[Glassman]

I've just received my 1212m and took of that sticker on the main chip, the markings are milled, but there is a clear trace of the bigger letters and it says Creative Audigy, not even Audigy2! now it's completely clear, it's just an old 10k2..

 

[roadtonowhere08]

Since I use mine to output music to an amp, this would not be of any importance to me since I would be more interested in the DAC, power regulating, and analogue output section, correct? The chip you are referring to pertains to the effects and all, or so I am assuming.

 

[Richteralan]

no need to pull off that sticker.
use system diagnostic program like AIDA32 or SiSoft SANDRA, you'll see those program recognize 1212m as Audigy....

 

[amol]

ugh, that sucks ; the DSP is a resampling one.

 

[Richteralan]

Quote:

Originally Posted by amol ugh, that sucks ; the DSP is a resampling one.

negative.
you can route the audio signal to skip the dsp

 

[breez]

Shouldn't this mean that it would be theoretically possible to make use of an EMU as one heck of a gaming card too?

 

[Eagle_Driver]

IIRC, the EMU10K2 is the same chip used in the Audigy2 and Audigy2 ZS, as well. Newer steppings of that DSP chip work at 32/48 instead of 16/48. But the WDM drivers for the EMU1212m don't support anything above 16/48. So, you can only take advantage of that card's superior capabilities only in music-listening and music-production applications with certain software that uses ASIO drivers. If, however, you use that card to play games or watch DVDs with, you'd be wasting your money with that card, as all audio from those sources (remember, there are no DVD players which support ASIO or Kernel Streaming) must go through the WDM drivers, which (as I said) are capped at 16/48.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Creative Labs bought E-MU quite a while back. Ever since then, the Sound Blaster line (starting with the Live!) has been based on lobotomized E-MU chips. I think the Live! was a dain-bramaged version of the E-MU 9000 chip, and the Audigy series has been based on the E-MU 10000 chip.

This doesn't take away from the quality of the real E-MU products, since they've always been a well-respected brand for musical equipment -- it's more sad to see what's been done to their technology to produce the Sound Blaster cards.

 

[Eagle_Driver]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dixie Flatline Creative Labs bought E-MU quite a while back. Ever since then, the Sound Blaster line (starting with the Live!) has been based on lobotomized E-MU chips. I think the Live! was a dain-bramaged version of the E-MU 9000 chip, and the Audigy series has been based on the E-MU 10000 chip. This doesn't take away from the quality of the real E-MU products, since they've always been a well-respected brand for musical equipment -- it's more sad to see what's been done to their technology to produce the Sound Blaster cards.

The Live! actually used the E-MU 10K1 chip. The Audigys (except the current budget Audigy LS) use the E-MU 10K2. (The Audigy LS uses a lower-cost chip made especially for that model, which lacks a lot of features at hardware level.)

And don't forget the Sound Blaster AWE32 and AWE64 series (ISA bus): That card used the E-MU 8000 chip.

 

[Dixie Flatline]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eagle_Driver The Live! actually used the E-MU 10K1 chip. The Audigys (except the current budget Audigy LS) use the E-MU 10K2. And don't forget the Sound Blaster AWE32 and AWE64 series (ISA bus): That card used the E-MU 8000 chip.

Right, should have said 10000-series for the Audigys. And thank you -- I'd completely forgotten about the AWE's. I avoided Creative products for a long time, but I eventually got tired of every soundcard manufacturer I bought from going out of business (MediaVision, Gravis, Aureal... the list goes on), gave in to the dark side, and picked up an SB Live! a few years ago.

Actually, I was hoping the trend would continue and Creative Labs would go under as soon as I bought one of their products, but it doesn't seem to have happened yet.

 

[yeeyy]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Eagle_Driver IIRC, the EMU10K2 is the same chip used in the Audigy2 and Audigy2 ZS, as well. Newer steppings of that DSP chip work at 32/48 instead of 16/48. But the WDM drivers for the EMU1212m don't support anything above 16/48. So, you can only take advantage of that card's superior capabilities only in music-listening and music-production applications with certain software that uses ASIO drivers. If, however, you use that card to play games or watch DVDs with, you'd be wasting your money with that card, as all audio from those sources (remember, there are no DVD players which support ASIO or Kernel Streaming) must go through the WDM drivers, which (as I said) are capped at 16/48.

I thought the WDM driver support 24/48?

 

[Rempert]

If, however, you use that card to play games or watch DVDs with, you'd be wasting your money with that card, as all audio from those sources (remember, there are no DVD players which support ASIO or Kernel Streaming) must go through the WDM drivers, which (as I said) are capped at 16/48.

You would still be taking advantage of the analog section of the card, which I assume would be a huge improvement over the Audigy series (with the obvious limitation of only having 2 channels, though). And I would also assume that the DACs would be an improvement, even at 16/48, and even though Audigy has pretty good DACs.

How much of the Audigy 1/2's processing capabilities come from this chip? And how many of those do the E-Mu drivers actually recognize? It's an interesting line of thought, but it probably leads to a dead end.

 

[Distroyed]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Rempert How much of the Audigy 1/2's processing capabilities come from this chip? And how many of those do the E-Mu drivers actually recognize? It's an interesting line of thought, but it probably leads to a dead end.

This is what Creative would have us believe at least....

 

[Mr.Radar]

Can anyone here try the Linux Audigy drivers with an EMU card? If it works that would be good news for Linux users.

 

[kalzone]

this is coming straight from the mouth of EMU, but the dsp on the EMU 1212M is not the exact model and it does NOT resample. the drivers/patchmix prevent that by only allowing the use of dsp effects when set to 44.1khz or 48khz. also, the dsp does all processing in 32bit unlike either audigy or the audigy 2.
check out the forums on http://www.productionforums.com/emu/ where an EMU employee frequents by the name of ICHI.

yeeyy, is right. the WDM drivers do support upto 24bit/48khz although new drives which are supposed to be released soon will support 96khz/192khz in WDM.