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News: February 15 - 21, 1999
Xitel
Storm Platinum Review As we take a run through the specs of the Platinum, it proves itself as a viable buy for gamers, musicians, and people who flat out just like music. Frank is currently working on the 3DsoundSurge review of Xitel's offering and I can pass on that he is enjoying the "force-feedback" headphone experience. MX300/Half
Life Giveaway
Saturday, February 20, 99 iXBT DLS Article They used the following banks to do it:
You can download the bank (7 Mb) from here If you prefer Russian you can also check out the original description of creating nice DLS
bank for Vortex 1 boards and at the same time read
their Russian
translation of our Unofficial Vortex 2 FAQ. A3D
2.0 Software Development Kit Project V1 3D
Sound Friday, February 19, 99 Interview
with Ion Storm Sound Engineer RedChurch had a chance to interview Stan Nuevo (Sound Engineer of Ion Storm) redchurch: What do you think the next generation of audio in games will be? Stan: It's happening now - better positional sound, 3d sound, higher sampling rates. You can check out the interview HERE. FIFA 99 Patch Thursday, February 18, 99 3DGaming
EAR Sound Interview Q. So where is the audio engine going? Are there any little teasers you may have for the readers?A. Here is what is on the slat for IAS 2.0: Full force-feedback integration (sound pressure, volume, filtering increase with force-feedback effect), Side-channel support (i.e., bass shaker), Full MP3 streaming, Real-time Dolby/DTS solutions, DirectMusic, YellowBook ... hmmm... I can't think of what else, but that's what I know we're working on. Web Troubles If you found some weird looking stuff on our news page today we apologize. Apparently another user on our server had an application go wild and fill the hard drive so that when we went to load our index file it took about 3 K of 38 K and quit leaving you with the unintelligent babble to sort through. Even after coming back up the page was looking more whacked out than usual on some older versions of Netscape. Once again, out apologies. Montego
II OEM Revisited Thresh's Firing Squad has revised their review of Turtle Beach's Montego II OEM offering in light of some information they recently received. Tom Hall
interview Next-Generation have managed to get an interview with Tom Hall from Ion Storm about his game Anachronox, which will at least support EAX. Nothing about 3d sound in this interview but still worth a read. Here's a snip. Can you give a full description of the storyline of the game? How did you come up with the ideas for the title? "OK, here goes. You start the story as Sylvester Sly Boots, a down-on-his-luck space detective looking for a job. A small protection job turns into a galactic mystery, in which seven main characters get involved. Who is crushing the universe? Who is trying to hide the evidence? Sly and his companions better find out before it's too late! You talk to over 400 different people and creatures in the game, gathering clues and acting on hunches to find out more about the mystery. You will also seek out people and items, and have a great many battles on your way. "At the start, you will have a limited set of choices until you are familiar with the game and its interface, but your options increase until you're free to wander the galaxy, trying to put all the pieces together. You won't be overwhelmed at the start, and you'll eventually be able to go wherever you want to. While the plot generally heads in a set direction, your choices and actions on the way seriously affect how you get there and what happens when you do. You won't, however, start in an open universe being able to go anywhere. At the start of a game, you need more focus than that. Blood2 2.0
patch Monolith have finally released the Blood2 2.0 patch. I haven't tried it yet but here's the most important enhancements, ripped from PlanetBlood
For other fixes check out Monolith's 2.0 patch page, which is a
bit out of date but hopefully all the fixes on that page are included. Interview with Stuart Denman and Tim Ebling of Surreal We have just posted our interview with Stuart Denman and Tim Ebling of Surreal. Stuart is the Vice President and Technical Director of Surreal and also the Lead Programmer on Drakan. Tim is responsible for nearly all the programming related to player systems in Drakan and is also acting as musical producer and co-composer for the game. The interview, of course, focuses on sound in Drakan: Order of the Flame. Sound
Blaster Live! Revisited Kert sent us a note asking us share the following with you: There have been new disclosures and developments since my last review. Sufficient to necessitate re-look at the SBLive!. Has it got what it takes to beat back its competitors from Diamond and Aztech? Get
Kert's views on the answer to that question and more. A3D 2.0
Games Update Thanks to Aureal's David Gasior for the following update on some upcoming A3D 2.0 patches/games: Heretic II Enhancement Pack Speaking of Wages of Sin, I saw on Blue's News that it has gone gold, and is off to manufacture and should be on store shelves next week sometime.
Vortex 2
NT Drivers Aureal has uploaded the 2.03 NT 4.0 drivers for the Vortex 2 chipset to their web site. According to David Gasior these should be the NT drivers that Diamond is shipping in the new 1.02beta release. These are also the ones on the Xitel Storm Platinum and Videologic SonicVortex2 installs as well. Half-Life
demo review Thanks to Voodoo Extreme for the pointer to a Half-Life demo review over at 3Dgaming. Here's a snip The graphics are still top notch, and the sound is still as good as ever. If you own an MX300 you're in for a really intense audio experience As you know DS3D and EAX are also supported. He wasn't impressed by the demo except for the sound and graphics but those that haven't played it may find it worth to check it out anyway. If you own the game and want to play the demo that contains new levels you can download 4 MB version of the demo from this site Kingpin
demo soon Kingpin fan site Gangland spotted a post by Greg Goodrich of Xatrix Entertainment on the Kingpin messageboard. Here is what he had to say: It looks like we will most likely release the demo prior to the release of the non-interactive movie. Let me explain why... The demo is in its final stages now and will be ready for release very shortly. It will include the entire first episode and will most likely be quite large. Non-interactive movie trailers in gaming serve a few purposes. The first is to generate excitement about the product (in the fan base) before an interactive demo is ready and the second is for retailers to play on the video monitors in selected outlets. Unfortunately for us, the movie trailer we want to show you folks is much different (content wise) then what would be allowed to show in retail outlets. Also, Sony/Columbia will not allow us to "give away" an entire song for free. The result of all of this is that we have decided to get the demo out first in its "raw" and "un-censored" way and then follow it up with the movie which has been edited for viewing in the retail outlets. Kingpin will support 3D Sound the last time we asked but they hadn't decided which API(s). If you want to know more about Kingpin read Sharky Extreme's preview. Paramedia
Lab ML-1 Speaker Review Thresh's Firing Squad has posted a review of Paramedia Lab ML-1 speakers. Here's a short clip to catch your interest: Selling for $199 direct-order only, these are the first speakers we've seen with the price and potential to beat out the Microworks. Thanks to Aureal A3D Central for the pointer. Desktop
Theater 5.1 Special Offer ALive has posted some information from a Creative Labs newsletter announcing that the Cambridge Soundworks Desktop Theater 5.1 system is available for US $ 199.00. That's $100 off the retail price. This offer expires on March 1st and is available here. NOTE: This offer is only available to registered SB Live owners. Soldier
of Fortune Sound Thanks to Blues News for the pointer to FragFortune where they interview Chia Chin Lee who is one of the sound designers on Raven's Soldier of Fortune. Here's a taste: CableGuy: Alrighty, we've heard all about the great graphics, animation, blah blah blah, about Soldier of Fortune. But we haven't heard jack about the sound! So tell us, how important is sound going be in SoF?Chia Chin Lee: Sound is an integral part of the SoF experience! We've always wanted to build the game with sound in mind, not as an afterthought. Since the very beginning of the production cycle, I have been meticulously working on the concept of the sound design in SoF. My objective is to envelope the player in an aural bubble that perfectly balances between sound effects and music. I promise that you will be hearing a lot more about the sound and music in SoF in the near future! Vital Engine
Tech Demo and Info Thanks to VoodooExtreme and Anton for the translation from Russian of the demo info on the Vital game page. The is a bunch more info over on VoodooExtreme but I grabbed the following info on sound: Physical environment and sound: You can grab the tech demo here. Diamond
MX300 Drivers Still catching up from our downtime. Thanks to Chris for letting us know that Diamond has released new beta drivers for the MX300 bringing the version up to 1.02(beta). If you prefer you can ftp from Aureal. Don't forget to reinstall the 2.04b A3D drivers Roadwars
Preview @ Avault Avault's preview of this upcoming title mentions that the game will support 3D audio via DS3D and will also support the Environmental Audio Extensions (EAX) to DS3D. Monday , February 15, 99 Benwin BW2000 Speaker Review Purified 3D has posted a review of Benwin's flat panel speakers. DVD Audio
Standard I saw on Thresh's Firing Squad that EETimes has posted an article on the DVD audio standard that was just reached. Amen
Developers Journal Thanks to 3DNews and Cavenews for the pointer to an Amen Developer's Journal entry by Jeremy Soule on composing music for Amen: The Awakening. The page also includes some links to audio samples. 3DsoundSurge Interview With Aureal's Toni Schneider Toni Schneider, of Aureal Semiconductor, has been kind enough to answer a few questions that we had on wavetracing technology and the Vortex 2. To get the context of some of the questions and answers we suggest that you also read the recent MaximumPC interview with Dave Rossum, Chief Scientist of Creative Labs/ Emu and and a recent in-house interview with some Creative Labs scientists. On top of the answers the questions we asked Toni, he also supplied us with an introductory preamble, so with no further adieu, we will get into Toni's preamble and then our interview.
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