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January 2001Power Mac G4s from a Gamer's Perspective With the release of the Sound Blaster Live! for Macintosh, Mac gamers are finally getting a taste of the cool multi-speaker surround sound that PC users have had for 3 years! But how will gaming fare in the Mac platform? Check out this article at Yahoo! News. I've also added links to the SBLive! Mac in the product page.
IBM is touting their latest software that claims to stop Napster and Gnutella dead in its tracks. Check out this news article at CNET News.
The link to Angelfire has been removed. Tristan has set up a new download location at Geocities. He has also updated the drivers to version 2, which will no longer interfere with your DirectX 8 installation. The previous version does not work for SBLive! 5.1 cards, but a specific patch for the 5.1 cards is now available!
More Creative news. They have just announced that shipments of the Nomad Jukebox has hit 100,000 units. A news item at CNET Singapore also has CEO Sim Wong Hoo mentioning that the company plans to unveil up to 4 new versions of the jukebox. The new ones are said to have 10GB drives, not to mention that the Nomad Jukebox review at Tom's Hardware has instructions for upgrading the drive. But you risk voiding your warranty, so take heed! In another news item, Creative plans to shift more of their focus to audio players and digital cameras, with it taking 15% of sales. Check out this snippet: McHugh displayed prototypes of three music players which he said could go on sale by the end of the year. The devices, smaller than the current Jukebox, all feature hard drives that can store even more music than the existing model. One of the players will also work with optical disks, slightly larger than a US quarter and made by closely held DataPlay Inc, to store audio files.
Oozic Player (formerly known as LAVA!) is now at version 3.0 and it looks cooler with each new version, a far cry from the first release we reviewed sometime back. Winamp 2.72 is released. You can get it from the Winamp download page.
Check out the Americas or Asia press releases, and this news item at CNET Singapore. Basically, sales have dropped by 40% due to lacklustre PC sales this season. The article also mentions that we'll be seeing a brand new Sound Blaster in the 4th quarter of this year! To maintain its lead in the sound card market, Creative said it's on schedule to unveil a new version of its SoundBlaster sound card in its fourth quarter, the first upgrade in three years.
The Adrenaline Vault has a well-written audio primer explaining the different speaker configurations like 2.1, 4.1 and 5.1, speaker positioning, EAX, surround formats and digital connectivity.
3DsoundSurge has a press release which mentions that Roland and Yamaha will cooperate on supporting GM2, GS, XG formats the their products. (Finally!) I wonder if Creative will support these sound sets.
Tom Fojta posted some information in the newsgroups on how to get AC3 passthrough working in PowerDVD, and Tristan made an installer to patch Win2k. But do take note that it will replace some Live!Ware and DirectX 8 files with older versions, although the uninstall utility will take care of restoring the system. This whole AC3 passthrough issue is rather complicated, so check out the AC3 passthrough page to find out in detail what is going on. Most of us are thinking the same thing: "How could Creative not know how to make it work?!" Even the installation program says this: "If Creative Labs won't do it, we'll have to do it!" Cool! My thanks to Mathias for sending me a mail on this.
Tech Extreme has an article examining the AC3 passthrough feature in Windows 2000. Apparently, it is a Windows 2000 limitation and it is not Creative's fault that AC3 passthrough doesn't work. I've updated the AC3 passthrough page with more information.
As a followup to the Soldier of Fortune EAX enhancements, Creative has released the first of 4 patches to add occlusion and obstructions (ie. EAX 2.0) to Unreal Tournament. The first set enhances the deathmatch levels. I'm wondering if these effects are very subtle, or are they overdone? If you have tried them, tell us! An interview with Adrian Jones of Elite Systems is also added. These are the guys doing the game Ford Racing. Another contest is added, this time its for the game The Devil Inside. The closing date is January 21.
3DsoundSurge has kicked out 3 very detailed reviews: a reference review, a Americas Platinum 5.1 review and a Europe Platinum 5.1 review. Guru of 3D has a review of the Platinum 5.1 as well. These reviews have also been added to the SBLive! 5.1 Reviews list found in the Sound Blaster Live! Product Line article.
3D Rage has a MP3 Guide that takes you all the way from obtaining the MP3 files, compressing them, to writing them to a CD-R. For more MP3 guides and tips, check out the MP3 & Recording to MiniDisc page in the tech info section. I'd also like to invite you to share your own tricks and techniques to quickly compress music to MP3s.
Inside Mac Games has a preview of the SBLive! for Macintosh, which mentions several interesting facts: Creative Labs is working closely with Apple to modify the Sound Manager in MacOS 9 and MacOS X to pass audio creation commands to the Sound Blaster Live!. In its current incarnation, the Sound Manager in MacOS 9 uses the CPU to produce all sound channels, which could cause quite a severe performance hit if there is sound coming from many directions. ...Creative Labs is pushing the adoption of OpenAL on the Macintosh and PC. At this point, it is unknown as to how much work would be required to update current games to the OpenAL standard. The results of their lobbying may be seen next week when the software bundle is revealed... Sound Blaster Live! is expected to debut between $100 and $130 at next week's Macworld Expo.
Creative has announced a version of the Sound Blaster Live! card for the Macintosh. It will be available for preorder at a special price during Macworkd from January 9th to 12th. Check out this page for a contest to win the SBLive! Mac, and check out the picture of the card & box.
I'm actually surprised that the latest poll shows that more than half of you are absolutely disappointed with the SBLive! and Live!Ware in the whole of 2000, considering the positive sentiments in 1999. (Check out the poll archives and take a look at Poll #2.) If you haven't voted, go vote! If you have, now its time for you to tell us exactly why you voted that way, and what made it so good or bad for you in 2000.
Cambridge SoundWorks has announced the PlayDock PD200 speakers that come with built-in rechargeable batteries and a special dock for Nomad Jukebox users to carry music around. [read press release] In addition, etown.com has just bestowed Creative's Nomad Jukebox with the 2000 Product of the Year award. [read more]
Paul from Really Effective Software has released a version of the latest Sound Control Plus for ALive! readers. Check out the download section for a list of the latest features and the password to unlock the installation.
There's little news lately, but I've added more Windows 2000 tweaking guides to the Windows 2000 page, which can be found in the tech info section.. Also, if you have tried the unofficial WDM drivers, please tell us if they work for your WinMe or Windows 2000 installation. Is hibernate working? A reader has asked me if AC3 passthrough is supported by the WDM drivers, and I don't think it works. If it will be supported, most probably it will appear only in the next Live!Ware.
Eric Sauvageau kindly provided me the new drivers that Creative has recently been selling with their new OEM cards. The version from Gateway is 5.12.1.3041, while the newer ones are 5.12.1.3110 found on a CD labeled "Windows 2000 and Windows Millenium Liveware 3". The good news from Eric is that hibernate is working on his WinMe installation. Check out the driver section for more information!
IGN PC has a short review of the Cambridge SoundWorks DTT3500 5.1 speakers. Like Mark from 3DsoundSurge, I have to agree that the speakers are meant for smaller rooms. Anyone complaining about weak power should look for something like an AV amp with huge (and more costly) speakers! My DTT2500 works just fine in my room, and like me, you can always add another subwoofer to give it that extra oomph! For the cost of these speakers, its pretty much worth the money.
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