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Topic: Creative Labs releases SB Audigy RX...with hardware EAX? (Read 10680 times) previous topic - next topic
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Creative Labs releases SB Audigy RX...with hardware EAX?

Three new cards from Creative Labs, one is USB, the other two pci-e, one of them, that's right, has a real EMU series processor, the one responsible for the hardware environmental effects present in older games from the earlier part of the century. The question is...why? With today's quad core cpus, and the fact that the 'Z' series cards handle EAX functions in software, not to mention EAX is pretty much dead, one wonders what Creative is thinking. Perhaps just a niche product for those who still want hardware accelerated audio?

http://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/sou...aster-audigy-rx

The only difference between that and the SBZ, besides the hardware emu chip, is the lack of dd live/dts connect, which explains why it's less expensive than the Z.

Creative Labs releases SB Audigy RX...with hardware EAX?

Reply #1 –
AMD added a DSP to their new GPUs so 3D audio could be making a comeback.

Creative Labs releases SB Audigy RX...with hardware EAX?

Reply #2 –
Quote from: Mach-X on
Three new cards from Creative Labs, one is USB, the other two pci-e, one of them, that's right, has a real EMU series processor, the one responsible for the hardware environmental effects present in older games from the earlier part of the century. The question is...why? With today's quad core cpus, and the fact that the 'Z' series cards handle EAX functions in software, not to mention EAX is pretty much dead, one wonders what Creative is thinking. Perhaps just a niche product for those who still want hardware accelerated audio?

http://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/sou...aster-audigy-rx

The only difference between that and the SBZ, besides the hardware emu chip, is the lack of dd live/dts connect, which explains why it's less expensive than the Z.


Oh, they're doing it again ? Degration in quality ? m(
I mean, already the Recon3D- and Z-Series were a downgrade compared to X-Fi from a music lover perspective... and now that... Creative is giving  up, I guess...

Creative Labs releases SB Audigy RX...with hardware EAX?

Reply #3 –
The Audigy RX also seems to be called Audigy 5 in some markets, and that's pretty much what it is - an updated PCIe version of the Audigy 4. Not sure who the target group would be either - kX Project enthusiasts? Linux users? Maybe they found they had massive stocks of the chips on there or somesuch.

The original Z clearly was a downsizing / reboot move. But ever since the ZxR came out, I don't think anyone could complain that they're not trying. And Z series drivers seem to be working quite well, whereas back in the day Creative's driver issues drove people away in droves (and into the arms of Asus, whose drivers turned out to be much of the same mess).

From a practical perspective, I can't really say too much negative even about the budget Audigy FX. Aside from the 24/44 recording issue which seems to be a driver bug (and a power-on pop on the speaker out), it Just Works. Speakers are turned off when using the front headphone out, and the driver even remembers volume for both outputs individually. No issues with hibernation at all. (I threw out an ESI Juli@ because the darn thing just didn't work any more after coming out of hibernation. Totally useless to me. In fact, they have the nerve of officially not supporting hibernation. Maybe I'll stuff the card into one of my old PIII boxes and use the old pre-Unified v1.21 2000/XP driver.)

Creative Labs releases SB Audigy RX...with hardware EAX?

Reply #4 –
Does Audigy RX support 24/32bit 44.1/88.2k multiclient ASIO recording and playback? If yes then it is a good news.

Creative Labs releases SB Audigy RX...with hardware EAX?

Reply #5 –
Quote from: bennetng on
Does Audigy RX support 24/32bit 44.1/88.2k multiclient ASIO recording and playback? If yes then it is a good news.

I very much doubt it. The old EMU chips (and related P17) just can't do 44.1 and multiples with just a 24.576 MHz crystal. I guess they contain a basic PLL since they're able to accept 44.1 via S/P-DIF, but that's about it. Like I said, it's a refresh of the Audigy 4. What do you expect?

Cards with support for 88.2 have, unfortunately, become a bit rare. Slightly odd, since you'd think it shouldn't be too hard once 44.1 and 96 are there.

Creative Labs releases SB Audigy RX...with hardware EAX?

Reply #6 –
If you have a PLL and can do 44.1k, then you can do 88.2k (just change the PLL counter by 1 bit), but I guess maybe its not common enough to be worth exposing to users.

Creative Labs releases SB Audigy RX...with hardware EAX?

Reply #7 –
Today's CPUs are ridiculously powerful for audio mixing tasks. I could understand a need for a dedicated HW sound processor in case it did full scene 3D sound ray-tracing or something like that (think Direct3D but for sound).

Creative Labs releases SB Audigy RX...with hardware EAX?

Reply #8 –
Quote from: stephan_g on
I very much doubt it. The old EMU chips (and related P17) just can't do 44.1 and multiples with just a 24.576 MHz crystal. I guess they contain a basic PLL since they're able to accept 44.1 via S/P-DIF, but that's about it. Like I said, it's a refresh of the Audigy 4. What do you expect?

Cards with support for 88.2 have, unfortunately, become a bit rare. Slightly odd, since you'd think it shouldn't be too hard once 44.1 and 96 are there.

Because EMU1212m and 0404 also use Audigy based chip, and X-Fi cards only has a single crystal but they support 44.1/88.2 so I just hope Creative can release a great ASIO card with cheaper ADC/DAC for DAWs.

I am now using  X-Fi Titanium HD, it has great spec but headphone out and line out cannot be used simultaneously. X-Fi XtremeMusic and Titanium (non HD) can output sound to headphone and speaker simultaneously by using some routing tricks but they are out of stock already

Creative Labs releases SB Audigy RX...with hardware EAX?

Reply #9 –
Quote from: Martel on
Today's CPUs are ridiculously powerful for audio mixing tasks. I could understand a need for a dedicated HW sound processor in case it did full scene 3D sound ray-tracing or something like that (think Direct3D but for sound).

Wave tracing. Aureal was doing that back in '98, using a combination of dedicated silicon (~600 MIPS) and software.