SOUND ~ Interesting Dilemma and confusion -

[BB_One]

Ok, I'm confuse and do not get the difference based on pure technical specs.

Let me explain. My goal acquire a PCI card that will allow 5.1 surroud when I listen to music (mp3 wma etc), when I play games or watch dvd or for that matter TV on my pc.

Not wanting to bugdowm the cpu I wanted an PCI card, hence of course as if their was many choices Audigy 2 ZS.

Now on a side topic this comes along:

http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=19218

And off course what I immediately zoomed on was the following statement:


Soundstorm is, or perhaps was very important to lovers of sound. It was to offer 5.1 sound to those users even when they play games or listen to the music. Otherwise with normal sound cards including all Creative Labs and Terratec cards, you will get Dolby Digital 5.1 only when you watch DVDs, but just in that case. This means that those users ended up with only stereo signal when they play games even the games that have 5.1 sound. That’s bad, man.


Well I don't want Sound Storm but I sure thought the Audigy would give me , what this say's it will not.

Even more confusing, let's go to the Creative lab site and read the specs:

http://us.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=204&product=4915

Well darn these marketing dude nearly fooled me and seems the Inquirer is correct:

Anything, games or what ever that do not have inherant 5.1 playback will be played in , discreat 5.1 surround sound. ( I read this to mean stereo has suggested by the inquirer)

But more troubling, even when the game is 5.1 enabled theinquirer seems to suggest that you won't get it with the Audigy which blatantly contradicts the Audigy statements?


They propose that the only product capable of delivering full 5.1 in all modes is this (site is real slow) http://www.cmedia.com.tw/product/CMI8768.htm

I will admit that reviewing the specs, I am confused when comparing to the Audigy specs/statements and honestly cannot come to the conclusion that this does 100% 5.1 at all times.

Is this all baloney or does anyone pick up on a specific word or spec that does identify the CMI8768 as delivering at all time 5.1, and Audigy is not?

[Killer Munkey]

i got sound blaster Live! 5.1 and i don't get 5.1 support unless i enable EAX in games which slows the game down at least 10 fps and i don't get it for music or episodes i download. i only get it by defualt on movies that support 5.1

[FightingChance]

This is a difficult subject, due to both the technical and political aspects of it all.

On the back of pretty much any sound card, you're going to see more 3.5mm mini jacks than anything else. Most likely, three of these will be reserved for the six channels of 5.1 surround sound, as it were. (Front left and right, rear left and right, and center/subwoofer). These minijacks lead to the sound card's onboard IC's, first the DAC's then the CPU on the card itself. This is 'analog' sound - sound information is passing from the program, may it be the OS or a game or even a movie you're watching with PowerDVD - to the sound card, being mixed on the card itself, then shot out the DACs as analog data, to the speakers.

Real, true, Dolby Digital AC-3, Dolby Digital EX, DTS, DTS-ES, ProLogic II, Prologic IIx, yada yada, and so forth, *must* be sent in pure digital form to a decoder. Now, this decoder can be the sound card's onboard processor (thus, the advertisements for a sound card to have 'Dolby Digital decoding' are indeed true), *BUT* after decoding they are still pushed out to the DAC's on the card, and then to the speakers.

Why does this matter?

Sound card DAC's have a reputation of being rather atrocious as audiophilia goes. (Computer speakers, with a few exceptions, are regarded as the same.) For instance, all sound cards until just recently were 16-bit - so 24-bit DVD sound would be dumbed down to this lower level.

So it's S/PDIF to the rescue - kind of.

Sony/Philips Digital InterFace is a pure digital handling of audio protocols (DD AC-3, DTS, etc.) via a coaxial or TOSlink (optical) cable. [side note - S/PDIF is digital, so it works on the basis that all the 1's and 0's get to their destination. It can't half work; ergo, expensive or 'high quality' coax/optical cables are a ripoff.] It's not lossy in any way (as far as I know) - it merely passes all audio information along to a decoder - in this case, a higher quality decoder that exists outside the system (and is therefore not susceptible to EMI noise or driver/software issues like a sound card CPU would be).

Now, this external decoder is basically a home theater reciever, which means a couple of things.

1) It's going to be built with potentially far greater quality components than your average sound card.
2) It *only* understands Dolby Digital protocols over S/PDIF. This is why music (mp3's, whatever) and games only output as stereo when shot over S/PDIF.

So there's the big question: "If all the game consoles output in real Dobly Digital or Prologic (which they all do), then why don't PC games?"

Creative Labs.

The Sound Blaster people's almost entire existance hinges on the fact that they can convince consumers that 'gaming' sound cards are necessary. If it were as simple as having games output in digital and have speakers intercept this with a small decoder breakout box (and yes, it is that simple) than why bother with sound hardware at all? Creative has basically stalled the PC sound market with it's bullying tactics, by buying and disassembling Aureal and now Sensuara, and by blackmailing ID software into including EAX into the DOOM III engine by invoking their lawyers at the 11th hour. (EAX is an analog [i.e. output by the onboard soundcard CPU] surround sound schema that, in it's latest iterations, is exclusive to Creative Labs cards, which is useless to anyone who doesn't want to put up with their atrocious drivers and suspect hardware)

There was hope in the form of Nvidia's SoundStorm, which could really transcribe audio into DD 5.1 that external decoders could understand, but never really reached it's potential nor escaped all the bugs plagueing it. nForce 3 and 4 boards do not use SoundStorm.

Help is coming - the CMedia chipset you mentioned is one of a few certified chipsets by other makers known under a more familiar name - Intel High Defintion Audio, the replacement for AC97. Intel HDA can encode stereo signals on the fly and output them over SPDIF to Dolby ProLogic IIx, which, while not discrete, is a great step ahead (the Nintendo GameCube uses ProLogic II exclusively for it's sound needs - if you've ever heard Metroid Prime in action you know how convincing ProLogic II is.)

I can't gaurantee the factuality of all this, and welcome any corrections, but I believe this is a very general overview of how things are. If any of this warrants more explanation or you want to educate yourself further, I strongly suggest you seek out the forums at 3dsoundsurge.com

[Shayd]

Nice description and explaination FC. Heck, even I understood that :)

[BB_One]

First and fore most FightingChance, allow me to thank you so much for a very detail explanation on some of the technology, and just as important for taking the time to answer this question.

Very well explain, and does fit with my limited understanding of sound processing frankly.

Must say however, that I'm still puzzled as to the "why" of the statement of the inquirer, and technically speaking cannot for the life of me see the difference between the CMedia and the Audigy, I must be real thick or it is jumping at me and for some reason I can't see it.

However, I certainly will follow your recommendation and visit that web site you mention, and try to get additional info.

Once again, thank you so much for your precious time and quality response. :thumb:

Regards, :thumbs:

BB_One...