampening effect on the sale of cheap "5.1" headphones?

Originally Posted by thomase

There is a press release as well.

Its interesting that they are marketing the CMSS-3D Headphone mode so aggresively. I wonder if this will have a significant dampening effect on the sale of cheap "5.1" headphones?

IMHO, I think they have more to worry about witht he Expensive Sony and etc. 5.1 Headphones. The Zalmans and other cheap ones sound terrible for anything but games. I'm shocked they haven't pushed CMSS-3D as much but that'd hurt their own speakers as well so I think they have their reasons.

Hell dewd, even my so so Philips HP 890 Headphones sounds good doing CMSS-3D, with not only Half Life 2, but also with BF2 and Painkiller BooH.

Donnie27

Originally Posted by Donnie27

Hell dewd, even my so so Philips HP 890 Headphones sounds good doing CMSS-3D, with not only Half Life 2, but also with BF2 and Painkiller BooH.

I hope you are using the "unsynch speaker settings" trick with HL2, because if you are not, any surround effect you hear over headphones is likely to be placebo.

Regrading the Dolby Headphone stuff, this is a point of concern. I'm of the opinion that since Dolby Headphone includes a room impulse response (ie. it tries to simulate the echos and reverberation of a movie theater), it is not ideal for PC gaming. With PC gaming, you want to simulate the echos and reverberation of the virtual game enviroment - NOT the movie theater. The Dolby PC initiative concerns me because I fear that as part of this initiative, Dolby Headphone will be positioned as an alternative to REAL 3D auralization through technologies like EAX and CMSS-3D.

However, for the time being, until this stuff is integrated with PC games (which it might not be), I don't consider Dolby Headphone a threat because it is indeed expensive (not counting software Dolby Headphone modes included with software DVD players, which is only valid for movies anyway). The only options now are to buy the cheapest Thrustmaster T510 (targeted for game consoles BTW), a more expensive wireless Sony or Pioneer set, or a $250+ receiver with Dolby Headphone built-in so you can use your own headphones. You'll also need a DDLive card (or the new Creative DTS-610) to get digital 5.1 output. Its a klunky way to go when you can just get better results with an X-Fi for $129.

Maybe they have decided to push CMSS-3D more because of fear of competition from Dolby Headphone...

Gamespot put an article up about it today. Looks like the Elite Pro and Fatal1ty cards will have 64mb of ram as well.

http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-22364-2435-x-x-x

Originally Posted by thomase

Maybe they have decided to push CMSS-3D more because of fear of competition from Dolby Headphone...

True!

Donnie27

Originally Posted by Sanitarium

Gamespot put an article up about it today. Looks like the Elite Pro and Fatal1ty cards will have 64mb of ram as well.

http://hardware.gamespot.com/Story-ST-22364-2435-x-x-x

Creative expects to ship the first X-Fi Sound Blaster products later this month on August 22, 2005.

Donnie27

Originally Posted by thomase

I hope you are using the "unsynch speaker settings" trick with HL2, because if you are not, any surround effect you hear over headphones is likely to be placebo.

YES! A bud got just about all of the settings down.

Regrading the Dolby Headphone stuff, this is a point of concern. I'm of the opinion that since Dolby Headphone includes a room impulse response (ie. it tries to simulate the echos and reverberation of a movie theater), it is not ideal for PC gaming. With PC gaming, you want to simulate the echos and reverberation of the virtual game enviroment - NOT the movie theater. The Dolby PC initiative concerns me because I fear that as part of this initiative, Dolby Headphone will be positioned as an alternative to REAL 3D auralization through technologies like EAX and CMSS-3D.

But as long as they didn't try to implement too much of echos and reverbs, or make it over the top, would this ad more realistic sounds?

However, for the time being, until this stuff is integrated with PC games (which it might not be), I don't consider Dolby Headphone a threat because it is indeed expensive (not counting software Dolby Headphone modes included with software DVD players, which is only valid for movies anyway). The only options now are to buy the cheapest Thrustmaster T510 (targeted for game consoles BTW), a more expensive wireless Sony or Pioneer set, or a $250+ receiver with Dolby Headphone built-in so you can use your own headphones. You'll also need a DDLive card (or the new Creative DTS-610) to get digital 5.1 output. Its a klunky way to go when you can just get better results with an X-Fi for $129.

Seen anything about digital out on the X-Fi? But we know Sony folks will buy it and MaxPC didn't review them for nothing. The other Dolby features and Headphones part of Azalia also gave Creative a reason to get off its ass. $129 might be a little High for the based card.

Donnie27

From the article:

"Creative is also currently developing X-Fi branded speakers and headphones that will have built-in X-Fi technology that can process normal, incoming audio streams and enhance audio on the fly."

Such products would be well-positioned against Dolby Headphone and Dolby Virtual Spekaer in the console and/or home theater market. Still, I think I'd rather have some kind of standalone device to which I can connect any headphones or speakers, rather than something with headphones and/or speakers built-in.

Also, it looks like I was somewhat right about X-RAM:

"The Elite Pro and the Fatal1ty cards also have 64MB of RAM onboard. The sound card memory can store audio files that would otherwise take up space in system memory and eat up CPU time if compression is used. The memory will also let the cards support up to 128 simultaneous voices, or distinct sounds. EA's Battlefield 2 is one of the first games that will take advantage of the X-Fi's onboard memory and 128-voice support."

1.) I was hoping (and still am) that the more expensive version with X-RAM is not required for 128 voice support.
2.) Maybe use of X-RAM WILL require developer support?

Originally Posted by Donnie27

But as long as they didn't try to implement too much of echos and reverbs, or make it over the top, would this ad more realistic sounds?

I guess it would be better than nothing, which I suppose is your point. But, it would still be BETTER to have EAX + CMSS-3D.

hm... well this baby sound pretty promising, we can only wait and see when the product finally hits the shelves

Originally Posted by thomase

From the article:

"Creative is also currently developing X-Fi branded speakers and headphones that will have built-in X-Fi technology that can process normal, incoming audio streams and enhance audio on the fly."

Such products would be well-positioned against Dolby Headphone and Dolby Virtual Spekaer in the console and/or home theater market. Still, I think I'd rather have some kind of standalone device to which I can connect any headphones or speakers, rather than something with headphones and/or speakers built-in.

Also, it looks like I was somewhat right about X-RAM:

"The Elite Pro and the Fatal1ty cards also have 64MB of RAM onboard. The sound card memory can store audio files that would otherwise take up space in system memory and eat up CPU time if compression is used. The memory will also let the cards support up to 128 simultaneous voices, or distinct sounds. EA's Battlefield 2 is one of the first games that will take advantage of the X-Fi's onboard memory and 128-voice support."

1.) I was hoping (and still am) that the more expensive version with X-RAM is not required for 128 voice support.
2.) Maybe use of X-RAM WILL require developer support?

They do make it sound like 128 voices will cause a hit if you don't have the RAM versions. It'll simply fall back to 64 as EAX falls back to EAX 2 when the system can't processor 3 or 4.

Maybe the basic card will do 128 but cause a hit? The *upsample features, (used correctly here, hehehe), also interests me some. I have some older Albums and Cassettes that could see some improvement . Some of my old WAVE amd MP3 files were so bad, I deleted them from the HDD.

I also like the mode switching to optimize the Card/s for Games, Music Creation and etc..

Donnie27

looks interesting cant wait to see some reviews..

*itching for new hardware*...

I think the 128-voice is feature is dependent on processing power rather than on-board memory. I'm guessing that the article just got the issue confused because they are associating "simultaneous voices" with "audio files".

The memory will probably be used to locally store sound effects that will be repeated frequently in order to avoid sending them to the card over and over again.

Originally Posted by thomase

I think the 128-voice is feature is dependent on processing power rather than on-board memory. I'm guessing that the article just got the issue confused because they are associating "simultaneous voices" with "audio files".

The memory will probably be used to locally store sound effects that will be repeated frequently in order to avoid sending them to the card over and over again.

Hey you're right, I missed that, thanks.

Donnie27

i'm interested in how this card will turn mp3's which are in stereo into multichannel surround sound.

"CMSS-3D converts any static stereo music into amazing surround sound on your headphones or multichannel speakers"

any thought?

I still don't know why the DD Live is so slow to catch on...it pisses me off that 3 analog connections are needed. I dream of a day when 1 cable attaches power, video, audio, network, usb, firewire, ps/2, watercooling tubes, parallel, serial, and hot coffee!!! That my friends would be true innovation!

Originally Posted by FastBu

i'm interested in how this card will turn mp3's which are in stereo into multichannel surround sound.

"CMSS-3D converts any static stereo music into amazing surround sound on your headphones or multichannel speakers"

any thought?

Something similar to Prologic and/or the older version of CMSS which would derive surround channels from the original stereo signal.