New Sound Card from Creative?

[boe]

Has anyone heard anything on Creative's next sound card? I'm looking to create a gaming system to connect to my big screen. Creative confirmed that their current sound card won't do encoding out through an optical so that standard recievers/preamps can play back surround sound (for some sources it will but not all surround sound games). You could buy some speaker systems that were made for the creative output but I'd much rather play these back on my real home theatre system that has a much more impressive set of speakers, sub and amp. Creative has said that the encoding chips are cheap enough now to put on sound cards but they haven't given my any info about their next card. They didn't say if encoding would be on board or when the card is coming out. Has anyone heard anything on this? Would Tom know?

 

[Worf101]

This has always been my problem with Creative Cards. I had an Audigy Platinum in my first gaming rig. The hoops I had to jump through to get that thing to play 5.1 Digital to a receiver was ridiculous. They deliberately made it SPDIF only despite having optical and coaxial outs. This was done to keep you buying their cheesey speaker systems and not using HT gear instead.

Da Worfster

If you don't stand for something, you'll fall for anything.

 

[boe]

No one has heard anything? Aren't there any hardcore gamers out there with this same goal?

Perhaps if enough people contacted them, we could get an answer - CLI.Customerservice@customercare.creative.com

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by boe on 07/13/04 10:26 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[boe]

I found this to be one of the better threads on this topic
http://forums.sudhian.com/messageview.cfm?catid=75&threadid=55606

 

[boe]

Anyone know how to get Tom to ask Creative?

 

[Zalkryn]

I have the same problem. I have Audigy 2 and think the CMSS is horrible. I am using creative 6.1 speakers and music is awful. I want to use my HT reciever as well. I'm about to upgrade and am highly considering getting the NF7-S, AMD motherboard with Soundstorm, thus allowing one connection to HT reciever and also allowing Dolby Digital ENCODING. My goal is to play Games and music in real 5.1 sound. I seriously wish there was a way to get these features while staying with Intel motherboards and/or Soundcards, but havent found it.

Really need to learn more on this topic. Hope to see some more experienced sound guys give their 2 cents.

Pentium 4 2g
Asus P4T-E MB
512 PC800 Rambus
ATI 9700 Pro
Linksys 10/100 network card
SB Audigy 2

 

[thaloc]

I have SB Audigy 1, and I use MatrixMixer (http://matrix-mixer.sourceforge.net/) to upmix any stereo audio (mp3, avi, mpg) to 5.1. It is a DirectShow filter based on mixer from AC3Codec. The problem is, non-directshow programs can not use it (WinAmp for example). This is why I use Media Player Classic (http://sourceforge.net/projects/guliverkli/) to play my media files.