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Creative Inspire Speakers
The Inspire 2.1 2400, Inspire 4.1 4400 and the Inspire 5.1 5300 are all analog speakers that do not have digital inputs like the Digital DIN connectors. The 5300s would be the perfect complement to the Audigy if you want a 5.1 surround system but you are on a tight budget. DirectSound3D games and DVDs play back in 5.1 surround. Apart from the obvious facelift, the volume control is also redesigned and has a larger knob. The fibrous material on the surface of the Cambridge SoundWorks satellites of older speaker systems like the FPS2000 and DTT2500/3500 have been replaced by a plastic finish. These speakers also have a redesigned subwoofer that is cube-shaped, compared to the older speakers' rectangular subwoofer. An Inspire 5700 model will be released as an update to the DTT3500 speaker system. It has a decoder unit with support for Dolby Digital and DTS decoding, and a new center speaker design that is different from the other satellites. With the emergence of high-end speakers like the popular Klipsch ProMedias, Creative has a new entry into the big league - the MegaWorks 510D. It has 450W (RMS) of output and has lots of connection options, like 6-channel discrete analog and digital inputs. Also included is a mini-jack digital input that hooks up to the mini-jack digital output from a Live! 5.1 or Audigy. Look for an official press release and product announcement soon. Meanwhile, we have links to the Japanese product pages for the analog Inspire speakers in the Audigy section.
We all know that for some users, the SBLive! hasn't been quite a smooth ride. However, it can also be said that those with problems will air them, but the successful SBLive! users do not have much to say, since it works as it is supposed to! In fact, if you take peek at the forums and newsgroups, most of the messages are from users who have encountered problems. "Why doesn't it work?!?!" Or even "Creative sucks!" This may even scare some potential users away. I've always thought to myself that "It couldn't be that bad, right?" The latest poll is an attempt to survey the "landscape" of Sound Blaster Live! users. So if you have used a SBLive! before, do check out the poll. It will be an interesting revelation! Answer truthfully folks. :-)
NVIDIA has unveiled their Crush chipset for motherboards that aims to up the performance ante for AMD machines! Similar chipsets are also used in Microsoft's highly touted Xbox console. From the claims alone, this looks like some powerful and cost effective technology. Check out the nForce IGP and nForce MCP for the scoop on technical mumbo jumbo like TwinBank™, HyperTransport™ and StreamThru™.
Just look at the specs. Hardware DirectX 8 support, which means DirectSound3D, occlusion/obstruction, near field effects, EAX2/I3DL2 reverb, DLS2 acceleration, per voice parametric EQ and 64 3D streams (vs SBLive!'s 32). This article at The Inquirer also mentions that Sensaura's HRTFs are incorporated, and interestingly enough, ex-Aureal employees have contributed to the development of the nForce MCP's APU. (Creative bought over Aureal's assets sometime back.) Ah. Sweet revenge! Given that this affordable chipset is readily soldered onto and sold with future motherboards, this move would definitely reduce the need for sound cards for most users and budget gamers. NVIDIA has no plans to invade the sound card market, but if they do get into the market with a sound card, it would be a strong competitor to Creative, especially if the price of such a sound card is low (which I think it will be). Let's hope the new Sound Blaster would not disappoint in price, features and performance (and before I forget, driver stability).
Here's the short version: Creative faults Microsoft for not including non-PCM wave output in Windows 2000 (but was included in Win9x/Me), hence AC3 passthrough does not work for DVD software like WinDVD. There are also claims that the drivers already support AC3 output so all we have to do is to wait for SP2 to be released, says Creative's Jared Peck said in this article. However, I already had my doubts when users who tried the pre-SP2 versions have mailed me that nothing was fixed and some even accused me for being "bullshit" and for posting inaccurate information. Creative is not going to say anything else, so we kept our fingers crossed that the final SP2 release would fix it. On May 11th, SP2 was released but alas, the situation remains the same. (Check out the AC3 passthrough page for more details.) However, a quick check in the SP2 fix list at ActiveWin reveals that Microsoft did implement the non-PCM wave output. Check out the knowledge base article Q289226 - No Sound from Non-PCM File with Windows Driver Model Audio Drivers. Many have concluded that Creative's drivers have been broken all along. Check out the AC3 passthrough page to read all the feedback I received! Well, guess what? On many non-Creative sound cards, AC3 output works just fine in Windows 2000 with or without SP1 or SP2 or whatever. They just work! I am not taking sides here. You be the judge. What I would say to Creative is this: It is your product. When it doesn't work, stop pointing fingers and go ensure that it is fixed.
The Sound Blaster for Solaris Ultra is an entry-level card that has the standard stereo inputs and outputs. It even has the blue, pink and green color coded minijacks! The interesting one is the Sound Blaster for Solaris Ultra PRO which you see in the image. It is clearly targeted at the pro-market with 1/4" balanced jacks, and even S/PDIF input & output supporting AC3. I'm just wondering if people are doing significant digital audio & music on a Sun workstation rather than a Mac or PC. Are the software available? New Features for the PC Too? What's interesting to me are the new features like the 20-bit converters in the Ultra PRO and the 96 kHz sample rate supported by the EMU8020 DSP. Will we see these new features in the new Sound Blaster for the PC market that is slated for the latter half of this year? Let's wait and find out! Find out more! Click here for our new article on these Sound Blasters.
This editorial was moved to the VIA tech page.
Creative Unveils Dolby Digital API Platform at Game Developers Conference I'm glad that Creative has announced a new Dolby Digital API to allow developers to incorporate and playback Dolby Digital multichannel tracks in tandem with the current DirectSound3D and EAX APIs. Read the press release. An Important Development With the introduction of Dolby Digital support in the PlayStation 2 console, I was hoping that it could be done in PC games as well without having to resort to unreliable hacks of capturing of S/PDIF outputs and relying on native wave out capabilities in Windows and DirectSound, which breaks in Windows 2000, causing grief to folks who need AC3 output in that OS. (See the AC3 passthrough page for more details.) What this means is that developers can now rely on a standard set of instructions to allow their software to send pre-encoded multichannel 5.1 Dolby Digital sound to a sound card. Technicalities On the technical side, the API would not be anything complicated. It would just allow an application to directly pass an encoded Dolby Digital stream to the sound card's drivers, which would then perform the decoding. However, since Dolby Digital decoding on the SBLive! 5.1 cards use the CPU for decoding, expect it to take some CPU cycles away from games. With Creative moving in this direction, I'm hoping that the new Sound Blaster will do Dolby Digital decoding in hardware. The Future We'll most probably be able to hear games playback a 5.1 track in cutscenes, or play 5.1 background music together with sound effects generated in DirectSound3D and EAX. That will sound sweet! However, I am not sure if Creative will extend this Dolby Digital API support to non-5.1 cards, as all Creative seems to talk about in the press release are 5.1 cards and the DTT2200 which relies on the analog 5.1 outputs. Now the ball is in Creative's court to promote and convince game developers to use the API and Dolby Digital. Doing audio design, sound effects and mixing in 5.1 requires more resources, expertise and money than stereo audio. Maybe we'll finally see more games released on DVD-ROM when developers start including Dolby Digital audio in their games, which require more disk space.
Due to the unconfirmed nature of the information posted by HardOCP, they have since removed the page. Therefore I have withdrawn the previous editorial.
Many of us have theories as to why Creative is holding back on Live!Ware releases. They didn't even release official fixes & patches for critical issues like hibernation, SMP support and many others. Here's an interesting e-mail I received from Alex:
This is an interesting topic, so I've updated the poll to find out what you think. Go vote! :)
Sometime back I reported on NVIDIA's acquisition of 3dfx. (See the press release fom NVIDIA.) Here's what I mentioned in that news item: What I hope is that these companies will not slow down technological progress. NVIDIA would probably keep their 6 month product cycles. (but psst... this is the 3rd year Creative is using the EMU10K1 for their sound cards.) Ken B. sent in his thoughts on this issue: I remember when I was younger, I had a video game system called the Sega Genesis. It lasted for about 5 years before Sega finally decided to bump it off. I though that was a pretty good life cycle. It made Sega come out with a lot of good games and good ideas to incorporate into these games using their imagination and the best possible use they could get out of the system before coming ditching it and coming out with something entirely new. Too bad they didn't keep it up. I wish companies in the PC world could do the same. I know they won't but I wish they would. It's easy for companies to come out with a new product every month, but it's a lot harder for a hardware or software producer to come out with games and enhancements using their current technology, because it requires something that a lot of people are not willing to put out...imagination and perseverance. They would rather just "divorce" the old technology and start from scratch. That is the mantra of the day. Let's forget about being imaginative, and just start over with something that's barely different enough that it forces everyone to rebuy their equipment. Who cares about all the buggy drivers that we have to deal with again. Who cares if I have to buy another motherboard just becuase this new toy requires a new port that my old board didn't have. Who cares if it doesn't work well, or at all, on my OS. My view is that NVIDIA should dump the 6 month product cycle. And Creative can come out with new software for the EMU10K1 and charge for it if it will allow them to be a little more imaginative with the software updates. It is programmable after all, and it was one of the selling points of the soundcard. All they had to do was ask the consumer what they wanted to see in the next Live!Ware release, just like you have on your site. Imagine getting a parametric equalizer that works on all platforms in the next Live!Ware release! Or getting a selection of great Soundfont packages in the box or for purchase. The companies are obsoleting their technology instead of using their brain. Just some thoughts.
The results for the Y2K poll are dismal and a huge contrast from a similar poll for 1999. 63% of you thought it was bad. Read the comments for yourself! Here are some of the main issues that you have raised:
My thoughts? Very simple. Creative, listen to your customers, admit that you have some problems, tell us what the hell is going on, and fix the problems fast. New Poll: As a followup to the previous poll, I have used some of your feedback from the Y2K poll to create a new poll. Go vote! Your feedack: As always, I'd like to have your opinions. If you have any great product improvement ideas, the wish list is always there.
The 5 low points for me in 2000 were:
As always, I'd like to hear your opinions. Also, if you have any great product improvement ideas, the wish list is always there. |
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Dropping the Cambridge SoundWorks brand, Creative is introducing a new line of speakers to complement the Audigy cards.
What's eye-catching though is the audio technology. Like the Xbox, the nForce MCP-D has an 
This is something refreshing. Creative has a new DSP chip dubbed the EMU8020 which is used on 2 new sound cards that work with Sun workstations with PCI support. It supports all the EAX effects that we have come to know on the 
The 