Live! vs Vortex2 . . . Who will win?

Simon (UK ass kicker) King

The next big thing in the soundcard market is the second-generation of PCI soundcards. Creative have their's out (supposedly - I'm yet to come across anybody who has one) and Aureal are working on Vortex 2 for the fall of this year. And the great debate is: Who is going to win the second round of the PCI soundcard battle?

Just for a moment, lets see who won the first round. Well, nobody, actually. All of the chipsets (Maestro 1/2, 1370/1371, Vortex 1) have their supporters. Out of the guys I know, Vortex seems to be the most prolific chipset, but we like the Vortex at 3DSS <g>.

However, for the second round, the players are clear. We have, as we so love in the computer industry, a good old fashioned fight on our hands. And everyone is placing their bets. (If you read the newsgroups, does this sound familiar - SOUND BLASTER LIVE OUT BUT IT WILL SUCK? Or the equally annoying 'Creative are gonna kick Aureals ass?).

The problem is that A) Nobody outside creative has actually seen a Live! and B) The vortex 2 is a good few months off shipping. So the good old FUD Factor (Fear, Uncertainty, Doubt) will no doubt put many people off who had been waiting for the more mature second generation of PCI sound.

But hark to me, I say. This bloke has a novel take on the whole situation. There isn't going to be a fight at all. Listen, dear reader, to my demented rantings thus:

Ever since the release of the AWE32, Creative have been trying to push their way in to the musicians market. Let us not forget that the people who Creative originally flogged truckloads of the SB FM cards to were gamers, not musicians. But hark! we have a sampler with onboard memory! The AWE32, while far too noisy for anything like pro work, did start to change people's perceptions slightly. The AWE64 was a bit of a re-hash. It added good features like SP/DIF, but took away the wavetabl header and used proprietry RAM. Nevertheless, they pitched the AWE64 Gold as a musicians card.

Now we have the Live!, and this fantastically powerfull 10K1 processor. It can do all sorts of wonderfull things because it's programmable. A full effects suite. Tons of MIDI channels. Up to 32Mb for sound banks. More digital I/O than you can shake a stick at. A very nice musicians card (unless it's noisy - cross fingers!).

On the surface, it's also a good gamers card - EAX, DirectSound and DS3D acceleration - sorted. But there's a few stumbling blocks:

1) It's costly. Alright, the price will come down, but it's still going to be >$120.

2) Not everyone can afford a full 4-speaker setup, and judging by what their saying, it aint so hot on two speakers/headphones.

3) Here's the big problem. As already reported on 3DSS, the Live! appears to only handle (at most) 8 DS3D streams. Excuse me? You mean, just like the Monster Sound, just like every Vortex going? Good grief, the Maestro 2 can manage 5 and that costs buttons! If this is merely a driver issue, then Creative needs to get it fixed AND SHARPISH. If not, whoever designed the 10K1 needs smacking around the face with a wet fish.

Let's look at the competition - Aureal. Aureal have managed to pick up quite a good following, and have had parallels drawn between themselves and 3DFX - very flattering. Aureals next generation Vortex 2 is very much under wraps, but the important things we know are:

1) It can handle 16 DS3D streams in full hardware, and increases the Unreal frame rate by around 10%-15%.

2) It can support up to eight speakers, but works great with phones.

3) The processor is at least as powerful as the Live's.

'So what is your point?' I hear you cry. My point is this. With an expected launch price of significantly less than $200, I think the market is open for Vortex 2 and Live! to co-exist, with the Live! taking the musicians market Creative have been working towards since they bought E-MU, and the Vortex 2 grabbing the games market that wants as many 3D streams as possible. Obviously, there will be some crossover - people will buy the Live! for games because it's Creative. And there will be people who buy Vortex 2 for music, because this time round we've got full harware MIDI, and a S/N ratio that's at least as good as Vortex 1.

So there you go. Live! and Vortex 2 will peacefully co-exist in the market. To be honest, I hope I'm wrong. We'll, everyone loves a good battle, don't they?

Simon (UK ass Kicker) King

As always... Questions, Comments, Flames are appreciated.

Editorial 1
August 6, 98

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