NF2's SoundStorm

[Omastar]

Why is SoundStorm found in quite a dated chipset still superior to pretty much every single onboard solution nowadays? :shrug: Realtek is garbage, ADI is slightly better, and beyond that, what is there? DFI LP boards have riser cards for harman/cardon or Wolfson audio, but there don't seem to be any contenders for SoundStorm's features with onboard audio chips.

Any ideas why? Was SoundStorm too expensive to implement?

[Truckchase!]

I don't think most people really notice the difference in sound cards. Quite sad in my opinion.....

[ToTTenTranz]

I don't quite get what you mean when you say it was "superior".


Was it the only APU ever to hardware encode Dolby Digital streams? Yes.
Is a feature like that important nowadays? No.

Dolby Digital Encoding can be perfectly made through software with a negligible performance hit by today's low-end dual-core CPUs, which is why nVidia cancelled the APUs on their motherboards.

[Donnie27]

I don't quite get what you mean when you say it was "superior".


Was it the only APU ever to hardware encode Dolby Digital streams? Yes.
Is a feature like that important nowadays? No.

Dolby Digital Encoding can be perfectly made through software with a negligible performance hit by today's low-end dual-core CPUs, which is why nVidia cancelled the APUs on their motherboards.

QFT!

[Pyr0]

anyone know of any software to encode all audio to dolby digital in real-time then?

[AngryArtichoke]

I don't think most people really notice the difference in sound cards. Quite sad in my opinion.....

That's me!

[GazC]

I don't quite get what you mean when you say it was "superior".


Was it the only APU ever to hardware encode Dolby Digital streams? Yes.
Is a feature like that important nowadays? No.

Dolby Digital Encoding can be perfectly made through software with a negligible performance hit by today's low-end dual-core CPUs, which is why nVidia cancelled the APUs on their motherboards.


Dual core was a twinkle in AMDs eye when Nvidia dropped SoundStorm.

I remember reading an article several years ago which showed SoundStorm to be equal to Audigy2 back in the day.

[ToTTenTranz]

anyone know of any software to encode all audio to dolby digital in real-time then?

For Creative cards you have this:
http://www.driverheaven.net/general-discussion/90887-redocnexk-released-realtime-5-1-ac3-encoder.html

It's great, you can even have Dolby Digital encoding AND EAX 3+ in games.

[ROBSCIX]

-You beat me to the post.

[Pyr0]

thanks for the linkage fellas :up:
seems like a pretty cool idea/app, but unfortunately it doesn't seem to work very well with my x-fi and the 2.14.0001 driver :( (windows xp x64)
if/when i can get it to output dolby digital (displayed on the speaker control), audio seems to be slowed to approximately 1/4 speed and the sound clicks and hisses. even the windows sounds are affected
despite reading the two threads at DH.net and trying various options and latency settings, i cannot get it to improve :shrug:

would anyone know of any fixes/workarounds or similar apps?

[ROBSCIX]

Talk to The Author, He is a great guy and a friend of mine. We developed the Velbac software together. He will help get it working...

[Pyr0]

no joy, he has no idea either :(
http://www.driverheaven.net/general-discussion/90887-redocnexk-released-realtime-5-1-ac3-encoder-37.html#post1121164

[ROBSCIX]

Sorry, I figured he may know. There is really nothing similar I could think of for applications. Outside of buying another card that has the ability to do what your asking, I think you my be out of luck.
With the Velbac software we developed, we could link two card together and have all the functions of both. So we had all the gaming function of the Creative cards but the output options and superior sound quality of X-Meridians and others. These were the best audio setups for gaming at the time and they would spank a CL X-fi for gaming even the E-pros. Now we have the Preludes, there are some that still use the dual card setups though.