News: April 26 - May 2, 1999

Sunday, May 02, 1999

Unreal 224 Patch and SB Live - Mark @ 20:37 EST

I got the following email from a reader. Can those of you with the Live and Unreal let me know if you are having problems with 3D audio with the 224 patch. We know it breaks 3d audio for A3D 2.0 cards but there was no official mention of broken DS3D support.

I just "upgraded" to Unreal 224 and it is my belief that this build breaks 3d sound support, at least for SB Live! owners. Can you see if anyone else
is experiencing this problem?

System specs:
P2 400, Dual V2s, Riva TNT, SB Live (full edition), Win98, 4 speakers (Cambridge), latest SBLive drivers

Problem reported:
During the flyby on previous builds you could clearly hear the sound of the torches pass from front to rear. After applying this patch I hear it go from loud to soft, but *not* front to rear. (I have verified that"Use3DHardware" is on, and all my SBLive tools are set to "No effects." I have also tried other "obvious sounding" 3d sounds in the game (such asclosing a door behind you) and it definitely sounds like plain stereo to me.

Giants Preview - Mark @ 10:08 EST

Our Future Games Network affiliate, MGON has a preview of GIANTS, an upcoming FPS/RTS. Giants is on the futures list for A3D support but there is no mention on the EAX page.

Unreal 224 Released but... - Mark @ 09:05 EST

Yes there is a but...According to the readme file, if you enable "Advanced Options / Audio / Use3DHardware" through the menus and you have a 3D sound card with Aureal A3D 2.0 drivers, you won't get any sound acceleration. A3D 2.0 (geometric environmental audio processing) support is still in development and testing, and will come later, but the temporary side effect is that 1.0 support is disabled.

You can get more information on the 224 patch from the Unreal Tech Page. Thanks to 3DAI for the pointer.

Speaking of Unreal. Our newest member of the Future Games Network, Glide Underground, the source for Glide Wrappers, and all the Glide fun and chaos you can imagine, has put up a review of UNREAL TOURNAMENT, GT Interactive's multiplayer only FPS. Besides having the FIRST review of Unreal Tournament, they have some exclusive screen shots.

Saturday, May 01, 1999

Yamaha 192 Digital Driver Link - Mark @ 20:31 EST

If you have tried to download the Full installation, all languages, 4.23MB version of the Yamaha Waveforce 192 digial drivers from the Waveforce Download Page you will have found a broken link. The correct link for the driver is:

http://www.waveforce.com/download/drivers/wf192d/v1031/setupdrv.zip

Creative Releases SoundBlaster Live! Linux Drivers - Frank @ 14:00 EST

The operating system called Linux has been recieving a great amount of support lately from hardware companies as well as software. Creative is one of the many who have jumped onto the Linux wagon to include support for the operating system. The Linux drivers are early beta and not officially supported by Creative yet. Creative is also seeking user feedback at the Developer Relations site. Thanks to AGN3D

A Number of Patches - Mark @ 09:02 EST

Pretty slow morning...
A number of patches for games with 3D audio came out over the last couple of days.

An Updated Heretic II EP Patch (1.05)(A3D 2.0 Support came in the first EP release). This patch fixes a problem with certain joysticks and gamepads. You do not need this patch unless you are experiencing control problems with your joystick or gamepad input device.

A 1.41 Patch for Starsiege: Tribes

A 1.01 patch for Warzone 2100 (that I thought was out earlier but now shows an April 30th posting date). This patch does impliment a new audio engine which I think includes EAX.

Friday, April 30, 1999

ThunderBird Q3D to Power Labway's Flagship Sound Card - Frank @ 20:40 EST

VLSI Technology, Inc. today announced its ThunderBird Q3D(TM) PCI Audio Accelerator chip, jointly developed with QSound Labs, Inc.,will be featured in Labway Corporation's Thunder 3D(TM). The Thunder 3D, the first member of Labway's new Xwave(TM) family of high performance PC sound products, will be showcased at Computex, Asia's foremost computer trade show, in June 1999.

Future Beat 3D Audio Studio Goes Gold - Mark @ 15:38 EST

Techland’s Future Beat 3D has just gone gold. According to Techland, Future Beat 3D is the first music studio product that extensively features 3D audio composition for non-professional music makers. I believe that if you have an EAX capable card that Future Beat 3D will support but not require EAX . There is a demo available for download.

Official Expendable Demo - Mark @ 15:11 EST

You play a space marine who is dropped in to a series of unfamiliar alien worlds to fight for the survival of your race with a huge arsenal of apocalyptic weapons at your disposal. The ability of the game engine to freely mix outdoor and indoor environments (such as tunnels, underground bases, ruined cities etc.) creates a beautiful world for the player to explore and destroy! This is the official demo sent to us by Rage. It is 25 megs smaller and should run on all video cards unlike the previous demo.

Just like the unofficial demo this baby sports DS3D and EAX support and you can grab a copy of the 50 MB demo from 3Dfiles

Vortex 2 2030 Beta Driver Benchmarks - Mark @ 07:44 EST

Aureal A3D Central has posted some benchmark results using the just released beta 2030 Vortex 2 drivers.

Yamaha Posts EAX Waveforce Drivers - Mark @ 07:37 EST

Yes thats right. They are finally officially in the public domain. Funny how everything is happening all at once ;). Anyway, you can head over to the Yamaha Waveforce Downloads Page or you can go right to the page for the:

Yamaha Waveforce 192XG

Yamaha Waveforce 192 Digital

Thursday, April 29, 1999

SB Live! Value Available for Dell Dimension Customers - Mark @ 22:14 EST

Creative Labs today announced that Dell Corporation is offering Creative's Sound Blaster® Live! Value as an option on the company's Dimension desktop systems. Thanks to 3DAI for the pointer.

Vortex 2 2030 Beta Drivers Available for Download! - Mark @ 21:55 EST

If you visit A3D.com and check out the drivers page you are in for a little surprise...

These are pre-release Vortex 2 reference drivers designed for OEM customers; a retail release is forthcoming. They address the bass-loss issue oncertain speaker systems, a memory leak that caused noise after prolonged periods of audio usage, some clicking in certain applications, clicking in MIDI playback, and they add support for 76 concurrent 3D hardware sources. Unless you are experiencing one of these issues, we recommend you wait for the retail release.

Boston Acoustics BA635 Review - Mark @ 16:23 EST

3DHardware has posted a review of the Boston Acoustics BA635 three-piece speaker system.

Yamaha Waveforce 192XG Review - Mark @ 16:22 EST

3DGaming has just posted a review of the Yamaha Waveforce 192XG. According to 3Dgaming’s Alexis Dang, while the card is about a year old, it can still hold it's own.

Magazine Rack - Mark @ 12:46 EST

May is a big month for audio in the print media. PC Gamer has a review of the Hi-Val HDVD-6 Kit and a review of the Kinyo SS-1271 Speaker System. Computer Gaming World has an article by Lloyd Case on the evolution from sound cards to "audio accelerators" plus a review of the Yamaha Waveforce 192 Digital and MaximumPC has what they are calling a "Big Audio Showdown" which has an overview of PC audio, APIs, etc and reviews of a number of sound cards and speaker systems. The same issue also has an interview with Aureal's Toni Schneider although you can get the same information from our own recent interview with Toni.

FreeSpace 2 Aural Info - Mark @ 10:10 EST

I grabbed the following from a chat log with some of the programmers of FreeSpace 2 posted by the gang from the soon to be Freespace2.org. I have edited the audio questions from their typical chat format for your convenience.

The audio questions were answered by Dave Baranec who is the lead programmer for Free Space 2 and a veteran of FS 1.

Q:What sound API’s are supported?
A:Directsound, Aureal3d, and EAX
Q:A3D2, EAX 2.0?
A:DirectX 12 encompasses both of those, so no worries (editor’s note: its a joke!)

3DsoundSurge Visits Creative/EMU Tech Center - Mark @ 00:44 EST

I have summaried the key points of my visit to the Creative/EMU Technology Center. The summary touches on some of the key new features that will be offered to Sound Blaster Live! owners through the upcoming Liveware 2.0 release.

Two New Sites Join the Future Games Network! - Mark @ 00:36 EST

We would like to welcome the follow sites to the Future Games Network

The Glide Underground
Currently focused on Glide wrappers, GU is the premiere site to follow development efforts of wrappers. Expanding to encompass reviews. Featured in the March Issue of PC Gamer.

Rage3D
The web's largest and most visited ATI resource website, containing fresh daily news with a support forum that are both highly popular.

Wednesday, April 28, 1999

Vortex 2 2030 Beta Driver Benchmarks - Mark @ 22:44 EST

I missed pointing this out yesterday. The Yamaha 192 Digital review over on Firing Squad includes some benchmark numbers of the beta Vortex 2 2030 drivers and they do show a huge improvement in CPU usage. You can get straight to the benchmarks or check out the entire Yamaha 192 digital review.

Updated Canyon3D Info - Mark @ 14:21 EST

Kert of Kert’s Page fame asked me to pass on a correction to his recent article on the Canyon3d audio processor that he received from Sensaura’s Peter Clare. Here is the text of the email from Peter Clare:

Just read your Canyon3D article. In it you say:

Sensaura's positional 3D algorithms rely upon a library of 1,111 HRTF (Head Related Transfer Function) pairs, a small subset of which will be implemented on 'Canyon3D'.

This wording is a little misleading. What actually happens is that we have a library of 1,111 HRTF filter pairs. Depending on the relative position of a sound source to the listener, just one of those filter pairs will be selected and loaded onto the Canyon3D DSP processor. When the sound source moves, a different set of filter coefficients will be sent to the DSP.

If multiple 3D buffers are playing at the same time then each buffer can be using a different set of filter coefficients. Your use of the term "subset" is a bit misleading and implies that the Canyon3D is in some way limited in the number of different filters that can be used. This is not the case since any one of those 1,111 filters can be in use on the Canyon3D.

Cheers,

Pete
Developer Relations Manager

Aureal Announces Continued Revenue Growth in Q1/99 - Mark @ 14:09 EST

Aureal Semiconductor today announced financial results for the first quarter ended April 4, 1999. Revenues for the first quarter of 1999 were $12.6 million compared to $3.6 million in the first quarter of 1998, up 250%. Additionally, the gross margin grew to 34% in the first quarter of 1999, up from 22% in the prior year's first quarter. Increasing demand for Aureal-manufactured soundcard products based on the Vortex2 processor helped fuel the increase in both sales and margins. For a table with some of the first quarter financial details you can also check out the linked PDF file.

Starsiege Review - Mark @ 07:38 EST

Game Post has put up a review of Starsiege offering the following on audio:

Starsiege has excellent sound with realistic ambient sound that is environment specific. For example, on the open landscape wind can be heard blowing over the hilltops and through the valleys giving the player a sense of actually being on some distant planet controlling a HERC. As the HERC moves the impact of the immense HERC's footsteps shook my floor and rattled the pictures on my wall when I cranked up my 270 watt speakers. Very impressive.

Creative Announces 3rd Quarter Financial Results - Frank @ 07:27 EST

Creative Technology Ltd. today announced financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 1999 ended March 31, 1999. Results for the third quarter of fiscal 1999 were:

* Sales for the third quarter were US$313.7 million, compared to US$298.4 million for the same quarter last year.

* Net income for the third quarter was US$18.3 million, compared to US$45.2 million for the same quarter last year.

* Earnings per share for the third quarter were US$0.20 per share,compared to US$0.48 per share for the same quarter last year.

Labway Corporation to introduce THUNDER3D (TM) PCI audio card - Frank @ 07:24 EST

128 Q3D(TM) Audio Accelerator Selected to Power Flagship of XWave (TM) Extreme Gaming Sound Cards. QSound Labs, Inc. announced that Labway Corporation, one of the dominant manufacturers of multimedia products, will introduce the THUNDER3D (TM) PCI audio card, based on the ThunderBird 128 Q3D (TM) audio processor.

Turtle Beach Montego II in Ingram Micro Unbranded Systems - Frank @ 07:19 EST

Turtle Beach announced that Ingram Micro has made the Vortex 2 based Turtle Beach(TM) Montego II(TM) audio accelerator available through its Frameworks (TM), Total Integration Services(TM) offering.

Tuesday, April 27, 1999

3DAI Creative/EMU Tech Center Summary - Mark @ 23:25 EST

Seems like Steven over at 3DAI has a little more energy than I do after our travel day and has posted his summary of yesterday's meeting with both E-Mu systems and Creative. Here is the intro in his own works:

In my recent meeting with both E-Mu systems and Creative Labs, I have learned a lot about the new upcoming features of Live!Ware 2.0 and the Nomad product. Plus, with more knowledge of EAX 2.0, and 3.0, we can make sure that the next 8 months will be a killer time for audio!

Fire and Darkness Preview and Interview - Mark @ 23:11 EST

Firing Squad has posted a preview of Fire and Darkness, a new 3D RTS and winner of the Independent Games Festival at this past GDC! In addition, they got an extensive interview with David Rosenthal, one of the young (all of Singularity's staff are college freshmen or high school seniors) developers of Fire and Darkness. In the interview he reveals that there will be support for 3D audio but API support is not finalized yet. They of course go way beyond audio in the interview with questions and answers on what new graphics technologies they will be supporting (Bump mapping? S3TC?), plans for units, AI, and much much more!

Xitel Platinum Review - Mark @ 22:58 EST

Extreme Hardware has posted a review of the Xitel Storm Platinum Gamers Pack, a package deal offering a Storm Platinum Vortex 2 soundcard, along with some nifty TakStar Force Feedback headphones.

Yamaha 192 Digital Review - Mark @ 22:47 EST

Firing Squad has posted a review of Yamaha's 192 Digital sound card that uses Sensaura's 3D algorithms. Here in their own words is an intro to the review:

We've just reviewed Yamaha's latest 3D sound card over at FiringSquad. With support for 3D positional sound, EAX, and A3D, it's a budget-minded option for those looking for a 3D kick without the 3D price!

Back from Creative/EMU Tech Center - Mark @ 22:33 EST

This is by no means my full report, but I just got home a few minutes ago and thought I would let you know that I had an excellent session with the folks from Creative Labs and EMU yesterday. I will post a much more detailed report tomorrow night after I get some sleep. What I will let you know is that all you Live owners and potential Live owners out there are going to be really happy with the Liveware 2.0 release including but definately not limited to the improvements in 3D audio. Sorry for the teaser but I have a couple other posts I want to do tonight and I will be able to do a summary a lot more justice after a good nights sleep :)

Monday, April 26, 1999

Xitel Storm Platinum Review @ DimensionX - Frank @ 07:28 EST

Dimension X has completed a review of the Xitel Storm Platinum Sound Card. DimensionX rates the Platinum a 10/10.

Halflife Mod With A3D - Frank @ 07:22 EST

We recieved an email yesterday from Peter Lovell (Director for Borderline Studios)stating that they were creating a Half Life mod called The Russian Front and they are the only mod team to have exclusive A3D support :) They were contacted by 3DSL and are now developing their WW2 extraveganza with the coolness of A3D. I guess by having the A3D sdk you can implement special cues for certain situations in the game and much more.
The Russian Front

UltraQ Device Reviewed @ Sound Studio - Frank @ 00:56 EST

Sound Studio has reviewed the UltraQ Device from Qsound with a rating of 10/10.

UltraQ presents itself in a strange space age pyramid type design. There are 3 switches on the front panel of UltraQ. On, Off, Music, Games, Bypass, QMono, QStereo, and QAuto are all presented for your flipping pleasure. Let's look further into these features though, there's certainly plenty of them to play with.

News from April 18th

All content, design and work is © 2001 - 3D Sound Surge Please respect the copyrights of the articles and writers herein. All copyrights are enforced by 3DSS.  
View the 3DsoundSurge Privacy Statement