DW87
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Anyone know how good the sound card (if its indeed a card) is in the PS3? Can anyone draw a comparison to anything the PC offers?
Originally Posted by little-endian /img/forum/go_quote.gif I suppose, you're referring to the analog output (L/R), the PS3 offers via Multi Out. Strictly speaking, your question cannot be answered because it is invalid in the first place. A PC by itself offers no sound at all. All depends on the used sound card in most cases. I'd claim that the PS3 audio chipset should be pretty decent in terms of the audio quality. Most likely beyond on-board chipsets like AC97, used for pc-audio. However, in practise this will be hardly of any interest since most of the PS3's audio features can be only used via S/PDIF or HDMI anyway, where the quality is determined by the used DAC (assumed that the data is 'bit perfect' which should be the case). |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif Your answer cannot be used, because it is invalid and full of factual errors. |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif In the first place, a PC by itself does offer audio processing abilities, it merely requires some device to output these to the world, such as a codec or other audio processor. |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif As far as AC-97, its just a standard that specifies basic abilities of a codec or audio processor, and the majority of modern PCs are lightyears beyond it in processing ability and quality. |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif To compare the DSP ability of the PS3 to a modern personal computer, you'd get a pretty fair fight, both are capable of surround sound processing, dozens of voices/effects at once, and offer good quality output. Just because the PS3 prefers digital output, doesn't mean the internal processor isn't doing anything (to the contrary, its doing quite a bit, all its "not" doing is including the internal D/A in the chain). |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif As far as sound quality goes, its hard to say, as video games generally have low quality audio mixes (its hard to do cinematic grade work, when you're talking about free-form VR), however the PS3 is generally viewed as a competent blu-ray player, so that should give some insight to its audio quality as a transport, the issue of course is that its still limited by the quality of the disc transport (and if the PS1 and PS2 are any indication, that would likely be the lowest quality part in the entire unit) |
Originally Posted by little-endian /img/forum/go_quote.gif Nice introduction from someone providing information based on half knowledge. Let's see ... |
This is an error in reasoning and hence wrong: A "PC by itself" (nice term, isn't it?) is an automat processing data. Nothing more and nothing less. It isn't actually aware of something like audio at all. It's the rendering device (usually a sound card) which creates the audio. |
One might debate here; of course, AC97 is no reference in quality but already above what was counted to "high end" many years ago. The demands increase but one should remember that the human's hearing capabilities can't be extended that easily (if at all one day). |
Except when dealing with game sound or resampling stuff, DSP capabilities aren't used at all by the PS3. For instance, when watching a movie from Blu-ray or DVD, the audio might be converted to PCM or forwarded as a "bitstream", but that's nothing too special and done by the CPU, driven by software. |
Except some tolerance existing when converting from lossy codecs to PCM, the sound is determined by the DAC only if correctly implemented. Disc transport is - despite many voodoo bla bla - not an issue at all. Better than error-free on the user-data level is simply not possible and if handled correctly by the DAC, jitter won't be an issue either as long as withing the tolerance of detecting it error-free. |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif what what fun, you wanna pick a fight |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif I know, but talking about yousrelf isn't very polite |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif A "PC by itself" is simply a computer, a computer is a device for processing data, period, doesn't matter what the data is, and it can't be aware of anything (period), meaning it can process audio, video, email, whatever the hell you want, all it does is read directions, perform operations, rinse and repeat, day in and day out, it doesn't make decisions, it doesn't discriminate, audio processing is no different, the reason we have a "sound card" is to offload processing labor from the primary computer (the CPU for you folks at home) and its primary memory, as processing audio is a highly recursive and repetitive process (constant load, op, and repeat cycles, very little actual math in its most basic form), which means a DSP can leverage its internal parallelism quite nicely, hence Creative and Aureal pushing sound cards in the '90's, and so on, now as far as actually giving us a codec (that'd be your AC'97) to take analog signals in, and put analog signals out is simply a convience to our ears and wallets, as digital speakers are quite expensive, quite large, and quite frankly, sound like crap, in other words, you're wrong on this count |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif an integrated intel standard considered "high end"? I'd really love to know where you're getting this from, and what "demands increase human hearing", blah blah blah sounds about right |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif this is one of those days I hate arguing with non-CS majors, who believe that software exists only for a CPU and discrete hardware is somehow unique and special |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif , and not just another accessory co-processor, converting the exceptionally high bitrate data from Bluray, such as Dolby TrueHD, is exceptionally taxing of a modern GPCPU (however, PS3 does not use a GPCPU, it uses CBEA, which is essentially DSP-zilla, it'd still be wasteful to use though), while a purposed DSP can handle the task quite easily, leaving the main computer (the CPU you're mythically speaking of) more or less free (its actually quite involved, however thats probably beyond the scope of this discussion), the DSP power in PS3 is generally unleveraged for PCM to PCM or similar passthroughs, true, however I didn't say it was always used, I said it was comparable to something like EMU20k or CMI8788, it can handle surround decoding and processing, making the PS3 a suitable transport and suitable gaming device (as it can handle positional audio, probably better than CMI8788/AV200 to be quite fair) |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif love how you're ignoring jitter and other issues that studios and production facilities spend thousands to combat, obviously just wasted money, eh? honestly the transport stage does matter, because you very likely won't even approach better than error free, let alone true error freedom, then you have to contend with other issues, for example error handling (which is one of the largest individual studies of computer science), does it throw exceptions elegantly, or does it make a ruckus? yes we could get into arguing that PS3 is crap if connected to a poor DAC and all that, all so that little endian can whip it out and whoop in the air, thats fine ... |
Originally Posted by little-endian /img/forum/go_quote.gif If your claim is that jitter of the source necessarily determines the final audio quality, the consulted half knowledge can be proven and hence is a fact. No need to feed the ... you know. If I misunderstood, you may forgive. |
Besides that, I'm afraid we talk at cross-purposes. You're writing something in confusing sentences about DSP, I stick with the pure D/A-conversion for now. The DSP-capabilities of a PS3 are beyond my interest here, just to prevent wrong expectances. |
In the case of the lossless codecs, there are only correct implementations and faulty ones. The first will lead to the original PCM data. Assuming that, it is not really important who does the decompression task since the result will be the same. No need to discuss further here. |
I'm not ignoring jitter, I just say: It is not the transport's problem as long as the jitter stays within the tolerance according to the standard (S/PDIF for instance). It is the converter's task to handle it and the approach to reduce jitter at the source stage, is ... well in German we say "vergebliche Liebesmüh'" (according to a dictionary "forlorn hope"; I hope that gets to the point). Benchmark for instance is one of the few manufacturers that seems to be fully aware of it. Quality without voodoo. I greatly appreciate that. |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif As far as sound quality goes, its hard to say, as video games generally have low quality audio mixes (its hard to do cinematic grade work, when you're talking about free-form VR), however the PS3 is generally viewed as a competent blu-ray player, so that should give some insight to its audio quality as a transport, the issue of course is that its still limited by the quality of the disc transport (and if the PS1 and PS2 are any indication, that would likely be the lowest quality part in the entire unit) |
Originally Posted by milkweg /img/forum/go_quote.gif You can rip music CDs to the PS3 @256kb/s so don't need to use the cd transport at all. I can't tell the difference between lossless and 256kb/s MP3 so let's not go there next please. Sound quality from PS3>Onkyo receiver via digital sounds the same to me as PC>EMU 0404 via digital>Onkyo via analog. I plan to put in a 500GB HDD in the PS3 and have my complete MP3 collection there and on my PC. PS3 is perfectly good source and transport device, IMO. |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif no idea where you're going here, but I agree with what you're saying 100%, so I guess I forgive? (no clue really, if jitter can be corrected at some point, its "less of an issue") I was never talking about the PS3 as high jitter/low jitter, I was talking about the device's high failure rate (for some reason Sony just can't get a qualiy disc transport (usually the laser pickups) into the PlayStation series, they build some of the best CD, DVD, SACD, and Blu-Ray transports on earth, yet their foray into gaming consoles is notorious for early laser death) |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif analog speakers, given that digital speakers are a pain, we convert that disjoint signal to a continuous one ... |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif haven't the slighest how old you're talking here, I've never viewed AC97/DC97 as "high end", because in its day, very few used their computer as a respectable transport, it was just suitable for plucking along in Quake or Doom, and perhaps sound effects from time to time, however any "audio" equipment of the 1980's or 1990's was vastly ahead in quality (although I'm sure the 1880's would've appreciated it) |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif as the only way to output them is via HDMI (where they're passed off digitally), such a shame really |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif ultimately my point is, the original poster's question is valid, and its quite rude to say otherwise, |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif the point on the PS3's transport being garbage is that you're locked into using the disc drive on the PS3 (if anyone out there has a PS3 and can clear this up 100%, that'd be great) as your input device for any media, so while the transport might not be a problem while its working, if it bites it, you're gonna be in for a world of hurt (meaning I wouldn't view the PS3, on the whole, as a reference transport, due to reliability issues) |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif by digital speakers, I mean digital speakers, Digital speakers - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif I really don't feel the AC97 to have "flat frequency response", but I understand now what you're comparing it to (*looks over to see AWE32 on the shelf*) |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif my issue with the HDMI connection is that while the PS3 has massive DSP power to decode these lossless data containers, and could likely do it faster and cleaner than some equipment its connected to (i.e: higher fidelity), instead it just hands them off via HDMI (in other words, I'd rather have it done inside the PS3, as its got the processing power to do it right, if you're using it as a transport you likely don't own a $1000+ receiver (because most who do, also have discrete players as well) or D/A processor to handle things) |
Originally Posted by obobskivich /img/forum/go_quote.gif oh I didn't actually know the PS3 let you rip content to it, I thought that was a PSX only feature, well thats another plus nobody is talking about lossless vs lossy here, just the quality of the device for audio playback cool to know that it supports being a media library |