News:  January 17-23, 2000

Sunday, January 23, 2000

The future of sound and graphics cards - Mikael @ 12:10 EST

That's the question HardNews asked Tim Sweeney, Gabe Newell, and Jake Simpson, game developers at Epic, Valve and Raven. More specifically they wondered if we would need them in the future or just use the CPU. Here's the most interesting Q&A when it comes to the sound card future

HardNews: Will it be eventually we won't need sound cards either? What do you expect the future of sound cards to be?

Tim Sweeney: Excluding 3D sound acceleration, all you *really* need nowadays is a high quality digitial-to-analog converter, and the CPU is capable of the rest.

Gabe Newell: I expect sound cards to start going the route of the 3d cards, IE having an onboard geometry engine. Currently all sounds when bounced around a room require 3d trig to figure out echos and stuff like that. This is all done in game, and I'd like to see that handed off to the card to do, so freeing up the main CPU. Also, I'd like to see some kind of downloadable micro coded GPU inside the sound cards, so we can do .mp3 decompression in hardware, but not limited to that. Creative Labs NOMAD II is a good example of this. The firmware is upgradeable so when .mp4 or whatever comes out, it will be able to handle it. I think that sound cards should have the same capabilities. I do believe sound cards will be with us for a good long time, the only kind I detest are the ones that come on the motherboard. Scary.

Jake Simpson: Sound cards are more likely to go away than 3D accelerators simply because the functions they perform are so much less CPU intensive. However, in a past life I was a big fan of dumb modems, but the latency they introduce makes them a huge problem for a key group of applications (e.g. Half-Life). I think the big push will be towards more functionality in the near-term as people start to realize that the PCs of the world represent the only viable, broad-based digital video/HDTV clients. Getting PCs to be great digital TVs and incorporate Tivo style digital VCR functionality are more of an issue than cost-reduction.

Maxi-Sound Fortissimo review - Mikael @ 12:09 EST

Tweak3D has posted a review of Guillemot's YMF744 based soundcard, Maxi-Sound Fortissimo. First a couple of clarifications the card doesn't support DirectMusic in hardware with the current drivers, that will require WDM drivers. When they say it supports "Sensaura Interactive Positioning " it just means the card uses Sensaura's 3D sound and reverb engine which will be used in any game that uses DS3D, A3D 1.X and/or EAX (reverb). They should also work with headphones not just 2 and 4-speakers.

This review just like many others complain about rear speakers not being used much, I can only assume that it's because of only 8 3D channels which in some games means most of the sound effects may be just in stereo (just front channels or stereo duplication to the rear channels). I have no idea what they mean with "Creative's EAX performed surprisingly well, on par with an AWE 64. " as I didn't even know the AWE64 supports EAX.

Later drivers for the YMF744 supports 32 3D streams, I3DL2 and EAX 2.0. You can check out our review of the Digital-XG to know how the Maxi-Sound Fortissimo will sound when/if this driver upgrade is available from Guillemot. If you don't care about support from Guillemot you can download the YMF744 reference drivers.
News Source: Anandtech

Cheap Vortex boards - Mikael @ 12:07 EST

Vortex of Sound done a search for where you can pick up some cheap Vortex boards online and have listed the results on their news page.

Vortex drivers for BeOS? - Mikael @ 11:31 EST

BeNews got the following blurb from Aureal tech support on when Vortex drivers would be available for BeOS

Hello,
Actually, I have some good news for you as well! I spoke with the Multimedia Director at Be, Inc. and they are expecting to release drivers for our AU8820 and AU8830 cards in their upcoming Release 5 (due this quarter).
Aureal Customer Support Services

Saturday, January 22, 2000

Aureal SQ2500 Review - Mark @ 22:49 EST

PC Critix have posted a review of Aureal's SQ2500. A couple of comments. While the reviewers COAX comment is true about the MX300 its not quite on the money with respect to Vortex 2 boards from Xitel, Terratec, Videologic and Absolute Multimedia (to name the big ones) which all ship with an optical output on the card and cannot be "upgraded" to COAX. Its also not quite true of the Turtle Beach Quadzilla which in essence ships with a COAX SPDIF out of the box even if it is on a bracket board. Next up is CPU utilization. As much as I like the effects of geometry processing via A3D 2.0 I would not say that Aureal's drivers have reduced the impact to a level where its "virtually non-existent". Other than that I have no comments as just when I was getting into reading this review, it ended! Like just about all reviewers, including us, they come to the conclusion that the SQ2500 is a great option for gamers.
News Source: Anandtech

Tread Marks Mods - Mark @ 22:34 EST

Longbow Digital Arts have released their first mod for the the A3D 2.0 and DS3D supporting Tread Marks tank racing game called SuperFriction (copy the .ent file into the base AddOns\Entities\ folder) giving tighter, easier controls over your tank. They also have a new page telling you how to make your own mods. You can also grab the 22.6 MB demo of Tread Marks from 3Dfiles.

Rainbow Six Postmortem - Mark @ 09:41 EST

Gamaustra has posted another one of the excellent postmortem articles. This postmortem is on Red Storm's very successfull DS3D supporting tactical shooter, Rainbow Six. The article, written by Red Storm designer Brain Upton, talks about the production of Rainbow Six, along with what went right and wrong.
News Source: VoodooExtreme

Soldier of Fortune Demo Monday!! - Mark @ 09:25 EST

Raven's Rick Johnson updated his .plan with a status report on the Soldier of Fortune demo, which he now says to expect Monday:

SoF Demo News

The Demo will be officially released Monday. It got delayed until then mainly because QA found another crash bug Thursday (in the same function, ironically, but different area). Friday, I decided I wanted to try and address a 3dfx driver related bug. On certain drivers (kinda a mix of processor and OS), texturing would completely screw up. I changed the code so that on 3dfx, the game would not enable a specific rendering feature. This took a bit to QA today (to track down a related problem that got by me). I just got done talking to Mike Denny, who is in charge of QA for SoF. We have their blessing to release the demo (finally)... But because of "outside influences" it was decided to hold up until Monday.

Just to give you a brief rundown of the Demo features:
4 single player maps (a tutorial level, 2 full playable levels, plus a cinematic level)
2 deathmatch maps
12 different deathmatch models / skins representing 3 teams
In game server browsing
and a ton of custom options (including custom game settings (such as disabling spawning))

The demo will weigh in at a hefty 95 megs, but should fit on zip disk.

BlasterKey MP3 Review - Mark @ 09:19 EST

Live! center has done what looks to be a very thorough test of Creative Labs' upcoming MIDI keyboard controller, the BlasterKey MP3. The keyboard features 49 full-sized and touch sensitive keys. Included is software that transforms the BlasterKey into a full auto-accompaniment keyboard and piano tutor. You can easily record all your work as .mp3 files. The BlasterKey will apparently be available in March for $99 or $199 bundled with the MP3+. Interested? Read the full review. Its a framed site so we are linking to the main page, at the author's request, where you will find a link to the review.

Live! Center's Linux Guide - Mark @ 09:18 EST

Live!Center, in response to the number of e-mails they have received regarding the open source Linux! SBLive! drivers, has written a brief guide on how to get, compile and install the drivers on a typical Linux system. The site uses frames so at the author's request we are linking to the main page where you will find a link to the article.

SQ2500 Review - Mark @ 09:03 EST

Speedy3D has posted a very positive review of Aureal's Vortex 2 based SQ2500. Just a few comments. First, for DVD playback using PowerDVD 2.5 you can also get 4 speaker downmixing with Vortex 2 boards. Its also worth noting that on any sound card has a COAX SPDIF output compatible with Dolby Digital / DTS devices the sound quality is really a function of the decoder and speakers you connect to and not a function of the sound card. What is worth noting is the Vortex 2 cards, unlike many others, offer variable digital output rates so you can set it to 32, 44.1 or 48 kHz which could be handy for MiniDisc players (less so with the SQ2500 as many MiniDics use an optical and not COAX digital connection). My last comment is respect to A3D 2.0 games that support the geometry engine. We have definitely seen performance improvements in this area and some games like Heretic II the impact is negligible but I disagree with the statement that A3D 2.0 games have a lower impact frame rate than A3D 1.x games as games like Quake 3 Arena, Decent 3 and Unreal Tournament still show an impact that is an issue to some people. That said, if you read our own review of the SQ2500 you will know that we agree with Speedy3D that is a great addition to the sound card market.

Friday, January 21, 2000

Music Industry Group Sues MP3.com - Mikael @ 23:51 EST

The Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) today said it was suing music Web site MP3.com Inc. claiming that MP3.com is violating copyrights with new features that send music to any computer. The features in question are``Beam-it'' that lets users listen to music from their personal CD collections from any computer and ``Instant Listening'' that lets people buy CDs from MP3.com partners and listen to them instantly online. For all the reasons why RIAA thinks this violates copyrights and why MP3.com thinks it will increase CD sales check out this article on CNET's News.com.

RealMagic Hollywood Plus Review - Mikael @ 23:38 EST

This time it's Nvar Technologies that has tested this DVD card and unlike 3DAI found it to offer great image quality when watching on your monitor as well as on your TV. I don't really agree that the Hollywood Plus is the real deal since it lacks the 4-speaker down-mixing feature that the Dxr3 card have unless you reverse to the old drivers and perform a register hack.

Digital Music Revolution with Networked, MP3 Stereo - Mikael @ 23:25 EST

Lansonic today introduced the Digital Audio Server (DAS-750), equipped with an Ethernet connection, the DAS-750 links to your Local Area Network (LAN) and is able to play MP3 files from PCs on the network or directly from the internal 13GB hard drive. The DAS-750 has the capability to play streaming files from the Internet or encode files in real time for streaming to another location on the network. You can find more details in the press release.

Swat 3 patch - Mikael @ 23:07 EST

You can now grab the Swat 3 patch from 3dfiles where you as usual will also find the list of fixes, none of them sound related. The game was said to support DS3D and using its own reverb engine but not sure if it's shipping with support for DS3D. You can grab a copy of the game for $30 from Gamestop.

Madden NFL 2000 patch - Mikael @ 22:59 EST

A new patch for the DS3D with EAX supporting Madden NFL 2000 has been released. No sound fixes but several other fixes. You can find the list of fixes and download links at 3dfiles. If you don't have the game you can pick it up for just $20 at Gamestop.

U.S. Judge Orders DVD Hack Off Internet Sites - Mark @ 21:40 EST

A U.S. District Court has ordered three people to remove from their Web sites a software program that could allow copying of DVD movies. District Judge Lewis Kaplan in New York issued a temporary injunction late on Thursday forbidding the Web sites from carrying the DeCSS program that would allow users to bypass the encryption scheme used on DVDs to prevent unauthorized copying. You can check out the motion picture industry's press release, read the whole story over at Yahoo and even more in a similar piece from C/NET titled "Film industry fights DVD decryption sites"

Best Data Theatrix Review - Mark @ 21:05 EST

The Hardware Pros have posted a review of Best Data's Theatrix 5.1 sound card. This card uses Fortemedia's FM801 chip. The one thing we should make clear up front is this card has no Dolby Digital decoding capabilities and given that its not even bundled with software DVD player (unlike Skywell's Magic Sound Live that comes with WinDVD) they really should not make the claim of offering Dolby Digital 5.1 support since it does not give you anything more than stereo playback for DVDs out of the box! The card offers 6 analog outputs plus a COAX SPDIF out. Once you have bought the appropriate software DVD player the decoding will take place via that software DVD player and if you have one that supports the FM801 then you get to use its 6 outputs or if you have a Dolby Digital / DTS receiver that you connect via the Theatrix's COAX SPDIF output. Based on my testing of the similar Skywell Magic Sound Live I can say that the 6 speaker output only works for DVDs - that is for gaming you just use the normal 4 speaker outputs. Mikael should be getting this card any day now so look for lots more from us on this and the Magic Sound Live in the coming weeks. In the mean time you can get more impressions from the Hardware Pros.

Thursday, January 20, 2000

Aureal's Linux drivers available - Mikael @ 23:47 EST

Thanks to Michael Scrivo from Hardware Pros Hardware Pros for pointing out that Aureal has already released beta drivers for Linux that you can download from Linux.Aureal.Com. He also mentioned that they have currently no A3D or wavetable support but otherwise works well.

NetPack Will Bring Internet Music to your Car - Mikael @ 23:41 EST

NetPack of Irvine today announced that the company has plans for a device that will make it possible to download music or cassettes tape programs from the Internet and play the selections on your car audio system. Here's how the module would work. You plug the module in to a standard port on your computer, download the desired program material from the Internet, plug the Music Pack back in to your car audio system and enjoy the program material previously downloaded. There are no CD's required.

ESS and Cirrus Logic reports financial results - Mikael @ 23:37 EST

ESS Technology today reported net income of $11.4 million, or $0.24 per diluted share, on net revenues of $88.7 million for the quarter ended Dec. 31, 1999. This compares to net income of $4.8 million, or $0.11 per diluted share, on a 13% increase in net revenues of $78.2 million in the fourth quarter of 1998. Check out the press release for more details.

Cirrus Logic yesterday announced financial results for the third quarter of fiscal 2000, which ended December 25, 1999. Net revenues grew to $150.8 million, approximately 13 percent over the prior quarter. Net income was $27.9 million compared to a net loss of $9.4 million in the prior quarter. Diluted net earnings per share was $0.40 compared to a diluted per share loss of $0.15 in the prior quarter. Check out the press release for more details.

DVDs That Self-Destruct - Mikael @ 23:12 EST

That's what SpectraDisc is working on according to an article in Wired Magazine. Here's a snip that should give you a good idea what's all about

SpectraDisc, a spin-off from Spectra Science, a Providence, Rhode Island developer of laser technologies, is working on a special material to coat DVD discs, which start to self-destruct from the first moment of play. The coating is only around half a micron thick, around 1/200th of the thickness of a human hair. The thickness of the coating determines how long the disc lasts. The time limit can range from minutes to three days.

Vortex drivers for Linux - Mikael @ 23:02 EST

If you are waiting for Linux drivers for your Vortex based card the following Q&A from A3D.com may be of some interest

Question: What's going on with Linux support for Aureal's sound cards and A3D technology?
Answer: Aureal does intend to write its own Linux drivers. In fact, a binary Linux driver for all Vortex chipsets-with basic audio functionality, including full duplex PCM playback and record, multiple audio channels, analog joystick, mixer, MPU-401, and OSS compatibility-is currently in beta testing. Linux.com will have the exclusive news about our public Linux driver release, so keep checking them out for updated information. Our goal is to continue to add new features as development permits. We also intend to support an Open Source model on the drivers in the near future.

As for A3D, we are currently wrapping up the final issues in releasing the A3D 3.0 Software Development Kit for the Windows OSes. Porting A3D 3.0 to other platforms is the next task for that engineering group. We are also closely working with other Linux developers to ensure that we create something that will have a very positive impact on audio and gaming in the Linux environment.

Allegiance Interview - Mikael @ 23:01 EST

GameWire has posted an interview with some of the developers behind Allegiance, a space combat sim. Here's the audio snip

What sound APIs will Allegiance support?

[Tesegar]Allegiance will support Direct Sound 3D. We've looked at supporting A3D and EAX, but reverberation and occlusion are far rarer in a space combat game than in a typical corridor shooter. We're still looking at adding some subtle reverberation effects with EAX if we have time, but we don't think it's worth slipping the release date to do so.

A first person shooter typically consists almost entirely of partially enclosed spaces where reverberation is likely to be audible. Allegiance, on the other hand, takes place almost entirely in environments more open than an open field, and thus reverberation doesn't really make sense.

In a similar manner, first person shooters tend to have thin, wide, silent objects in the form of walls that can muffle the sound coming through them from nearby objects. In Allegiance, on the other hand, capital ships and stations tend to be noisy enough to overwhelm any subtle changes in the sound of more distant ships behind them, and asteroids are large enough that it's difficult to hear a ship on the other side of them even without occlusion.

Review of Sony MZ-E80 Portable MiniDisc Player - Mikael @ 23:00 EST

Electronics review zone has posted a review of Sony's MiniDisc Player, MZ-E80. Here's the intro

I'm usually pretty good about publishing MiniDisc reviews on time. But in this case, I've had my hand on the Sony MZ-E80 for a few months. My reasoning is that I'd rather show good products that are worth purchasing rather than wasting time with all of the bad ones. Well, I figure I've had it sitting around long enough that I can tell you why I despise it so much...

Speaker Showdown - Mark @ 22:03 EST

On lastnight's All Games Hardware show they talk with Midland, Klipsch and Altec Lansing on the topic of their newest gaming speakers. The Klipsch part is just about the ProMedia and doesn't bring any new info to light. The MidiLand deals with the just released 5.1 system without decoder the S4 7100, their upcoming more powerful 5.1 system that will include a decoder box 8200 and that they will also offer this decoder box separately. They couldn't mention any prices though other than that the 8200 will be in the S2 4100 price range. The Altec Lansing guy talks about their ACS56 and ADA880 speakers and a brief mention of the ADA885 (nothing new). He also mention we will be some serious processing power in upcoming speakers from Altec Lansing where they will use a microphone to know what the listener hears and adjust the sound to improve the quality. Aureal's upcoming wavetracing speakers will also offers similar features.~
News Source: Voodoo Extreme

Driver Patch - Mark @ 21:56 EST

There is a new patch out for the A3D 1.x and DS3D with EAX supporting Driver. The patch fixes a number of issues including inproved compatibility for CD Sound volume adjustment. You can grab the 1.4 MB patch from 3Dfiles

Star Multimedia has sold its assets - Mikael @ 03:52 EST

Daniel Tsadok just let us know that he received the following e-mail from Star Multimedia when he asked about their upcoming DD 6.1 card (Cinema 6.1 Surround Star).

Thank you for your inquiry.

Star Multimedia has sold its assets to Digital Media Systems, Inc. (http://www.dmsusa.net). Their website is currently under development, so you may not get any access for a little while.

Sales

Altec Lansing Shipping Slim Sound Solution - Mikael @ 02:22 EST

Altec Lansing Technologies yesterday announced that it is now shipping the ATP3, a three piece speaker system designed and engineered for the new millennium. The first in a series of stylish audio solutions, the ATP3 will be available at a SRP of $99.95. This audio system has a total 25 watts of power and includes two satellites and a subwoofer.

Two 28 mm microdrivers and one 3 inch downfiring midrange subwoofer are included in each satellite. The satellites are black in color and approximately 1 inch in width at the thickest point and are accented by a coordinating powered subwoofer extending low-end frequency response for full, rich sound. You can find a few more details in the press release. You can also check out the press release from Comdex last fall when the ATP3 serie was announced.

Acer will use Spatializer's Audio Enhancement technology - Mikael @ 02:13 EST

Spatializer Audio Laboratories and Acer Laboratories (ALi) jointly announced yesterday that ALi has licensed Spatializer's complete range of advanced audio enhancement technologies for inclusion across ALi's range of consumer electronic & PC components. ALi will begin shipping Spatializerr N-2-2TM Virtual Surround enabled DVD Decoder ICs in January, 2000 and will incorporate Spatializer 3D-Stereo (TM), along with Spatializer Vi.B.E (TM), Spatializer enCOMPASS (TM), and Spatializer StreamFX (TM) into the consumer electronic & PC markets.

You can check out the press release if you want more details. If you want to know more about the Spatializerr N-2-2 that Acer desribes as a must have for DVD players you can check out the press release from Ocotober when version 2.0 for DVDs was announced.

Showtime Networks will offer Dolby Digital 5.1 - Mikael @ 02:12 EST

Beginning Jan. 23, 2000, Showtime Networks is the first premium cable network to offer its East and West Coast feeds in HDTV with Dolby Digital 5.1-channel sound. With this introduction by Showtime, Cable networks now join the growing number of satellite and terrestrial broadcast operators to offer HDTV programs with Dolby Digital 5.1 audio. You can check out the press release if you want more details.

DVD Audio and Video System Enhancer - Mikael @ 02:12 EST

Unapix Entertainment announced yesterday an alliance with the Discwasherr brand of Recoton Corporation to develop the ``Discwasher DVD Audio and Video System Enhancer, model 1507,'' which incorporates a customized version of Unapix's Ultimate DVD along with Discwasher's proven DVD laser lens cleaner disc.

Check out the press release for all the details. You could also check out the Ultimate DVD press release from late last year or head over to DVD Express and do a search for "Ultimate DVD".

Hoontech Digital NX - Mikael @ 01:32 EST

In this review we will take a look at another inexpensive board from Hoontech, the SoundTrack Digital 4D Wave NX (SoundTrack Digital-NX) which as you may guess uses Trident's 4DWave-NX chip. The version of the card we tested comes with both coaxial and optical digital outputs on a bracket board. For 3D sound and reverb the 4DWave-NX chip uses QSound's Q3D 2.0 engine which supports DS3D and EAX 1.0. It also features QSound's stereo expansion technology, QXpander and 2D-3D. You get all of this for only $34 and can also upgrade to more extensive digital I/O boards from Hoontech. So how well does it work? Read on...

Summoner MP3 - Mikael @ 00:37 EST

The official Summoner site has been updated with a lot of new info including one MP3 file. Summoner is a fantasy role-playing game that will support A3D 2.0 and DS3D with EAX.
News Source: Voodoo Extreme

CABO MP3 Video Review @ AGN Hardware - Mikael @ 00:07 EST

AGN Hardware has posted a video review of the Cabo MP3 Player from BestData. The $250 CABO MP3 Player offers 64MB of memory, voice recording and uses the printer port.

Wednesday, January 19, 2000

Drakan: Order of the Flame Review - Mark @ 20:22 EST

Aureal's has posted another one of their reader reviews, this time covering Drakan: Order of the Flame. This title has received mixed reviews but I must say that I am one on the positive side of the fence as is this review. IMO the voice acting is the weak point of the game where as graphics, 3d audio and EAX are well utilized. The one point that is not surprisingly missing from this review is Drakan supports DS3D with EAX and not just A3D 1.x. Well enough from me, head over to Aureal's site and read about Drakan and if you want to contribute to their collection of reviews and articles you can earn yourself cash or put it towards a new soundcard from Aureal. Read all about how to submit articles to Aureal.

WaveSurround Nice and Safe! - Mark @ 20:04 EST

Wave Art's ask me to pass this note along to you:

As you are well aware, Norton AntiVirus is erroneously detecting a BackOrificeTrojan virus in WaveSurround. THIS IS A BUG IN THEIR PROGRAM.

Wave Arts has investigated this matter thoroughly. We have run two other anti-virus programs on the demo and application file and they are clean.

Symantec has been notified about this bug in their software and they recommend downloading the latest definition files (dated 01.14.00)to correct this error.

Sound Off at the 3DsoundSurge Forums!! - Mark @ 14:32 EST

We are honestly not sure how many of you read our forum on a regular basis but traffic has picked up quite a bit since its launch with lots of great information being shared back and forth. The forum is also a place where you will find information posted by forum participants other than ourselves that we won't post in our news but also don't remove. Examples would be tips to enable 4 speaker downmixing in some software and hardware DVD players and download links to sound card drivers that are not officially released...On top of that we don't log IPs and we don't require forum registration so you can rant and rave to your hearts content and never fear retribution and you can be anonymous! There is even a new "flaming folder" feature to help identify particularly hot topics! If you have a few minutes check it out as you never know what you might find!

The Future of PC Audio (according to 3DAI) - Mark @ 12:56 EST

Actually, the full title is "The Future of PC Audio according to 3D Audio Immerison" and in the article they talk about what is coming up for PC audio in the next generation of cards and devices. It covers MP3s, DVDs, and all kinds of acceleration.

The new Sensaura website has now been launched - Mikael @ 11:02 EST

Sensaura has done a redesign of their website and got a new URL, www.sensaura.com. On the site you can find what products that use Sensaura 3D sound and reverb engine and what games they have confirmed will work with it (it's many more games that should work well then they have listed so far). If you want to know our opinion about Sensaura you could check out our Digital-XG review.

Half-Life Counter-Strike Beta 5.2 - Mikael @ 10:03 EST

A new version of this popular mod for Half-Life has been released. Most important enhancement is a lot less lag. You can grab it from 3dfiles.

Hollywood+ review - Mikael @ 10:00 EST

3DAI has posted a review of Sigma Designs RealMagic Hollywood+ DVD card. They found TV out quality to be excellent but complain about quality on the monitor. Could be worth noting that other reviews of this card found image quality to be excellent on the monitor too. 3DAI also mention on their news page that reducing the resolution and refresh rate helped but it doesn't seem like they updated the review. When I did a review of the Creative's Dxr3 card that's basically the same board with different drivers and firmware I found image quality to be excellent.

A couple of other points I disagree with in this review is that I don't think the audio outs should be amplified and I do think several software DVD players offer excellent image quality and smooth frame rate on a reasonably fast CPU (PII400 or faster should work very well).

Dolby Digital, DTS, Circle Surround and MP3 using the CS49326 - Mikael @ 04:15 EST

Cirrus Logic a couple days ago announced that its new DSP CS49326 has integrated enough memory to store the code for Dolby Digital AC-3 and Digital Theater Sound (DTS), eliminating the need for external memory. In addition to these two standards it can, thanks to being RAM-based, download new standards such as MP3 or Circle Surround.

Cirrus Logic announced that it will be using this new chip to create a new 3-chip home theater audio solution that will deliver the functionality currently performed by as many as 8 chips. The new Crystal home theater chipset uses, as mentioned, the new 24-bit, multi-standard audio DSP (CS49326), a 96kHz, 103 dB, audio codec (CS4228) and a S/PDIF receiver (CS8415A). You can find more details about this 3-chip home theater audio solution in the press release.

In a separate press release Cirrus Logic announced the mentioned MP3 firmware support for the CS49326 chip. As a result, consumer electronics manufacturers using this chip solution can easily add Internet audio playback capabilities to digital audio/video receivers targeted at the home theater market. They also mention that thanks to this new chip MP3 audio content can now be transferred by the PC or set-top box from the Internet to the audio/video receiver via SPDIF output where it is auto-detected and played back from the digital audio/video receiver. Currently I don't know any PC software that pass on a MP3 stream to the SPDIF out but of course possible someone will make one.

Finally Cirrus Logic announced the firmware support of advanced ``Circle Surround'' technology from SRS Labs. Kenwood will be the first company to introduce an A/V receiver on the US market that incorporates Circle Surround. Circle Surround is 5.1 surround solution but unlike DTS and Dolby Digital 5.1 Circle Surround converts current stereo playback sources like CD and stereo movies to 5.1 channels. Not sure how effective it is but if it's similar to QSound's QMSS it offers a nice effect but nothing earth shattering. You can find more details in the press release.

Tuesday, January 18, 2000

Half-Life: Opposing Force Spanish Patch - Mark @ 20:47 EST

If you have the Spanish version of Half-Life: Opposing Force then you can finally grab the 1.0.0.1 patch for the A3D 2.0 and DS3D with EAX supporting expansion pack.

Soulbringer Developer Interview - Mark @ 20:42 EST

The Vault Network has posted an extensive interview with Producer Don Kirkland where they chat about the upcoming 3D RPG called Soulbringer. Here is a snip on sound:

Jonric: Will sound be an important factor? What sound format are you using? Will you support 3D sound?

Don Kirkland: No, sound is not a critical factor. However, that does not mean sound has taken a back seat. We have dedicated people working on environmental sound effects and general world ambience, and we do support 3D sound.

WOW Thing WinAmp Plugin Review - Mark @ 20:27 EST

SuperEfe has posted a review of SRS Lab's WinAmp audio DSP plugin called WOW Thing. Its a pretty good summary of the plugin which offers stereo spatialization and bass enhancements that work quite well on my system for headphones and loudspeakers. You may be interested in knowing that we will be posting a review this month on another WinAmp plugin called WaveSurround, from WaveArts which in addition to spatialization and bass enhancement also offers several adjustable reverb settings. UPDATE: Thanks to Terry for pointing that he download the Wavesurround Plugin and Norton Antivirus detected BackOrifice.Trojan. Its very much worth noting that this is a false alarm. Here is a statement from Wave Arts.

The new data sets do not detect the virus anymore. We are very careful when building the software for WaveArts, Inc. and it did give us a bit of a scare, but we were confident that there was no virus, and we have verified that.

GP Goes to Ubisoft! - Mark @ 20:01 EST

One of our new FGN affiliates is Gamer's Playground. GP is a full production internet based video show that is taking an in depth look into the computer and console gaming world. Today's big interview which will be online today and tomorrow is based on a visit to the Ubisoft offices and includes some footage of their upcoming games along with a contest to win some of Ubisoft's new games. Check it out right here.

XG-Movie Still Alive? - Mark @ 19:52 EST

I don't think so but if you check out the news post on a UK website called Home Cinema Choice that's just what you would think. I think they are just behind the times given that Yamaha and other sources have all told us that the XG-Movie and the YMF744 chip have been cancelled. Aside from our own personal commnications with Yamaha and with other industry contacts you can see from the following statement in a recent Techweb article that there seems to be no room it all being a bad dream:

A Yamaha spokeswoman confirmed the cancellation of the YMF744 controller and related XG Quad and XG Movie 5.1 sound cards, but declined to explain the decision. However, a source at the company said Yamaha is devoting more resources to software-generated PC audio than to chip development.

Picassio interview - Mikael @ 17:10 EST

Ga-Source has posted an interview with Russel Ritchie, Managing Director for Promethean Designs. They of course discuss the upcoming Picassio. Here's the audio snip

Sound was very important to the actual immersion factor of Thief and it was implemented extremely well. What new ways will the sounds in Picassio immerse the player?

Picassio supports 3D sound using Dolby Digital 5.1 when available. Sound is crucial to the game and to learning when you can run and when to sneak.

In addition to this Picassio has the option to use a sound direction indicator as knowing where a sound (such as an approaching guard) is coming from can make or break the mission. The PC version uses EAX and Aureal.

Music also played a large part in setting the right mood. Could you describe the musical score used in Picassio?

We know what sort of atmosphere and ambience the music will create. We have some fragments of tunes already, one of which you can hear in the movie, but the final score won't be completed until closer to the end of the game's development.

Deer Hunter 3 patch - Mikael @ 16:39 EST

The A3D 1.X supporting Deer Hunter 3 just got a new patch (1.31) that will fix a problem with the gaming crashing during certain season hunts. This bug was introduced with the last patch and will only work if you already upgraded to version 1.3. You can grab the 1.31 and/or the 1.3 patch from 3dfiles or if you don't have the game you could buy it from Gamestop.

WinDVD 2000 Trial Version - Mark @ 13:32 EST

I can't mention the new version of PowerDVD without also mentioning that there is a trial version of WinDVD 2000 available for download from Intervideo. This apparently is still a pre-release version (at least that what it says for the retail version of WinDVD 2000 so it only supports 2 channels. The site shows that WinDVD 2000M (multichannel) will soon be available with support for 4 and 6 audio channels. Not sure just what is in and whats not in the trial version but for more on what WinDVD 2000 should have in the final release you can check out this press release. Note that this trial will affect your full or OEM version of WinDVD so keep that in mind before you try it.

Power DVD 2.55 Trial Version - Mark @ 13:06 EST

First up via 3DSL is a trial version of Cyberlinks' latest version of PowerDVD which allows for 6 minutes of use :( You can grab the trial verison from 3DSL. I have not downloaded it so according to 3DSL here's what is new in version 2.55 of PowerDVD:

1. PowerDVD now works with Microsoft Windows NT 4.0 and Windows 2000. However, Service Pack 3 or above must be installed for PowerDVD to work under NT 4.0. To maximize the performance of PowerDVD under NT 4.0, a bus master driver must be installed. In general, the driver can be found in the main board or system support disk/CD-ROM. You can also reach the web site of the system or motherboard manufacturer to download the driver. For different chipsets from Intel, VIA, AMD and SiS, they require different bus master drivers. Please read the system or motherboard manual for identifying what kind of chipset your system is using.

2. Backward play is now supported (1x, 2x and 4x speed)

3. DTS pass-thru is now supported on major sound chips which provide S/PDIF interface. The following sound chips are tested under Windows98 and Windows98 Second Edition :

Aureal Vortex Advantage 8810

Aureal Vortex2 8830

Cirrus Crystal CS4624

CMedia 8738

Creative Labs SBLive!

Creative Labs SBLive! Value with option Digital I/O kit from Creative Labs or other vendors

Creative Labs SBLive! Platinum

ESS Canyon3D

Note that the Yamaha YMF724 and YMF744 are not supported yet and DTS pass-thru under Windows95 is not fully tested yet.

4. Add Motion Compensation support for Neomagic MagicMedia 256AV.

5. Add Motion Compensation and subpicture alpha blending support for nVidia Geforce256 DDR version.

6. Add 4-channel Dolby Digital output and Dolby Digital/DTS S/PDIF pass-thru support for Aureal Vortex Advantage 8810, which is used in Aureal SQ1500 sound card and on many motherboards.

7. Add Dolby Digital/DTS S/PDIF pass-thru support for ESS Canyon3D-based sound cards.

8. Add 4/6-channel Dolby Digital output for Philips/VLSI ThunderBird Avenger-based sound cards.

9. QSurround has been renamed to QXpander. QXpander is a technology developed by QSound Labs. This is an optional feature.

10. Fix a bug that current 4/6-channel output implementation for Realtek ALS300+ will cause problems if the latest Realtek ALS300+ driver, which incorporates Q3D capability, is used.

11. For Intel LX mainboard, SiS300 HWMC and GeoForce256 HWMC are enabled in Win9x

Top selling games at Gamestop - Mikael @ 02:03 EST

Here's the top selling games at Gamestop last week that support some form of 3D sound and/or EAX

1. Unreal Tournament (A3D 2.0 with wavetracing and DS3D with EAX)
   
2. Planescape Torment (EAX)
   
3. Quake III Arena Elite Edition(A3D 2.0 with wavetracing)
   
4. Rainbow Six Rogue Spear (DS3D with EAX 2.0)
   
5. Half Life Oppocing Force (A3D 2.0 with wavetracing and DS3D with EAX)

Worth noting:
Planescape Torment may support 3D sound using DS3D but it's possible it just use EAX to create some environmental effects.
Quake3: While it only supports A3D 2.0 it will still produce 3D sound on DS3D cards such as the Live if you download the A2D files from Aureal. Once it's patched for A3D 3.0 it may also support EAX on the Live and other EAX cards.

Monday, January 17, 2000

Week in Review - Mikael @ 23:30 EST

We have posted our latest edition of the 3D Audio Week in Review covering January 10-16. This weekly newsletter covers new driver releases, games, patches and demos that support 3D sound including information on any new bugs, bug fixes and other tips. The newsletter now also includes links to all sound related hardware reviews on the web as well as updates on what we did and what we plan to do in the coming week. The 3D Audio Week in Review is a great way for busy people to be right on top of all latest in the PC audio world.

Q3A FAQ updated - Mikael @ 23:24 EST

The official Quake3 FAQ has been updated with the following A3D issue.

I have A3d sound enabled and and when I change screen resolutions within the game Quake 3 crashes

This is a known issue that we are looking into. If you are experiencing this problem we recomend that you avoid changing the screen resolution while A3d is enabled. You can disable and enable A3d in the Setup->System->Sound menu.

Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer - Mikael @ 23:13 EST

3D Retreat has posted a review of this card which they found to be an excellent soundcard. Just one point the MP3+ isn't just similar except for software bundle it's identical.
News Source: AGN Hardware

A3D Config and Q3A - Mark @ 21:57 EST

I see that 3DSL is claiming that the latest Q3A patch (from the 13th) fixes the problem of A3D not staying enabled each time you load the game. I have tested this several times and each time I restart the game A3D is no longer enabled in my menu or in gameplay. It sounds to me like they tried one of the not working autoexec.cfg or quake3.cfg fixes which makes the menu say its enabled even though it not. To be sure, start the game, bring down the console with the ~ key and type (without the quotes) "/s_usinga3d". If you get a result of 1 its enabled and if you get 0 then its not. I would appreciate hearing if unlike for me, this patch fixes the problem for you.

Terratec XLerate Pro Review @ BoomGames - Frank @ 16:00 EST

BoomGames just posted a review of TerraTec's XLerate Pro Sound Card based on the Vortex 2 chipset. They gave it a score of 80 out of 100.

The XLerate Pro package was seemingly lacking, after having the SQ2500 board include three games. The XL Pro did not include games, but has Wavelab lite, Mixman Base Edition, WinJey, and the full InternetPhone 4.5. InternetPhone was nice, and while I'm not going to debate the quality of these applications, I'll note that the XL Pro package was not very stunning.

The box also included a few other assorted items from notes, a product 'accessory' book, and a manual. This stuff was not quite on par, either. An orange note that looked important was written in German with no English translation. The same goes for the product catalog.

Monsoon MH-500 Review At TechZone - Frank @ 11:03 EST

The Tech Zone has posted their own review of the Monsoon MH-500 Speaker Set and gave them a rating of 8.5 out of a 10. Here's a sample:

The first thing that grabs you about the MH-500 is the price. Just $84 after a $15 rebate (if you order before Feb. 28, 2000). This puts the speakers at the same price as the recently reviewed SONIX S-2000. The MH-500 is made up of 2 dipole-radiating satellite planar speakers and one "sub woofer". I use the term sub woofer very loosely. Any speaker smaller than 8 inches is NOT a sub woofer. How any company can call a 4 inch speaker a sub is beyond me. The entire unit is painted jet black and housed in a metal case. No plastic here.

Computers 4 Sure is selling them for $58.99 after a $15.00 mail in rebate. You can check out the page here. Note from Mark: I think a bit much is by the reviewer stating that a 4" "subwoofer" should not be called a subwoofer. The definition I have for subwoofer "a speaker specially designed to reproduce a range of very low frequencies only usually in the range of 20-200 Hz." which means that the MH-500 "subwoofer" is in fact a subwoofer ;). Its also worth noting that the THX certified Klipsch ProMedia v.2-400 system uses 6.5" and not 8" drivers that the reviewer seem to think is the magic number that must be met or exceeded in order to be called a subwoofer.
Note from Mikael: None of mentioned "subwoofers" have a frequency range as low as 20 Hz :-) I would also like to add that a crossover as high as 200 Hz steals some of the positioning effects for explosions, assuming your soundcards bother to place them.

CES Wrap Up Part 1: Sony & Panasonic @ Sharky - Mikael @ 09:37 EST

Sharky Extreme has slapped up an 18 page article covering what Sony and Panasonic had on display during the Consumer Electronic Show (CES) earlier this month. This includes Digital Audio Recorders, MiniDiscs, Digital Video Recorders, HDTV, Set-Top Boxes, DVD Video and audio players. Here's an interesting bit about Panasonic's upcoming (this summer) DVD video recorder

Panasonic's VDR-10000 can record up to 2 hours of video on a single-sided 4.7GB DVD-RAM disc, at a resolution of 480p progressive scan. Multiple resolution and visual quality settings are possible, letting the user specify exactly how much recording potential they desire, up to a maximum of 6 hours of recording at a sub-250 line resolution (lower than current VHS tape).

No price or other details were revealed about the VDR-10000, however Panasonic reps told Sharky Extreme off the record that a price of "$1750 - $2250" should be expected.

Sirocco Crossfire Speakers Review - Mikael @ 03:57 EST

BXBoards of all places has posted a review of VL's Sirocco Crossfire system packed with all the technical details he could find. The following snip sums up their impression of the sound quality quite nicely

If there were a dictionary definition for hi-fi audio, I would put 3 words: Videologic Sirocco Crossfire

X10 DVD / MP3 Anywhere - Mikael @ 02:58 EST

With the growing influx of low cost DVD driver to the PC market the temptation becomes great to get dual use out of your PC DVD for home theater, especially given that stand-alone DVD players (on average starting at $250) are still on average double the price of a decent HI-FI VCR (around $125). X10's DVD Anywhere Kit which consists of a two main parts - a transmitter and that sends a stereo audio signal and high-quality video using 2.4-gigahertz wireless signals from the DVD movie to the a receiver connected to the TV may be just the way to achieve that goal without breaking the bank. According to X10, the key to this breakthrough is the use of new 2.4 GHz technology. The frequency has a broad signal range which means that more video information can be transmitted. The results are cleaner pictures, reduced signal interference when compared to lower frequencies. So the question is does it work as advertised? Read on to find out.

AVB Sonix S-2000 Flat Panel Speakers Review - Mark @ 00:53 EST

TargetPC has posted a very well done review of the AVB Sonix S-2000 Flat Panel Speakers. Its worth noting that I am working on a review of this system myself and don't find the subwoofer performance to be nearly as good as this review. For that reason, at this point of my testing I find it best suited for music (provided you don't like heavy bass) and not gaming or DVDs depite the fact that the system does pump out pretty good volume. I still have to do some more testing before reaching my own final conclusions.

LAVA 2.0 Review - Mark @ 00:26 EST

TBreak has posted a review of Creative LAVA 2.0. In case you don't know, The LAVA! MusicVideo Player, which debuted at Woodstock '99 in the Emerging Artists Pavilion, was initially available only to Sound Blaster Live! customers. The enhanced LAVA! MusicVideo Player, available for download at www.LAVA.com, now supports any PC-based sound card. A LAVA! MusicVideo is an environment made up of 3D objects consisting of textures, images and colors that move to the music. Using a combination of sophisticated audio analysis developed at the Creative-EMU Technology Center, the LAVA! MusicVideo Player, when used in combination with a graphics card that supports Open-GL, offers a new way of experiencing Internet audio and musicians a powerful medium for promoting MP3 and Windows Media content. For more on LAVA you can check out the TBreak review.

How to overclock your Sound Blaster Live! ;-) - Mark @ 00:20 EST

TAGOR has posted a tongue in cheek look at overclocking a Sound Blaster Live! Here is a taste:

Peering into the guts of my PC I gazed upon my beloved. All shiny and new, it lay there innocent to what I was about to put it through. But I'd made up my mind - I needed more from my Soundblaster! The GeForce had performed even better than expected but I knew my Soundblaster could give me more. 1024 voices wasn't enough; I wanted more and dammit, I'd find a way to get it. So, without further hesitation I gently guided the card from it's slot. I can't be sure but I could swear I heard a little click as I released the card from the motherboard. A last plea for mercy? No, I thought, it was just nerves getting the better of me.

News from January 10-16, 2000

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