Next step with sound cards?

T

tornadotsunamilife

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Ok so DX10 is nearly upon us bringing a lot of new things to the table in terms of graphics but what about sound cards? The X-fi seems to have been a step sideways rather than forwards but what can we expect in the next few years?
 
DD Live and DTS Live is the next generation now if you ask me. It's the only thing missing from X-Fi's.
 
We need to see some REAL competition for Creative. That way we'll see innovations faster, much like the current AMD/Intel thing. Could also take a bite out of some of Creative's ridiculous pricing. (XFI Extreme or whatever its caled)
 
tornadotsunamilife said:
Ok so DX10 is nearly upon us bringing a lot of new things to the table in terms of graphics but what about sound cards? The X-fi seems to have been a step sideways rather than forwards but what can we expect in the next few years?
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Please elaborate on how you see it as a sidestep and not going forward?

Terra...
 
Creative's xfi card is like $82 on newegg. I think its a pretty good deal for a high end sound card.
 
Cynicist said:
Creative's xfi card is like $82 on newegg. I think its a pretty good deal for a high end sound card.
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High-end? It's consumer level.
 
Terra said:
You call an X-Fi "consumer" level? :rolleyes:
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Yep. X-Fi is definitely consumer level, as in not professional. Creative makes professional level sound cards , the X-Fi is not one of them.

If you're so inclined, you can pay thousands of dollars for a sound card and interface.

Back on topic: I think gaming sound cards are hitting their ceilings as far as what can be improved on them. A lot of sound processing is being done on the cpu these days (look at D3, pre-patent troll), so high quality dacs and good internal precision are the most important feature imo.
 
i want to see a creative card with Fiber optic out ON the card, not some RCA digital out on a front panel

and yes terra, the creative cards (X-FI / Audigy and such) are "consumer" level products, you wont ever find a creative card like those in a proffesional studio being used for work / production.

[edit]

those creative "pro" level cards are cheap@ $200 for this one

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=237&subcategory=239&product=9872

i want one, SPDIF in and out and crap. duemmmmmmmmm
 
Yeah, as far as pro sound cards go, Creative does them pretty cheap (although I hear from friends in the music industry that they are a decent value).
 
jimmyb said:
Yep. X-Fi is definitely consumer level, as in not professional. Creative makes professional level sound cards , the X-Fi is not one of them.

If you're so inclined, you can pay thousands of dollars for a sound card and interface.

Back on topic: I think gaming sound cards are hitting their ceilings as far as what can be improved on them. A lot of sound processing is being done on the cpu these days (look at D3, pre-patent troll), so high quality dacs and good internal precision are the most important feature imo.
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Consumerlevel is what I called normals consumers...don't know about you?!
For gamers it might be different...but only 1% of gamers own a X-Fi, so I don't think so:

http://www.steampowered.com/status/survey.html

SB X-Fi Audio 1.11 %

Terra...
 
tornadotsunamilife said:
I just don't really see how it improved much over the Audigy2/Audigy4
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128 hardware voices, EAX 5.0HD, X-RAM, CMSS 3D(and their SUPERB 3D-headphone), better DAC's...Hell it's improved or doubled up everywhere...
I went from a Audigy 2 and there is a world of difference(mostly in games)...

Terra - You are sure you know the specs..?!
 
How many games use EAX5.0? And I thought most things done with EAX5.0 could be emulated with 4.0. I thought the 24-bit crystilizer worked quite well in games but musically it was iffy. I also don't even think it provides much of a performance improvement in games either (1-2fps?) and also aren't the DACs the same as the speakers I use (granted not everyone uses these exact speakers)? Again with CMSS-3D, it works well with headphones but I've heard problems just using surround sound speakers.

So again, I don't really see how it's improved as much as you say.
 
tornadotsunamilife said:
How many games use EAX5.0? And I thought most things done with EAX5.0 could be emulated with 4.0. I thought the 24-bit crystilizer worked quite well in games but musically it was iffy. I also don't even think it provides much of a performance improvement in games either (1-2fps?) and also aren't the DACs the same as the speakers I use (granted not everyone uses these exact speakers)? Again with CMSS-3D, it works well with headphones but I've heard problems just using surround sound speakers.

So again, I don't really see how it's improved as much as you say.
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1) Emulated = CPU...not why I have a soundcard...you gave the answer yourself?
2) Stop thinking in FPS and deal twith the audio IMPROVEMENTS..at better FPS...

And what problems with surrond speakers?
I have an X-Fi, myself with 7.1 speakers, tell me what is wrong?

Terra - And why dosn't any review mention that?!
 
And PS, if you have surround sound, CMSS 3d should be off in games and movies anyway.
 
@Terra
My definition of "consumer level" is pretty much in line with the entire product industry. The card is marketed towards consumers, not professionals. That is the definition of consumer level (its target market). The rarity of a card has nothing to do with it. I understand that not many people have it.
Another example: The 7950GX2 is a consumer product. The QuadroFX 5500 is a professional product.

Back on topic:
A lot of sound card manufacturers have been backing off hardware acceleration. Generally video cards are bottlenecking games these days, so sound processing can be done on cpu with minimal performance degradation. Creative alone has been struggling to convince people it is still necessary. DirectSound in Windows Vista for example will have entirely software mixing and dsp.

Not surprisingly, Creative is trying to get developers to switch to other sound systems like OpenAL. (not a bad idea imo, since it is an open standard and linux supports it :D )
 
How many games use EAX5.0?
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Well one, Quake 4. But to be fair, a game doesn't have to support EAX 5 to take advantage of the X-Fi. UT2004 (EAX 2), BF2 (EAX 3), Doom 3 (EAX 4), etc. all don't use EAX 5, but support 128 hardware voices for higher performance and better positioned audio.


And I thought most things done with EAX5.0 could be emulated with 4.0.
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Nothing from EAX 5 can be emulated with EAX 4 (especially major additions like wave-tracing). What you are thinking about is Creative added some of the "CMSS-3D" headphone algorithms to the Audigy 2/4 series with their latest driver release.


better DAC's
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Well only the Elite Pro has better DAC's. But the X-Fi does have a much improved SRC over previous versions, which makes it sound quite better than the Audigy 2 series.


I would say overall the X-Fi is a decent improvement over the Audigy 2, but nothing amazing. I don't think people would be disappointed by their upgrade, but to each to his own.
 
Moofasa~ said:
Well one, Quake 4. But to be fair, a game doesn't have to support EAX 5 to take advantage of the X-Fi.
Click to expand...
And to be even more fair, the only reason the Doom 3 engine (read Quake 4) supports EAX is because Creative patent trolled id (on the Carmack reverse) just before release, threatening to sue, etc. unless they put in EAX support.
 
Moofasa~ said:
Well one, Quake 4. But to be fair, a game doesn't have to support EAX 5 to take advantage of the X-Fi. UT2004 (EAX 2), BF2 (EAX 3), Doom 3 (EAX 4), etc. all don't use EAX 5, but support 128 hardware voices for higher performance and better positioned audio.
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BF2 OpenAL sound does support X-RAM and phemonemal 3D-sound positioning.

Terra...
 
A lot of sound card manufacturers have been backing off hardware acceleration.
Click to expand...

Besides Creative, what active sound card company was ever on board with hardware acceleration?

But I agree, everything in your post is accurate. X-Fi's are not professional cards. Professional cards are meant for recording and mixing of audio, none of which the X-Fi does well at. But it is not meant to be; it is meant to be a gamer's (consumer's) card.

It is also correct that Vista will not support hardware acceleration for DirectSound (to be fair neither did XP, but Creative found a "loophole"). That is why Creative is pushing OpenAL so hard.
 
Terra said:
BF2 OpenAL sound does support X-RAM and phemonemal 3D-sound positioning.

Terra...
Click to expand...

Well yes, I wasn't going to list all the X-Fi features that each game supports just demonstrating the fact a game doesn't need EAX 5 to take advantage of the X-Fi.


And to be even more fair, the only reason the Doom 3 engine (read Quake 4) supports EAX is because Creative patent trolled id (on the Carmack reverse) just before release, threatening to sue, etc. unless they put in EAX support.
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True, but at the end of the day, it still supports it, no matter how Creative got them to support it.
 
Terra said:
And what problems with surrond speakers?
I have an X-Fi, myself with 7.1 speakers, tell me what is wrong?!
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I think I've put myself in this position due to bad wording. What I meant to say (regretting the lack of use of the edit function now :D) was that CMSS 3D seems to be more of a benefit to headphone users than anything else (although i enjoy using CMSS when listening to music myself sometimes). I was help to come to this conclusion thanks to this snip of a review:

In practice, the X-Fi CMSS 3D works fairly well, but it´s with headphones that we obtained the best results. It is quite frustrating when we have a surround sound card and speakers and are not to able to use them.
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Which doesn't suggest there is a problem (which is what I said in my post :() but does show that it's more of a benefit to headphone suers than anyone else.

Sorry for the mess up and thanks to Moofasa~ for clearing some things up
 
@Moofasa

True regarding D3/Q4.

As far as hardware sound support, the original Envy24 had it and now the Envy24HT doesn't. Aureal is obviously gone now. There are others as well.

You do have a good point though, it's always been Creative pushing the technology.
 
Here I what I would like to see:

1. nVidia brings out a sound card = awesome company & awesome drivers
2. OpenAL becomes the standard (The EAX monopoly needs to die!)
3. XRam actually used in all games
4. More than 128 voices
5. 1:1 sound option (if the source is 48Hz sampling or whatever, then I want to hear it this way without some gawd damn processing messing with the source!)
6. PCI Express sound cards
7. Optical Out on the card with the capability of sending the source untouched to a pro quality home receiver.
8. Better components, better shielding, better DACs, etc.
9. Sub $400 price
10. Maybe the super highend sound cards should just be external only devices for shielding purposes.
11. Better drivers, better support, less bloatware included with the driver....see #1
 
mike_j_johnson said:
Here I what I would like to see:

1. nVidia brings out a sound card = awesome company & awesome drivers
Click to expand...

Not going to happen. Nvidia already abandoned their efforts in audio.

2. OpenAL becomes the standard (The EAX monopoly needs to die!)
Click to expand...


EAX is just a reverb layer, can work with both DirectSound and OpenAL.

3. XRam actually used in all games
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Not sure if that will happen.

4. More than 128 voices
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Is there a need?

5. 1:1 sound option (if the source is 48Hz sampling or whatever, then I want to hear it this way without some gawd damn processing messing with the source!)
Click to expand...

I would be very surprised if you noticed the X-Fi's SRC.

6. PCI Express sound cards
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Coming.

7. Optical Out on the card with the capability of sending the source untouched to a pro quality home receiver.
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The X-Fi already has this.

8. Better components, better shielding, better DACs, etc.
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Of course everyone wants this.

9. Sub $400 price
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See above.

10. Maybe the super highend sound cards should just be external only devices for shielding purposes.
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Eh no thanks.


11. Better drivers, better support, less bloatware included with the driver....see #1
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Yeah better drivers would be nice, but that could be said for everything.
 
I want better dacs all around, I'm thinking about trading in this fatality for the elite pro for this reason, would I notice much of a difference?
 
The future of sound cards has looked bleak for a while, there is really nothing driving the market, and IMO there is hardly much of an upgrade from an Audigy 2 to an X-fi on the Creative side.

Heck the M-audio Rev sounds better in a lot of things ( not including games ) than the X-fi, which is basically average across the board IMO.

And I doubt anyone could argue that X-ram has been a gimmick thus far, its probablly a few generations before we will even see a small push for its use. Still there is not many games Creative are pushing for its support, so at this point I doubt it will ever be widely supported.
 
What's coming next? Probably sound cards with actual CPU's/more ram on them. Hell I wouldn't doubt Creative or some other s.c. manufacturer has plans to release a card with more things on it than we'll ever imagine.
 
i dont understand how you guys can argue over sound cards. if it works, Great. After all the human ear can only hear so many frequencies. i mean sheesh. short of using the sound system on a pc for watching movies with surround sound, and games with surround sound. what more could you seriousely want unless your a sound buff who mixes music and stuff like that.

tell you all i'd like to see out of a sound card in the future, is crystal clear sound, with about 1000 watts of power behind it, with the ability to run a couple 20" subwoofers.
 
jimmyb said:
@Terra
My definition of "consumer level" is pretty much in line with the entire product industry. The card is marketed towards consumers, not professionals.
Click to expand...

That's what I meant when I first said that. Unfortunately, for me to think so requires that I be a troll. :(

To be honest, Creative's consumer cards are marketed generally towards the same range of people that would buy discrete graphics cards, people that are looking to bring their experience up a notch (unlike those that stick with pure integrated). I find that these people can be called general consumers, as it doesn't seem that uncommon to have a sub $100 US soundcard.
 
i still use my Aureal Vortex2 for gaming and listening to music, and by golly that satisfies me enough!
 
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