Soundstorm is gone forever

[DR]

No - I can not confirm if NVIDIA will have ADAT option - but AC97 for sure

[shiato storm]

AC97...does that mean from 1997? surely someone can update the thing?
digital out etc isn't too dificult to slap on. I too am a tad myffed at the loss of soundstorm - after clearly winning over so many users - but thats the way it goes. maybe some uber-tech-geeks will come up with a way to graft a soundstorm chip onto a newer mobo and then adjust drivers accordingly...? we can only hope!

[Rave]

I thought the problem was that Creative had bought the company who originally licenced the SoundStorm technology to nVidia?

[Speedycougar]

I thought the problem was that Creative had bought the company who originally licenced the SoundStorm technology to nVidia?

If that's the case (anyone have proof here?), then the question is really....

Q> If Nvidia have stopped making SS and Creative have the license, why the heck haven't they actually done what any decent company should have, and implemented an encoding solution?

I have heard (metaphorically speaking) it suggested many times that the PCI bus can't handle the load for encoding. If that's the case, why hasn't a USB(2)/firewire(b) solution been implemented with an external device? If I was to pay £200 for a top of the range (consumer) sound card, then I would sure as hell expect to get the ability for the card to actually do some work.

The only other thing I can think of is that 'if' creative have bought SS technology they have deliberatly killed it off in favour of there EAX stuff. Point is, surely you can implement EAX over a Dolby digital or even a DTS link? I and a lot of other people don't want to have to have 5/6/7/8 wires coming out the back of my PC when I can have one perfect digital connection.

blimey I go on....

[Capt Doufos]

The HDaudio on my P5AD2-E Premium motherboard supports Dolby Digital encoding, in the same way the soundstorm does. I have actually dumped my Audigy2 in favour of it. I think it is very good.

It uses the C-media 9880 chipset.

http://www.cmedia.com.tw/product/CMI9880.htm

[shiato storm]

well, to cut a long arguement short here's what to do:

Keep your old nForce boards and a basic OS on an HDD that is both fast and reasonably big. cram it full of music/films etc that you want running in glorious soundstorm encoding-whatnot. Link it to a newer rig you have for gaming and away you go. is it dificult to pass sound through to another computer/board to process?

failing all else just don't upgrade beyond socket a and make sure you can upgrade to sufficient speeds etc to last for several years until dolby digital becomes standard...its cheaper this way too...

[Butcher]

Yes it's hard to pass 3d sound to another computer. If your current card has 6 channel output then you could pass that in, but if it has 6 channel out you could just link that directly into your amp...

For just music and films an xbox will do the same thing for a fraction of the cost - soundstorm is basically the xbox MCP stuck on a PC board.

PCI should be more than adequate for 5.1 sound encoding - you're looking at 6 48KHz streams which is 576KB/s, hardly a push for a bus with a maximum bandwidth of 133MB/s. Even if you have onboard hardware mixing of say 250 voices, that's only 24MB/s at 48KHz.

[ikkitousen]

.................shhhhhhh its a conspiracy

[DR]

I was about to mention the Aureal A3D situation, but I doubt this is going to have that much affect

[weebroonieuk]

david create a link with the title - SoundStorm which actually links to the aureal a3d stuff u mention and everyone will praise it

[StormPC]

I don't see what the big deal is. SS was ok for onboard sound, but like onboard video the performance sucked compared to the add-on cards. To me it's kind of like saying "Rats! No more onboard SIS videocards!"...Who cares? It's just not that good.

[weebroonieuk]

it was actually quite good , but im sure we must have something which can better it these days

[Apex]

I was about to mention the Aureal A3D situation, but I doubt this is going to have that much affect

Creative baught it and then killed a tech that was far better then any of the crap they have ever come up with.

Some days i do dispare at the state of the industry.

[unrealrocks]

I don't see what the big deal is. SS was ok for onboard sound, but like onboard video the performance sucked compared to the add-on cards. To me it's kind of like saying "Rats! No more onboard SIS videocards!"...Who cares? It's just not that good.

Its not quite the quality most SS users want, its the DolbyDigitalLIVE encoding ...

This gave a great quality with a huge dynamic range and just general greatness (anyone with SS and SPDIF decoder, switch between DDLive and PCM and hear the difference )

Its a shame - won't be leaving my A7N8X for along time yet

ADAT - who on earth makes decoders that can use the ADAT format. Thats a studio format.

[Apex]

I don't see what the big deal is. SS was ok for onboard sound, but like onboard video the performance sucked compared to the add-on cards. To me it's kind of like saying "Rats! No more onboard SIS videocards!"...Who cares? It's just not that good.

The big "deal" is that it did wat it said on the tin, unlike any other audio product i have come across.

The performace sucked ?

[StormPC]

The big "deal" is that it did wat it said on the tin, unlike any other audio product i have come across.

The performace sucked ?

Yes, for video gaming SS really slows down a system. That's why everybody who cares about gaming performance likes the Sound Blaster Audigy and similar products. In comparison the SS sucks, although it is very good for onboard audio.