News:  February 14-20, 2000

Sunday, February 20, 2000

Paper your walls with loudspeakers - Mark @ 12:40 EST

Thats the title of an article over at Nature. Here's a taste:

Hi-fi buffs wondering how to fit wardrobe-sized loudspeakers into a tiny flat can take heart from a new type of speaker developed by scientists at SRI International in Menlo Park, California. Described in the Journal of the Acoustical Society of America1, the loudspeaker is lightweight, cheap, and just half a centimetre thick. It can be hung on the wall like a poster.

The device, designed by Richard Heydt and colleagues, is made of a plastic that changes shape in an electric field. This property, called 'electrostriction', marks out the plastic as a 'smart material': one that responds to a change in its environment.

Modified DELL SBLive! Win2k INF. - Mikael @ 04:54 EST

Chris Arold from FPS3D.com just dropped us the following e-mail

Hey there kids.. as you may or may not know, that other guy's modified INF that allows installation of "all SB Live! Cards" is a bit on the faulty side - it incorrectly detects the Live! Platinum as a Value, causing a nice BSOD in Win2k. So, I modified the modified INF (heh heh) and got the sonofabitch to detect the card correctly as a Live!.. installed it, no more BSOD, all Live! Ware programs work (save the Surround Mixer which is irrelevant as Dell replaced it with a SysTray one). It's attached. Have fun.

For more about the functionality of the these drivers you can check out a thread in our newsgroup where IntelliEye questions if 4-speaker support is actually working in games. He also thinks it's LW 1.0 functionality and not LW 2.0.

Saturday, February 19, 2000

SQ1500/S2500 review - Mikael @ 22:13 EST

Maximum3D has posted a review of Aureal's SQ1500 and SQ2500 soundcards. They really liked the SQ2500 while they complain quite a bit about the performance (CPU utilization not qualtiy) of the SQ1500. Never tried the SQ1500 but about their comments on the CPU usage of the SQ2500 you could check out our SQ2500 review for more details about how well it performs when it comes to CPU usage. The also had some complaints about API support and I guess they wrote the review before the EAX drivers were out for the SQ2500. Could also be worth noting that the SQ1500 supports A3D 2/3 even though it doesn't support all the features it will still give you 3D sound and occlusions if wavetracing is used. It also supports DS3D just like the SQ2500. The major downside of the SQ1500 IMO compared to other cards in this price range is that it only supports 8 3D streams and lack of EAX support.
News Source: Anandtech

Two Crossfire reviews - Mikael @ 21:56 EST

First up Anandtech has posted a review of VideoLogic's 4-speaker system, the Sirocco Crossfire. A detailed review with a very positive conclusion and just like I did they gave it a gold medal. In this review they also answer the question if they sound better than the ProMedia something I was unable to do in my review. Only complaint I have about the review is that they never mention how loud it is compared to the ProMedia (or anything else) just conclude that the 100 Watts is far less than the 400 Watts of the ProMedia which doesn't have to mean they are not as loud. You can check out my review of the Crossfire for more about this.

Beyond3D also slapped up a review of the Sirocco Crossfire today. Again very postive review, just like Anandtech they complained a bit about the lack of covers for the speakers which increase the risk of damaging them. While it's certainly possible to do it I'm rather careless with the stuff on my desktop but never managed to damage any of the speakers that come without a cover so far. One other comment they make in this review of subwoofer always perform best in the corner of the room is just sort of true. They will certainly be louder but that doesn't mean you will find the quality to be better, it comes down to taste.

This review mention VideoLogic will release a new version of the Crossfire later this year that will target the average user. Never heard anything about it so not sure how they will compare in quality.
News Source: Anandtech

FPS2000 review - Mikael @ 21:33 EST

Game Forces has posted a review of Cambridge SoundWorks FPS2000 system. They found them to be "phenomenal" which I think is a too strong statement. They are good for the price but there are certainly speakers that offer much better quality for about $100 more.
News Source: Anandtech

Soundcard and speaker guide - Mikael @ 15:17 EST

Gamespot's Loyd Case has just completed an 8 page soundcard and speaker guide. It's mostly back ground info especially the speaker section and it doesn't list all the various soundcards and speakers that's available. It's mostly gaming related but also briefly covers other areas such as recording, midi, Dolby Digital and DTS.

Overall a good guide but I would still like to offer the following clarifications/corrections. When he says "DirectSound3D has been relatively limited in scope until the release of DirectX 7.0" it only refers to the 3D sound algorithms in software. These algorithms are also only available for cards using WDM drivers and only when you use Windows98SE or Windows 2000. It's also always up to the developers if the game should fall back on Directsound's 3D software engine or not. The same is true when it comes to if games will use the DS3D api if the card doesn't support EAX, A3D 2.0 and especially A3D 1.x. Most old A3D 1.X games don't but pretty much all non A3D cards come with an A3D.dll file that will do the A3D to DS3D translation of calls. There is no reason for a game that supports EAX (which use DS3D for the positioning) to not support DS3D on non EAX cards but there are some (e.g. Half-Life) that falls back on just stereo if the card doesn't support EAX.

The Live and cards using Sensaura use HRTF for headphones and 2-speakers just like Aureal's cards and in case of Sensaura I think it's very close to Aureal's algorithms. Both Sensaura and Live also uses HRTF on both front and rear speakers but the Live are not as good as Sensaura's IMO. The quality of the HRTF filters are important for the 3D positioning but the EAX bit (that is reverb) works well on 2-speakers and headphones IMO even using Live's headphone and 2-speaker mode. Speaking about EAX the article mentions that EAX 3.0 adds occlusion but it's already in EAX 2.0 and there are no HRTF in EAX 2.0 but there is a couple other additions that's not reverb related.

The guide mention no games has shipped with Dolby Digital yet but I don't think that's correct. In most cases they have just used it for movie clips so not that interesting but Lander claimed to use it for more, still not for interactive stuff though.

If you want to know more about our impression of Live's, Vortex2 and Sensaura's 3D sound engine you can check out our MP3+/X-Gamer review, SQ2500 review and our review of the Digital-XG. For more about A3D and DS3D check out our DS3D vs A3D 1.X article. Finaly you can check out our EAX 1.0 article.
News Source: Aureal A3D Central

Even more about the SBLive Win2K WDM Drivers from Dell - Mikael @ 13:33 EST

I don't have Win2k so can't test them but according to posts in the newsgroup it's basically LW 2.2 modified to work on Win2k. It's not a hack but full featured drivers including support for 4-speakers, 3D sound, EAX, SMP, hibernation and digital out. In the newsgroup I also saw this post which may be of interest

I have updated the Dell W2k Live Drivers to universal drivers for all
non-dell pcs and I have made it so that you can use cards other then the
Live Value v 512. With my update you can run cards such as the new Live!
Value Xtreme Gamer and MP3. With my update you will be able to have the
digital DIN working. My file is looked at
http://members.aol.com/~joseftor/wdl10k1.inf. Use my file only if you are having troubles but generally my file is what Creative will be releasing next month.

-joseftor@hamptons.com
Josef Torkelsen

Swat 3 patch v1.2 - Mikael @ 12:26 EST

This is the official 1.2 patch which has the same list of changes as the 1.1 patch that was pulled last month. The updates includes a HTML-based FAQ, new AI behaviors, and fine-tune gameplay adjustments. You can grab the patch from 3dfiles where you can also find more details about this patch. The game was said to support DS3D and using its own reverb engine but not sure if it's shipping with support for DS3D.

If you want to know more about this DS3D supporting game you can check out Gamestop's page where you can also pick up a copy of the game. We should have our own game pages up next month. It will be mostly about the sound and links to other good sources.

Quake 3 Arena 1.16i Security Patch - Mikael @ 12:22 EST

This small patch is just adding some security to the beta patch released a couple days ago. You can grab it from 3dfiles

Heavy Gear II Samsung DVD Patch - Mikael @ 12:22 EST

This 185 kb small patch is only for the Samsung DVD Revolution version of Heavy Gear II. It simply allows you to play the game in single player mode. Heavy Gear II supports 3D sound using IAS. This should mean proper 3D sound on A3D cards and 4-speaker support for the Live.
News Source: 3dfiles

DVD Genie 3.30 - Mikael @ 12:21 EST

A new version of DVD Genie has been released. DVD Genie allows you to modify the region code and some other unofficial settings for popular DVD players such as Software Cinemaster, PowerDVD and WinDVD. You can grab it from Tweak files where you can also find the complete list of new features in this release.
News Source: 3dfiles

Friday, February 18, 2000

DOS Problems With Vortex 2 2048 Drivers? - Mark @ 23:15 EST

If you are having problems with the install locking at the DOS driver stage with the new 2048 drivers you should check out this thread for several ways to fix it. Thanks goes out to Travis for sharing the problem and the solution with us!

Soldier of Fortune Sound Designer Interviewed - Mark @ 22:44 EST

SOFCenter has posted a short interview with Chia Chin Lee, the sound designer and composer for the upcoming DS3D with EAX and A3D 3.0 supporting Soldier of Fortune. The interview focuses on music and not the other sound aspects of the game. They also have a MP3 from the Siberia level in their files section (just scroll down a bit in their page to find it).
News Source: Voodoo Extreme

Win2K Update - Mark @ 22:35 EST

Some more for you on Win2K. Microsoft has released a Compatibility Update for Windows 2000. The small download adds compatibility for a bunch of applications and games. If you are running Windows 2000, you should be able to download the update from thw Windows Update.
News Source: VoodooExtreme

Abomination 2.7.0 Patch - Mark @ 22:30 EST

Edios has released a new patch for the DS3D and EAX supporting Abomination. This patch adds two new Brood skills for Team Nemesis agents to develop (Confuse and Control) and also fixes a minor bug with reloading Sentry guns and rocket launchers whilst in Player Character’s hands. You can grab the patch from Avault.

More on the SBLive Win2K WDM Drivers - Mark @ 22:23 EST

A bit more to add to Franks post on the Live Win2K "drivers". According to NT Compatible, the download (which is a 87 MB btw!) is LiveWare for Win2K and not just the drivers. At 87 MB one would have hoped it was more than drivers ;). We are not sure of what this will give you over the drivers that ship with Win2K so if you try it out please let us know. NT Compatible also notes that in order to install the update you need to install the the WDM driver (upddrv2k.inf) from \english\wdmdrv before you run Liveware setup. Thanks to Josh M. for the pointer to the Dell link.

Sound Blaster Live! Windows2000 WDM Driver Released - Frank @ 21:33 EST

Dell has released the Windows 2000 WDM drivers for SoundBlaster Live Cards.

You can pick it up HERE

Sonic Solutions and Pioneer Team to Create World's First DVD-Audio Disc - Mikael @ 17:30 EST

Sonic Solutions announced yesterday that they together with Pioneer to successfully create the world's first DVD-Audio discs with SonicStudio HD, Sonic's next-generation professional audio workstation, and DVD Creator AV, the DVD-Audio version of Sonic's award-winning DVD-Video production system. Pioneer will demonstrate a new generation of universal DVD players, recently released in Japan, using the new DVD-Audio disc that was produced with Sonic's authoring system at this year's AES convention. You can check out the press release for more details about this disc and the DVD-audio specification

Hitachi Releases World's First Consumer Product With Dolby Headphone Technology - Frank @ 13:37 EST

Dolby Laboratories today announced that the new Prius DECK 610N all-in-one desktop computer developed by Hitachi Co. Ltd. Digital Media Group is the word's first consumer product to incorporate Dolby Headphone, a unique signal processing system that enables standard stereo headphones to realistically portray the sound of a 5.1-channel playback system.

APS 2.0 drivers will support EAX 2.0 and DS3D - Mikael @ 13:17 EST

Well not really news but I mentioned yesterday that the APS drivers are rather poor gaming drivers compared to the ones for the Live but I was quickly corrected that the new APS 2.0 drivers are slated to support EAX 2.0 and DS3D. Could be interesting to know that they will also allow you to use the creative applets alongside the more advanced APS control panels.

Quake III Arena Beta Patch - Mikael @ 13:14 EST

You can grab the latest beta Quake III Arena Point Release from 3dfiles.

Vortex 2048 Alternate Download Links - Mark @ 07:46 EST

If you are having trouble grabbing the new 2048 drivers from Aureal's servers you can try to grab the full version (11 MB) except no demos from our alternate server space. Update: It looks like our alternate server space is down so keep trying the main links or the Vortex of Sound links.

If you want the 7MB upgrade version you should check out Vortex of Sound's Download links.

The 39 MB version that includes the demos are only available from Aureal's servers

Gunlok Interview @RPGVault - Frank @ 00:51 EST

RPGVault has an interview with Rebellion (makers of Aliens vs. Predator)on their newest game Gunlok. Here's a quote from the interview:

Jonric: Will sound and music be important in Gunlok? And will you support 3D sound?

Rebellion: Sound is extremely important for creating the atmosphere in Gunlok as well as giving clues to the player of events that are occurring out of sight. We're supporting 3D sound.

* Fully 3D Environments populated with AI driven enemies
* 3rd Person 'from above' viewpoint
* Freedom to move, rotate and zoom viewpoint
* Real time combat
* Personalized, customizable RPG Characters with upgradeable weapons
* Advanced 3D path-finding
* 15 single player and co-operative multiplayer levels
* 5 Multiplayer and skirmish levels playable over the Internet and LANs
* Full range of Standing Orders
* Advanced Environmental Effects - dynamic lighting, water, fog and wind
* EAX sound - Environmental Audio Extensions
* Supports Direct X 7: Very high resolution textures using DXTn texture compression, multi-texturing and real-time shadows
* Advanced particle systems for fire, smoke, rain and lightning
* Pre-scripted animated events for end-of-level rewards and storytelling

Aureal Releases 2048 drivers with EAX 1.0 Support And More! - Frank @ 00:12 EST

Aureal has finally released the big 2048 drivers which feature a great amount of advancements for vortex 2 based boards:

- Added A3Dverb reverb engine (optimized for 3DNow!)
- Added A3D 3.0 support
- Added initial EAX 1.0 support
- Added initial I3DL2 support
- Fixed A3D Property Set issues
- Fixed issue of Hardware Equalizer app not launching properly
- Fixed issue of MIDI not working properly when A3D was in use
- Improved SoundFont (SF2) support
- Modified 3D rendering slightly to reduce muffled sounds in center of head
- Modified Vortex 2 Control Panel layout

*DOWNLOAD THE DRIVERS FROM AUREAL'S SITE*

News Source: Vortex Of Sound

Thursday, February 17, 2000

New patch for Starsiege Tribes - Mikael @ 16:39 EST

The new 1.10.5 patch for Tribes fixes according to 3dfiles a turret-related bug/cheat issue as well as an issue with Raindance where the Diamond Sword team was unable to place deployable objects near their entrance. You can as usual grab the 213 kb patch from 3dfiles. You can pick up a copy of the game for just $20 from Gamestop

Win An X-Gamer Sound Card! - Mikael @ 15:58 EST

Not really much into these contest stuff (I never win :-) but if you feel lucky you can watch last night's AGN Hardware Show, and answer the question and you may win something. Wonder when the TV shows will start to use this marketing trick to make us watch the crap they send :-)

MP3 round-up - Mikael @ 15:54 EST

Fast Graphics has popped up a round-up of six portable MP3 players. The contenders include Diamond's Rio 300 and 500, LG's MF-PD300 and AHA-FD770, the Pine's D'Music, and Samsung's Yepp. Noticable absent from the round-up is Creative's Nomad.

The round-up isn't that detailed but they mention the memory storage, connection, bundled software and what other features they may have so still a nice read. They wrap it up by giving an advice which MP3 player you should pick.
News Source: AGN Hardware

Revolutionary New Home Theater Product - Mikael @ 15:01 EST

Vantas announced yesterday that they won two CES 2000 Innovations awards this year in both the audio (ACS-1)and home theater categories (DPA-S50). Vantas describes the ACS-1 as "the last missing piece in home audio reproduction." So what does it do? Well it corrects frequency and time domain anomalies introduced by the room, that is less (no?) risk of the room creating distortions. The product can be used with 2-channel and multi-channel audio systems once it ships Q3 this year. Prices start from $1000 so it doesn't come cheap. I think we can expect similar stuff to be available in the PC consumer space very soon though.

The DPA-S50 adds 5.1 Dolby Digital and 3 powerful center and surround channel amplifiers to your existing audio system. You can check out the press release for more details on the ACS-1 and DPA-S50.

New Vortex drivers for Linux - Mikael @ 06:55 EST

Aureal has released updated Linux drivers (1.0.5). It fixes issues of sound not playing under KDE. You can download the new drivers from Aureal's Linux site where you can also find a link to a new discussion forum.
News Source: Vortex of Sound

APS 2.0 driver update - Mikael @ 06:55 EST

Todd Shires from E-MU made the following post a couple of days ago.

Dear APS users, We at E-MU do apologize for the long wait for Version 2.0 drivers. In order to provide the features which our customers are requesting, we needed to start building drivers from the ground up. This obviously adds time to the release of new drivers.

Since we were starting from scratch, we wanted to build a foundation of drivers that would give us the ability to expand, so we wouldn't have to start all over again from scratch like we had to with Version 2.0. To do this is a very complex task, especially when we are wanting to keep all of this functionality on multiple OS platforms. The work that is being done for Version 2.0 drivers are essential for future hardware products as well as current products on the market place. We knew that when we started this project, that we wouldn't be able to release an update as soon as most users are accustomed to. We didn't expect it to take this long, but we are still looking to an April/May release of the Windows drivers. I understand the frustration that our customer base may have, but we feel that we have made the best decision for the long term to build a very solid foundation of drivers that we will be able to build and expand upon. I personally own an APS, and want the new drivers as soon as I can get them.

Version 2.0 is not just another upgrade, it is the foundation that we will build our computer based audio products on well into the future.

Sincerely,
Todd Shires
Product Specialist
E-MU / ENSONIQ

Andrea GameWare PC HEADSET - Mikael @ 06:26 EST

Mplayer.com has tried out the Andrea GameWare PC HeadSet. I would expect these to become rather popular once more games start to feature real time voice communication. The other major market (if you can call any of these major right now) is of course Internet telephony. Andrea is targetting the gaming market. Here's a snip

There's 2 advantages I see to using a headset instead of the conventional method. The first is the most important in my opinion and that's privacy. The other person talking to you has their voice going through your speakers and if you're in a room with other people, privacy is compromised. With the headset, it's no longer a problem. The 2nd advantage is that it, in a way, there's more freedom to do other tasks. Now before you tell me that you really don't have to use your hands when using speakers and a self standing microphone, let me remind you that often times, those microphones are poor quality so it requires you to get close to it when you talk. I remember always having to lunge towards it whenever the other person didn't hear what I said. With a headset the microphone follows your head movement so there's a little more freedom. Unfortunately, the counter-argument to this would have to be that if you wanted to roam around in the vicinity of your computer, you're restricted by how long the cord is for the headset.

Now that you understand some of the benefits and drawbacks to using a headset, lets move onto what's so good about the Andrea GameWare PC Headset.

Judging from the text on the box, Andrea is targetting the gaming consumer with this particular model. Don't worry if you're not a gamer because it's good enough for all the other uses that a regular headset can be used for. On the back of the box, Andrea has 2 graphs that represent the noise reduction technology built into their headsets. Here's the exact quote on the back: "Andrea Anti-Noise microphone technology improves speech quality and intelligibility by reducing background noise and echo speaker feedback. Pre-equalized digital sound earphones are tuned to deliver extra-low bass and crisp high frequencies for an enhanced listening experience."

Half-Life: Initial Encounter 5.0.1.5 Patch - Mikael @ 06:26 EST

This patch is for Half-Life: Initial Encounter. That is a retail edition that included Half-Life: Day One and a stand-alone version of Team Fortress Classic, version 5.0.1.5. You can grab it(5.6 MB) from Sierra's FTP server.
News Source: 3dfiles

Wednesday, February 16, 2000

m3po Firmware Update - Mikael @ 19:01 EST

If you have Terratec's MP3 Player, m3po you can now grab a new firmware update. Here's the changes

V1.98E >> V1.98G2
NOTE: It can happen, that display of the IDTag information is delayed for about 0.5s after starting the playback.

[Bugfixes]
o playback of files with highbitrates (>192 KB/s)
o playback of continous audio CDs
o overwrite playlists on HD

BA4800s impressions - Mikael @ 12:53 EST

If you are interested to know how this speaker system perform you could check out a post in our forum by Ronin where he briefly says how they compare with FPS2000s, BA7500s and the MediaTheaters.

Creative sees strong audio business - Mikael @ 12:30 EST

Reuter's reports that Creative Technology's chairman and chief executive Sim Wong Hoo earlier today said he sees good growth prospects for sound card business and that Creative had seen very strong demand from original equipment makers like Dell Computer Corp and Gateway Inc last year who now install Creative sound cards in their computers. Except for gaming it's MP3 that are the driving factor beyond the growth. He also mentioned that Creative are not "losing out to free Intel audio chips." and that Creative has no interest in the low-end market. Can also be interesting to know that Sim Wong Hoo said Creative currently has 500 audio engineers working on PC audio.

You can check out the full reuter story for some additional details like that Creative last quarter made a profit of $40 million on soundcards compared to $150 million gain on the various internet investments they have done recently.

Soundcard & Speakers tweaking guide - Mikael @ 02:28 EST

3D Spotlight has just popped up a Soundcard & Speakers tweaking guide. The guide include tips such as as downloading the latest drivers and patches, making sure you have no IRQ conflicts, suggesting good bass and treble settings and placement of speakers (taken from the Cambridge SoundWorks manuals). When it comes to the bass and treble control you should be aware that most soundcards doesn't support it so don't be surprised if it's greyed out in the volume control mixer.

Half-Life 1.0.1.6 Patch Fix - Mikael @ 01:57 EST

For those of you who are running in software mode and are seeing the sky incorrectly in Badlands and Crossover, please download this small (121 kb) update.
News Source: 3dfiles

Benwin BW2000 Flat Panel Speakers Review - Mikael @ 01:52 EST

Boomgames has just posted their review of Benwin BW2000 Flat Panel speakers. They found them to sound ok except when it comes to bass. The review also has some rather silly comments about enabling 3D sound on strereo content, that is stereo expansion. It's completely subjective if you like this or not and it's not wrong to like it.

DMusic MP3 Player contest - Mikael @ 01:36 EST

T-break has a contest where you can win DMusic MP3 Player.

Tuesday, February 15, 2000

Pioneer 10X DVD-ROM Drive review - Mikael @ 18:10 EST

3DHardware.net has tested Pioneer's 114 10X DVD-ROM drive which according to the review can be found for about $100 as OEM drive. The review found it to perform quite well with DVD speeds ranging from 4X to 10X and CD speed ranging from 16X to 40X. One thing they failed to get to work is DMA mode which is really important to get low CPU utilization, no mention of what CPU utilization they got but they had no stuttering problems anyway.
News Source: Anandtech

UltraCo Launches Free UltraPlayer MP3 Audio Software - Mikael @ 17:15 EST

UltraCo announced today the Beta release of its free UltraPlayer(TM) Audio Software featuring support for MP3, WAV, CD Audio, and Internet radio streams, using their NeutrinoMPEG audio decoder.

The features includes play, build and manage playlists, tune to and record Internet radio streams, search for music, adjust levels with the Graphic-EQ, convert MP3s to WAV files, UltraSkins and set the SmartAlarm(TM). The SmartAlarm feature lets users wake up or be lulled to sleep to their favorite songs with automated volume control. UltraPlayer also allows users to see their music come alive with visual plugins, including support for WildTangent(TM) (www.wildtangent.com) interactive 3D-Visualizers.

Half-Life 1.0.1.6 Patch - Mikael @ 16:03 EST

The most important additions in this new patch for Half-Life are two new maps for Team Fortress Classic and a variety of server enhancements. You can check out the full list of enhancements and bug fixes at 3dfiles where you also find download links.

Altec Lansing ACS56 - Mikael @ 07:56 EST

In this review we take a look at Altec Lansing new ACS56 4.1 system. While the system uses the same satellites as it less expensive sibling (ACS54) they are driven by a much more powerful amplifier that feeds the 3" drivers with 8.75 Watts RMS. The subwoofer is a brand new design and has a 6 ½" driver fed with 35 Watts RMS of power. While that may not sound impressive our testing show they really do pack a powerful punch! The ACS56 also comes with a nice array of controls including bass and treble which all add up to a system that on paper looks to be a real winner for those that want a 4-speaker system in the $100-150 range. So how does it stack up to our barrage of tests? Read on for all the details…

SBLive! X-Gamer Review - Mikael @ 07:16 EST

Extreme Hardware just let us know they have posted an 8 page review of Creative Labs' SoundBlaster Live! X-Gamer. The review is very postive except for the installation part. I don't think the Live behave much different than other PCI cards, the IRQ it takes is the one assigned to the slot this is how all PCI card works. The second IRQ for the SB emulation can be disabled and several other soundcard install this as well. A couple of other comments: I don't think current drivers support EAX 3.0, Quake3 has no 3D sound if you disable A3D,
The Digital output can together with mini-jack to RCA adapter be connected to any speaker with SPDIF input of coaxial type and we have noticed a performance hit for enabling EAX and 3D sound in UT and Half-Life.

Can check out our review of the X-Gamer/MP3+ for more details on our impression of this card.

DirectX @ ETC 2000 - Mikael @ 04:49 EST

Eurogamer has posted an article about what they saw at ETC 2000 last week. ETC 2000 was a conference organised by publishing giant Infogrames to give some of the thousands of game developers working for them a chance to hear about the latest technology from hardware manufacturers like NVIDIA and AMD, as well as getting the low-down on DirectX from Microsoft. The article is about what MS demonstrated. That includes DirectMusic and the DirectPlay's new voice capabilities. When it comes to DirectMusic MS did not only suggest that developers should use it for music but also that they should use it for ambient sound effects. The articele also mentions that the next version of DirectMusic will add environmental reverb, flange, chorus and compression. Except for the compression it sounds just like the the stuff MS licensed from Creative about a year ago. Here's a snip from the article

In his speech later in the day, Infogrames' founder Bruno Bonnell said that sound accounts for "30 to 40% of the emotion" in games and, if this demonstration of DirectMusic was anything to go by, the level of emotion that can be added by sound and music should increase rapidly over the next year or two as developers begin to replace linear audio tracks with dynamic music.

Week in Review - Mikael @ 03:01 EST

We have posted our latest edition of the 3D Audio Week in Review covering February 7 - 13. 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.

Aureal Vortex2 SQ2500 Quad PCI review - Mikael @ 02:28 EST

3D Spotlight has just slapped up their thoughts on this Vortex2 based board from Aureal. I don't agree with this reviewer that the Vortex chips are the only one with true 3D audio just because the other chips don't render reflections based on the geometry. Could be worth noting that the Vortex1 chips doesn't render these reflections so wouldn't be true either then. No soundcard render audio 100% realstic so it's just all similutions of the real world.

A couple of other points the analog connections support the same sample rate and bits as the digital output. We have not seen any performance difference between the SQ2500 and the SuperQuad in the ZD audio benchmark and when it comes to Quake2 I have not even been able to see a performance difference compared to the old ISA cards. That this review even see a performance difference compared to the Live in benchmark that doesn't use sound indicates it's some background apps that's the reason rather than drivers or the chip. Could be worth knowing that Final Fantasy VIII use the same software synthesizer and soundbanks no matter the soundcard you use so shouldn't be more of an audible difference than normal stereo wave files.

Check out our review of the SQ2500 for our impression of the card.

Whole World Listens as New DVD Arrives - Mikael @ 01:51 EST

We posted this last week but Frank link wasn't correct. Last Wednesday Dolby Laboratories announced the long awaited distribution of its new DVD, ``We've Got the Whole World Listening.''. It's following on the heels of the incredibly successful ``DVD Demo and Test Disc,'' which was just intended as a professional testing tool but consumers loved it. The new disc is more targeted to consumers and contains six of Dolby's theatrical trailers and the Dolby Digital ``Game'' trailer included in PC titles utilizing that technology.

In addition, the new disc offers new multichannel music selections and improved versions of previous released content.

Monday, February 14, 2000

Altec Lansing Shipping New iMac Audio System - Mikael @ 23:36 EST

Altec Lansing today announced that it is now shipping the ACS66i, a three-piece speaker system designed and engineered for iMac® enthusiasts. The ACS66i follows the same form factor as its sister ACS65i with an improved versatile feature. The ACS66i offers six color options with a removable grill ring and subwoofer control knob for perfectly matching all iMac systems. The ACS66i includes two satellites and a wood subwoofer totaling 40 watts of power. The onlu iMac about it is that it will match blueberry, grape, strawberry, tangerine, lime and graphite iMac computers.

Bonso Electronics announces new hand-held MP3 player - Mikael @ 23:34 EST

Bonso Electronics International announced today a new hand-held MP3 music player featuring solid-state technology, flash memory and the ability to download through the internet and store high-fidelity music. The press release are rather thin on details beyond that it will be available both with 32 and 64 MB memory.

Digital Wireless Microphone from Sennheiser - Mikael @ 23:30 EST

Scenix today announced that its SX Series controller chip is used in the industry's latest digital wireless microphone system. The handheld microphone and receiver unit of the Sennheiser Digital 1000 Series Wireless Microphone System use the Scenix chip to perform the high-speed computation needed to encode, serialize and de-serialize voice signals in real time. Check out the press release for all the details.

Pacific Microsonics Introduces New HDCD Chip - Mikael @ 23:28 EST

Pacific Microsonics introduced the PMD-200, its next generation HDCD chip, late last week.
The PMD-200 is a feature rich audio IC that provides HDCD processing for both the CD and DVD formats. For the PMD-200 implementation, Pacific Microsonics chose Motorola's high performance DSP56364 platform.

The PMD-200 accepts up to 24-bit input data and operates at sampling rates from 44.1 kHz to 192 kHz. In addition to featuring HDCD decoding and precision filtering for the over 4,000 HDCD encoded CDs available today, the PMD-200 adds HDCD precision conjugate filtering for DVD-video and DVD-audio.

HDCD recordings offer improved sound quality on any CD player, and when reproduced on HDCD equipped players they provide true 20-bit sound quality from the 16-bit Compact Disc format. Over 4,000 different HDCD CD titles have been recorded and over 200 million HDCD CDs have been sold.

Playstation 2 as rival to DVD-Video players - Mikael @ 23:09 EST

A story on EE Times reports about a demonstration of the Playstation 2 by Sony where they claimed that the Playstation 2 image quality is better than DVD-Video players in the same price range and in some case competitive with high-end ones. Sony also mentioned that they intend to add progressive scan output capability to Playstation 2 within half a year of the its release. Not sure if that's 6 months after the North America/Europe launch or 6 months after the Japan launch (March 4) which would mean it would support this in time of the World Wide launch this fall.
News Source: Anandtech

Toshiba's SD-M1202 DVD-ROM drive review - Mikael @ 22:36 EST

DVD Café has posted a review of Toshiba's DVD-ROM drive, SD-M1202. The review include some benchmarks that shows the speed to on average be 3.55X and a CPU usage on 14% when playing at 1X.

I-Jam portable MP3 player review - Mikael @ 22:29 EST

Music4Free.com has posted a review of I-Jam Multimedia's portable MP3 player, IJ-100. It uses the USB port, are bundled with 2 16MB cards and in addition to playing MP3 files it can be used to listen to the radio. You can according to the review buy it for less than $130. Overall they found the MP3 to work quite well but found the transfer to be a bit slower than they expected and complained about the 16MB small cards and no support for MP3 files with higher encoding rate than 160 kpbs. It supports VBR MP3s so should sound quite ok though.
News Source: AGN Hardware

Update: Creative Audio Support for Windows 2000 - Mikael @ 22:12 EST

Creative have now posted the Audio drivers FAQ for Windows 2000 on their SB Live site. I see no changes compared to the one we posted beyond the last updated date changed from February 10 to February 14. Compared to the English translation of the FAQ we posted last week most of the dates when full featured drivers for Windows 2000 will be released has changed, most importantly the Live drivers release is now said to be mid March and not late February.

New A3D 2.0 game announced - Mikael @ 22:00 EST

Aureal has added Spec Ops: Military Operation Urban Terrain (M.O.U.T) to their A3D game list. It will support A3D 2.0 once it's released late this year. Check out Zombie vr studios website for more about this series.
News Source: Aureal A3D Central

New Winamp - Mikael @ 21:51 EST

A new version, 2.60, of Winamp has been released. You can find download links at 3dfiles.

Creative Audio Support for Windows 2000 - Mikael @ 09:25 EST

Creative Europe just sent us the English version of Win2K FAQ that Creative Japan posted. I assume will be up soon on Creative's SB Live site soon but until then you can check out the FAQ here.

MLi-490 5-piece speaker system - Mikael @ 03:34 EST

TargetPC has posted a review of this inespensive 5 piece speaker system from MidiLand. With retail SRP of $100 they compete mostly with Cambridge SoundWorks FPS1000 and Altec Lansing's ACS54. The specs are better than the FPS1000 and ACS54 though with 3" drivers for the sats, 6 1/2" for the subwoofer and 10 watts RMS of power for each satellite and 30 watts RMS power for the subwoofer, but the amplifier can't deliver more than 42 Watts according to this review. As usual the review at TargetPC is very tehcnology oriented. They found the speaker to perform quite well, as loud as 107 dB (half the distance from where we measure), good quality especially the bass while the high-end was lacking.

Mark should receive this unit later this month.
News Source: Anandtech

DVD Dead? - Mikael @ 03:00 EST

That's the question Adam Duracz asks in an article on 3DHardware.net. What raise the question is just a new storage technology from Constellation 3D. Not heard much about it but according to the article it that can store up to 140 GB on a CD/DVD type of disc and has a transfer rate of 1 Gigabit/s. It will also be used in a 30 mm disc with storage of 4GB and ClearCards with store capacity of 1 GB in credit card size. Both these will be WORM media (write once read many) and according to the article they will be usd in notebooks, video cameras, MP3 players and other portable devices. The article also has some questionable ideas about using it as RAM memory which I don't believe for a second. Even if they would be able to write as fast as they read (which is 1 giga bit not GB) and transfer rate wouldn't be a problem access time will almost certainly make it impossible. There is no indication that the comapany making this discs even think they can replace hard drives so to start speculate it could replace RAM seems rahter pointless.

When it comes to the main question asked in the article I don't doubt that DVD discs one day will be replaced but it certainly won't happen any time soon. It's take way too long for the movie industry to agree on new standards for that to happen anytime soon. If they can make the disc writeable and produce a drive that's not too expensive and can both write these discs and read DVD discs it could replace the DVD writeable discs. Until this company actually have something on the market that performs anything close to the hype in the article I wouldn't keep my hopes up though.

Thanks to Highlander for mentioning this article in our forum where you can give your thoughs on this new technology.

SQ2500 review - Mikael @ 01:33 EST

You probably already read a few of these but if you can't get enough there is new one up at GameForces. A couple of comments I don't think it's correct to say "The [EAX] effects are not usually as significant as those presented by A3D." EAX effects may be just as "signficant", the criticism about EAX has been more about not as dynamic as the wavetracing in A3D2.0 games. When it comes to Aureal's support for EAX I wouldn't call it a rumour that Aureal will support EAX and it's not just in future products but future drivers for the current product (Vortex2 based boards) it will be supported. In the review they also done some benchmarks comparing the MX300 and the SQ2500 using ZD AudioBenchmark. It's not clear if they used MX300's reference drivers or not but it's really irrelevant since they used different machines with a much faster CPU in the SQ2500 machine so the comparison doesn't say anything. You can check out our review for when you will see an effect of the optimized chip used in the SQ2500..

News from February 7-13, 2000

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