Soundcard Technology

[nLinked]

With Vista having a new audio stack, will current soundcards need to change
on a physical hardware level, or will new drivers solve all the problems?
I'm particularly interested in X-Fi. Creative must now make Alchemy drivers
to convert DirectSound into OpenAL. If they were to make a new soundcard
tomorrow, would it be different at the hardware level?

 

[Conor]

With Vista having a new audio stack, will current soundcards need to change
on a physical hardware level, or will new drivers solve all the problems?

It's a driver issue.

 

[S.SubZero]

Is anyone but Creative Labs even making consumer-level hardware
accelerated sound cards?

I wasn't aware that X-Fi cards would absolutely stop working entirely
under Vista. I only thought they would no longer do hardware
acceleration. Last I heard, people were using X-Fi and Audigy cards
in Vista without issue, and without hardware acceleration outside of
OpenAL.

In the future, Creative will either develop a general OpenAL wrapper,
or they'll just switch to cards without hardware acceleration. That
would make me sad, as I do like the reduction in CPU utilization with
CL cards.

 

[nLinked]

They are making drivers code-named Alchemy (beta is released) that converts
DirectSound into OpenAL so that EAX from DS games will work. I don't know
how efficient this is though. Will the conversion add latency or lead to
extra CPU usage?

And you know those on-board sound chips that come on new motherboards (the
HD 7.1 support ones), how well to they work in games. We will most probably
lose EAX in games, but won't their hardware acceleration work in Games For
Windows games? Or do Microsoft want new Games For Windows games to use
Vista's software sound only?

 

[Conor]

Is anyone but Creative Labs even making consumer-level hardware
accelerated sound cards?

http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/Soundcards.asp

 

[Synapse Syndrome]

Is anyone but Creative Labs even making consumer-level hardware
accelerated sound cards?

The market for consumer sound cards has shrunk dramatically as just about
all desktop motherboards come with onboard Realtek or Intel sound now.

ss.

 

[DevilsPGD]

In message <[email protected]> Conor

http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/Soundcards.asp

While true, they're not any further along then Creative...

http://support.turtlebeach.com/site/kb_ftp/588119233.asp says:

 

[S.SubZero]

http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/Soundcards.asp

--
Conor

Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright
until you hear them speak.........

You lost me. I looked over the sound cards on the site, and I didn't
see a single reference to hardware acceleration. They support EAX
*APIs* but don't mention anything about it being hardware
accelerated. Heck, onboard sound solutions often can do EAX, they
just do it through software.