SoundStorm 2: SoundStorm Strikes Back? 123
An anonymous reader writes "Phoronix, a popular Linux-based hardware review site, has posted their beliefs on what they feel is the returning of NVIDIA's SoundStorm Technology. Even though sites have said SoundStorm is dead, Phoronix continues to believe otherwise about this long-discussed situation. They contend NVIDIA is currently working on a new generation of APUs for its upcoming Chipsets and they feel one of the audio technologies may be SoundStorm! The article can be read here, but it looks like only time will reveal if new audio features are being brought fourth in the new Chipsets."
"Dead"? Did you read the link? (Score:4, Informative)
That's hardly dead, especially when that article if from nearly a year ago. A year is a huge timespan in computing.
Re:"Dead"? Did you read the link? (Score:1, Informative)
"By Fuad Abazovic: Monday 25 October 2004, 10:41"
That's a little over 10 months ago, or nearly a year.
Not holding my breath (Score:3, Interesting)
I've heard the Nforce3-Nforce5 will have it. I heard it's going to be an add in card. Hell, I've heard it's going to be integrated in the next video card. So far I've seen nothing tangible and I'll be surprised if I do.
It's pretty much a given if you want to compete in the PC audio market you're dealing with Creative whether you like it or not. They were allowed to buyout a
Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:5, Interesting)
As far as the consumer is concerned, audio technology is at a plateu and it's good enough for what they're using it for. The only thing that changes in the audio hardware world are the damn hardware programatic interfaces; there are more audio chipsets than modern video cards and NIC's combined.
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:5, Insightful)
Surround sound is easy to setup in Windows and Linux. It's more a matter of plugging the right speakers in the right places. I love the idea that you can use an extra mic input as a center channel or something.
I wouldn't trade it in.
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:3, Interesting)
Does this mean u can place a mic where you sit and it can figure out if you've placed the speakers optimally and/or dynamically adjust the sound outputs from each speaker to make the listening location hear the optimal audio experience (presumably near the mic in most cases)?
One presumes the speakers can emit sounds and the microphone/computer can then figure out what to adjust based on the received sound pattern/interferen
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:2)
It just seemed nice to me considering that it's on-board audio. Usually you don't get 5.1 and SPDIF out with on-board audio.
Oh... and... (Score:2)
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:2)
http://www.pioneerelectronics.com/pna/article/0,,
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:2)
Is that supposed to be a great advantage about Soundstorm or what? I think most dirt cheap Realtek on-board sound outputs work that way...
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:1)
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:2)
At the time this would have worked really well for me - Since I wanted a single long audio run that wasn't affected by ground loops.
But sending an email to support just got a "No, this won't work" response. In my books, NV sucks almost as much as Creative.
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:4, Interesting)
Via Envy is the same sound chip on most $50ish sound cards that aren't made by Creative.
If you want computer sound to get better, vote with your wallet and buy something better. Turtle Beach will happily sell you an Envy-based card, or you can get a PCI X-Mystique, which does exactly what Soundstorm used to do.
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:2)
The problem for most people (i.e., people using the analog outs) isn't just the sound chip. The quality of components like the DACs can also play a huge role in how good the audio is. In order to keep costs down, motherboard manufacturers either like to use s
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:1)
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:2)
Thanks for posting, I'd never heard of the X-Mystique before and it sounds like exactly what I need. I have a great DD5.1 tuner(Pioneer TRE-D800) and 5.1 speaker setup, and have been missing soundstorm in the newer nForce boards =(.
My concern is that the X-Mystique only supports EAX 2.0
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:5, Insightful)
The last truly inovative audio chipset was the Aureal au88x0 series, and what happened to them? Creative sucked them up and did nothing with their technology; even their "top end" Audigy 2 doesn't do positional 3D audio.
As far as the consumer is concerned, audio technology is at a plateu and it's good enough for what they're using it for. The only thing that changes in the audio hardware world are the damn hardware programatic interfaces; there are more audio chipsets than modern video cards and NIC's combined.
The real problem is the disparity between those who call themselves "audiophiles" and normal users. Seriously, if 99% of users can't tell the difference between a $10 card and a $10,000 then the $10 card will always win. If the "audiophile" can tell the difference then let him pay $10,000 for a difference that doesn't mean a thing to me.
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:1)
Then again...you buy Monster Cables, right?
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:2)
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:2)
Please, trying to defend someone who uses monster cables is a pretty ridiculous way to defend against the parent's post. Moster cables are a rip. And they aren't any better than other cheaper brands (such as belkin's pureAV) which are about 1/10th the price.
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:5, Informative)
The Audigy 4 has recently been surpased by the X-Fi. It's an entirely new architecture, both hardware and software.
Creative's EAX has been doing positional 3D audio with occlusion and reverberation for quite a while now. The Aureal was nice, sure, but Creative has had, and has, tech that accomplishes the same thing.
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:2)
you can pare it down to just the drivers and important applets (even then it's a large chunk of drive space) but most users wouldn't even dare click anything but the next button.
that alone isn't enough though. their drivers are buggy as hell and performance in 3d audio is pretty pathetic for it being a dsp-based hw accel. card.
unfortunetly, host-based (read soft/win aka no dsp no hardware accel) sound cards aren't
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:1)
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:2)
Re:Eh. Audio innovation is dead, baby (Score:1)
Re:Hope so (Score:2)
oh come on..... (Score:4, Funny)
SoundStorm isn't a technology! (Score:5, Informative)
It's a "certification", a label that attest that the hardware follow certain specs and offer certain features (number and type of I/O connections, for example).
Re:SoundStorm isn't a technology! (Score:1)
ICE is a feature of the nVidia MCP-T, that's need for a "device" to feature the SoundStorm(TM) "quality mark". But it isn't sufficent.
Re:bid deal (Score:5, Insightful)
BionicFX Harnesses Power of Graphics Cards for Audio Processing
Programming uses GPU as Audio Effect Processor
BionicFX announced a technology for music production that turns NVIDIA video cards into audio effects processors. Audio Video Exchange (AVEX) converts digital audio into graphics data, and then performs effect calculations using the 3D architecture of the GPU. The latest video cards from NVIDIA are capable of more than 40 gigaflops of processing power compared to less than 6 gigaflops on Intel and AMD CPUs.
BionicReverb, the first effect to use AVEX, will debut at Winter NAMM Conference in January 2005. BionicReverb is an impulse response reverberation effect that runs as a plug-in inside VST compatible multi-track recording software. The audio effect is generated by combining an impulse response file with digital audio. Impulse response files are created by firing a starter pistol inside a location, such as Carnegie Hall, and recording the echoing sound waves. Combining the two files through mathematical convolution is a CPU intensive process that is reduced by moving expensive calculations onto the GPU.
AVEX works by transforming audio streams into the structure and colors of graphics data. The graphics data is processed on the video card by pixel or fragment shaders that run audio effect algorithms, which read and write to textures in video memory. The final calculations are retrieved from off-screen buffers and decoded into audio.
While Nvidia may be happy that these guys are using their hardware, they may be worried that these companies start mangling their own software in order for it to run on a GPU and end up doing things that will only break as graphics technology changes.
Therefore it is much safer for Nvidia to design hardware that processes audio directly.
And besides, why shouldn't audio be treated in the same way as textures? There would be many benefits if an API such as OpenAL could be implemented in hardware. All the sound files in a game could be preloaded into audio memory, along with repeat/random/play once flags, and have the programmer simply set the location of sound sources and of the listener. And this would fit neatly into a scene-graph representation.
Re:bid deal (Score:2)
Actually, it doesn't make a fucking bit of difference if they won't give any documentation on the things in the first place.
I looked for WEEKS for an MN31N - note the extra "N" - because I STUPIDLY bought into the hype about the MCP-T chipset. What I got is a computer with the shiitiest sound EVER - even worse than the e-machines we filled the offices of our startup with back in '99. It has a constant "whistle" only about
Re:bid deal (Score:2)
That's the way the free market goes, I guess. I've just known never to rely on onboard sound, since I've never heard one that can touch a decent PCI card - and yes, there are just as crappy PCI solutions as well... Bought a Maddog 5.1 card for FAR and it's crappier than my onboard sound on my A7N8X....
Re:bid deal (Score:2)
The motherboard has problems, but Shuttle is not to blame for Nvidia's bad drivers, Nvidia's refusal to provide proper documentation, or Nvidia's silicon.
Re:bid deal (Score:2)
i would guess those "optimizations" (read benchmark cheating) might damage the accurate calculations required by such applications.
not that ati is a saint but it hasn't even remotely "optimized" as much as nvidia.
any professionals know if it's a reasonable concern?
Re:bid deal (Score:2)
Re:bid deal (Score:2)
Probably. The shimmering problem only occurs with anisotropic textures ie. textures that are viewed from very nearly side on with MIP-mapping enabled. Then you are trying to look up the texture at normal resolution on one axis, but at a deep MIP map level in another (where each pixel will be an average of a whole strip of the o
Only two ever came back from the dead (Score:1)
Bose replacement (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Bose replacement (Score:2, Informative)
Suck it up, spend the 500$-1000$ for a home setup and move on.
You don't have to be an audiophile with 3000$ speakers just to get some decent quality sound. I bought a Sony amplifier+receiver which with proper gauge cabling [forget what gauge] for 900$ I can listen to my music and actually like it
Tom
Re:Bose replacement (Score:2)
If you want to take full advantage of a good sound chip on a budget then headphones are the only way to go
Re:Bose replacement (Score:1)
The SR325 headphones I have are something special.
Do yourself a favour - check them out, including their "budget" models ;)
Re:Bose replacement (Score:2)
Personally, I think the 580s are one of the better buys in headphones. You can usually pick them up at around $150 on Ebay, and they sound AMAZING. They are extremely comfortable. You can literally put them on in the morning and wear them all day, to the point that you'll forget t
Re:Bose replacement (Score:2, Insightful)
And this makes sense to you.
And others, because you got modded up for the comment. That scares me most-est.
Re:Bose replacement (Score:2, Insightful)
Because audio reproduction is still governed by the same laws of physics as it was 30 years ago. Bass response is dictated by the size of the transducer and the cabinet, and while you can do minor tuning with active EQ, you simply cannot compensate for 50 times too small enclosure. The enclosure must also be r
Re:Ick replacement (Score:2)
Yes!
"subwoofer" cabinets on most computer sound systems are the size of my bookshelf speakers.
I think it's funny that people expect 6" speakers on ~30W amps to perform decently on bass frequencies when they are comparing it to the performance of 12" speakers with 150W+ amps.
Re:Bose replacement (Score:2)
In computers what cost a few hundred thousand is now in the bargin bin.
I said partial because on some things you do tend to hit a min price for materials and some other things, but by now the R&D on how speakers work should be mostly paid for, amoung other things.
If there were new breakthroughs being made then yes I could see high prices, but I s
Re:Bose replacement (Score:2)
Yes, the Klipsch I bought were expensive. If I recall, I paid about 150$ at Comp-Usa for them. A lot of my friends thought I paid too much.
Then they heard them.
They are probably some of the best all-in-one computer sets you can buy. And I did a lot of research. The only other pair I considered were some Soricco (sp?) speakers, but th
Re:Bose replacement (Score:2)
I've listened to quite a few brands at various outlets including klipsch and frankly most are at best in the ballpark of these speakers for sound quality, and yes I'm including the klipsch speakers I've listened to.
Frankly the tech is so basic and old there really is no reason for most speakers to cost what t
Re:Bose replacement (Score:3, Interesting)
I can also give you the ultimate crapspeakers. Cheap 5.1 surround that mostly works OK. You know those 5.1 systems at Wal-Mart? Yeah, the ones selling for like $35, which aren't really surround but instead mix out from a stereo signal. I managed to bypass that mixing cir
Re:Bose replacement (Score:2)
Honestly (Score:2)
Re:Honestly (Score:1)
I implore you, sir - if you're shopping for speakers in the near future, check out somewhere other than Best Buy and listen to some speakers before you jump on the Bose train (I suspect that BB arranges their Bose speakers better than the other brands intentionally). Additionally, most package setups don't really have very good speakers in them, just something to keep in mind.
Bose used to really put some effort into clever speaker design and
Re:Honestly (Score:2)
The point is that there is no speaker that is "tiny" which can accurately reproduce the mids and lows with precision. Bose doesnt' do magic in their setup, they just
Re:Bose replacement (Score:2)
decent,
inexpensive
5 speaker plus woofer setup
It's the classic pick two of the three items on this wishlist and you've got yourself a deal! Seriously. You can get a set of 5.1 speakers from woot for 20 bucks every now and then [inexpensive, 5.1]; you can go out and buy a pair of moderately good all-in-one speakers for 150 bucks or so [decent, inexpensive], or you can put down 1000-2000 bucks for a 5.1 setup that doesn't totally suck rocks [decent, 5.1]
Even a $2000 setup won't be rock-your-socks
Re:Bose replacement (Score:2)
Logitech makes probably the best (sounding) speakers in their price range. Of course an amp with speakersystem for 69$ isn't going to sound super extreme high quality. Try the Z-5500's if you want something that is going to sound great. Or, get some Klipshe speakers if you want the top end. Or, invest in a quality amplifier and discrete speaker system if you really want some awesome sound.. B
Re:Bose replacement (Score:2)
something in the 400+ range !should! meet your needs. if not, put your own set together.
klipsh and creative's high end speakers are usually highly acclaimed. at least if you believe the reviewers. but ultimately it may not sound as good to you as it did the reviewers due to location differences and noise levels. buy a good set and try it at home.
Re:Bose replacement (Score:1)
It's too much to ask. (Score:2)
It's hard to design a good-sounding loudspeaker system, and it's typically fairly expensive to manufacture, assemble, and ship. A walk (and listen) through any audio store will illustrate this.
But you don't want one good-sounding loudspeaker system: you want FIVE of them, and a subwoofer, too
And you need the
Not Unrealistic (Score:2)
Fuck Soundstorm (Score:3, Informative)
I have three of them. They rock. Best hardware I've purchased in years, since they let me junk shitty Asus boards (AFAIK Asus is the only company that ever fully implemented soundstorm to begin with) for Gigabyte and Soltek hardware that I'm much more comfortable with.
Here's [storageforum.net] a good summary of my experiences with the first card I got.
Re:Fuck Soundstorm (Score:1)
Re:Fuck Soundstorm (Score:2)
Soundstorm didn't work under Linux, either.
I'd suggest a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz for you. They work just fine under Linux.
Re:Fuck Soundstorm (Score:2)
Better Prices - $87 w/free shipping (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Better Prices - $87 w/free shipping (Score:2)
that's why i stopped shopping there and i won't be going back.
there's no reason to reward dishonest merchants, especially if there are comparable vendors easily within reach.
Re:Fuck Soundstorm (Score:1)
Will this be applied to the new Shuttles? (Score:1)
Re:Will this be applied to the new Shuttles? (Score:3, Informative)
If you're happy with AC97, good for you, but Soundstorm was a whole different experience, since it actually creates LFE and rear surround (w
Re:Will this be applied to the new Shuttles? (Score:2, Informative)
I own one.
this (Score:2)
BLATANT slashvertisement (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:BLATANT slashvertisement (Score:2)
And Phoronix is a popular Linux site?
According to google [google.co.uk] a whole 2 other sites link to it... :-o
I suspect I'm as shocked as you to find this on Slashdot (assuming you're not very shocked at all).
Re:BLATANT slashvertisement (Score:2)
for a bit of perspective in this , slashdot.org is as at 37 , www.debian.org is at 1812 and technocrat.net is at 25803.
Re:BLATANT slashvertisement (Score:2)
Aye, it looks like Google may be slightly wrong here... still, it gives me a chance to apologise to Phoronix, and more importantly say:
Netcraft confirms... Phoronix is not dying!
Re:BLATANT slashvertisement (Score:2)
I was surprised at the discrepency between (a) sites linking to [2], and (b) sites refering to [67000+] Phoronix. I suspect Google may be underreporting links to Phoronix. I'm still none to impressed with the article submission: below par even by recent standards. Still, from now on I'll criticise "submitters" and not "submitted" ;-)
Re:Advance or retreat? (Score:1)
my olde SB!Live!Value! with a hoontech adaptor works pretty well hooked into my Yamaha AX1 home cinema amp using fibre. Oh yeah, the downside is that this card has a fixed 48kHz sampling rate, so playing back mp3's captured off CD means the sound has been through some mangling, but when I record* off dig
Re:Advance or retreat? (Score:1)
Re:Advance or retreat? (Score:1)
with s/pdif from my SBLV! I can turn the amp up to the point where it'd destroy my speakers and hear practically nothing with my ear next to the speaker, just a slight whisper of noise from the preamp stages! [I love my Yamaha AX1!!!].
If I'd used analogue, I'd probably be able to hear digital hash at normal volumes.
Sound of the 80's (Score:1)
Every time somebody clicks on the link to the song GOD kills a kitten.
Re:Sound of the 80's (Score:1)
F'ing kittens! (Score:1)
.......... *click*
.... hmmmmm
..*click*.*click*..*click**click**click**cli
*click**click**click**click*
*click**
*click*
*click**click**click**click*
*cl
MUAHAHAHAAAA!!!!
Re:Sound of the 80's (Score:1)
Apple? (Score:1)
Re:Apple? (Score:1)
probably the truth is that you don't need on-chip 3-D audio algorithms. the CPU is fast enough to do this and still have the horsepower for whatever else you want... just take a look at the ambisonics equations for 3D sound placement...
problem being, in order for this to work, you have to
Soundstorm2 (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Soundstorm2 (Score:1)
Do you enclose your PCI cards in Faraday cages and filter all the signal and power lines on the PCI bus? No?
Then the level of electrical interference is exactly the same. If you plug the daughterboard into the motherboard the electrical environment is going to be exactly the same.
If you're worried about interference, go with an external Firewire/USB2 device.
Re:Soundstorm2 (Score:1)
Soundstorm was incredible (Score:2)
They started the revolution that finally brought high-quality, high-featured audio to nearly all modern integrated motherboard chipsets.
I'm excited to hear they have restarted development.
How Do You Compete When Creative Owns Everything? (Score:2)
Re:How Do You Compete When Creative Owns Everythin (Score:1)
What was that about? [30 seconds of Googling]. Ah, was that the "We have a patent for 'Carmack's Reverse', so give us cash or include EAX in Doom3" thing?
[Cue yet another
ac3filter can do the same thing (Score:1)
I use ac3filter http://ac3filter.sourceforge.net/download/ [sourceforge.net] to do the same thing - great for watching HD p2p downloads when the file is wmv-hd (wmv-hd doesn't use AC3 or DTS, it uses WMA Professional 5.1 for the audio).
Instructions here: http://www.avforums.com/forums/showthread.php?p=19 25770#post1925770 [avforums.com]
I use nvidia on linux but don't trust them (Score:2)
And I don't talk about open source support.
So when it comes to chipset i go to VIA, even if they are not always as fast, since they have open source initiatives (cle, unichrome)
And when it come to sound i go to CREATIVE LABS for the same reasons.
Re:I use nvidia on linux but don't trust them (Score:1)
Makes Sense! (Score:1)
SoundStorm did what it was built to do.... (Score:1)