[Evshrug]

Looks interesting, if the driver support is there this may be a step forward. Now, hopefully the SBX Pro Studio effects are supported longer than the THX Studio Pro and more widely leveraged by game developers.

Shame the white paper isn't available at the time of this writing, demystifying Creative's future plans would help inspire more confidence... despite the continued possibility of those plans being dropped. I think there is a difference between keeping up with the latest audio tech developments, and breaking feature functionality.

 

[Phos]

 
Great friggen demo, you proved that binaural dummy head recordings work.  

 

[NamelessPFG]

I have a sneaking suspicion that these "SBX Pro" effects are just rebranded "THX TruStudio Pro" effects, which are in turn likely rebranded X-Fi features (most notably the Crystalizer and bass boost, perhaps CMSS-3D Headphone too).
 
Sure makes me wish Creative would just drop the buzzwords and keep their names for everything straight, but this frankly isn't anything new...it makes my quest for gaming audio knowledge a lot harder than it needs to be.

 

[Evshrug]

*sigh* They probably just stopped paying for the rights to use the THX brand name.
And that binaural demo is indeed lame. Sure, you can use a dummy to record real life audio for scripted events, but what about dynamic effects in-engine, in-game?

 

[Evshrug]

Anyway, their earnings report isn't encouraging. Basically, they have less net loss in this quarter this year than last because, despite a decrease in sales, Creative managed to trim their overhead. Now, if they had something on the table such as working with console developers to develop the sound systems in the next generation of consoles, they would have brighter prospects and assured income. To their credit, other PR statements indicate R&D for sound processors for Android devices, which may help a lot, but the end of the revenue report clearly states that they expect to continue operating at a loss in their "difficult and uncertain market."

I like all forms of videogames, but let's hope the market doesn't get dominated by smartphone shovelware.

 

[Fegefeuer]

Quote:

I have a sneaking suspicion that these "SBX Pro" effects are just rebranded "THX TruStudio Pro" effects, which are in turn likely rebranded X-Fi features (most notably the Crystalizer and bass boost, perhaps CMSS-3D Headphone too).
 
Sure makes me wish Creative would just drop the buzzwords and keep their names for everything straight, but this frankly isn't anything new...it makes my quest for gaming audio knowledge a lot harder than it needs to be.

 
No, a Creative guy actually mumbled something about calculation/processing of multiple audio streams (gaming) under Windows 8. Creative is actually quite serious with their new lineup. Windows 8 is superior to Windows 7 regarding audio and back on track with hardware acceleration. http://blog.cakewalk.com/windows-8-a-benchmark-for-music-production-applications/
 
I will look deeper into it but SBX Surround is definitely not like Dolby Headphone or Thx TruStudio Pro. 

 

[NamelessPFG]

Quote:

No, a Creative guy actually mumbled something about calculation/processing of multiple audio streams (gaming) under Windows 8. Creative is actually quite serious with their new lineup. Windows 8 is superior to Windows 7 regarding audio and back on track with hardware acceleration. http://blog.cakewalk.com/windows-8-a-benchmark-for-music-production-applications/
 
I will look deeper into it but SBX Surround is definitely not like Dolby Headphone or Thx TruStudio Pro. 

 
We'll see about that. I'm naturally skeptical of Creative's marketing habits, even if their hardware can sound pretty nice once you know what the various settings actually do. The problem is finding out what equates to what.
 
As for Windows 8, there's a lot of back-end improvements under the hood, but I still don't think it's worth putting up with Metro for the time being. I'll give it some time for the third-party app developers to make the UI more palatable on KB+M. (More specifically, the charms menu and Metro app switcher. I HATE having to use hot corners to bring them up. What I would rather have is a global taskbar across both desktop and Metro interfaces with buttons for the various charms...)

 

[Evshrug]

Hey nameless, excited about getting the mail today?
Me too! Especially since I never did find a way to restore my Mac's audio. If you know a good sound driver sweeper that would work for Mac it would really help me try again, or if my motherboard's S/PDIF out recognizes the external DAC in my Receiver in place of a built in audio device/soundcard, but it's nice that I'll now have an option and comparison to Silent Cinema. We'll see if I keep mine, but I'm highly interested what someone like you with more technical experience will get out of it.
Just another hour and a half...

 

[Evshrug]

Ah, my Recon3D isn't arriving today. They did that thing where UPS hands it off to the USPS (despite UPS deliving packages to our neighborhood), UPS tracking says it was delivered to the post office yesterday morning while USPS claims they're still waiting for it. Normally, I wouldn't care about a day's delay, even for a new toy, but my mom is determined to shut down our Internet in September, and I don't know how that'll affect my ability to make returns, worse make timely replies to job search contacts.
Sad face.

 

[NamelessPFG]

Sorry, but my Mac OS X knowledge is a bit limited. Just uninstalling drivers after they're installed leaves me confused a lot of the time, as there doesn't seem to be a dedicated uninstall control panel like in Windows (or Linux, through package managers). Instead, you have to hope that the driver installer leaves some sort of uninstall script somewhere.
 
That, and the only Macs I ever owned were old PowerBook G3s, which the Recon3D USB wouldn't support anyway (Intel-only drivers).
 
I wasn't expecting it to arrive today anyway; the estimated delivery date clearly says Wednesday. I am surprised that they'd hand it over to USPS when they could've delivered it themselves today, though. Perhaps that's what happens when you don't pay up for UPS Ground at the minimum.
 
Also, that would suck if you lost your Internet connection. I don't know what I'd do without an Internet connection of my own...it's just too valuable of a resource to me.

 

[Phos]

Quote:

Hey nameless, excited about getting the mail today?

Me too! Especially since I never did find a way to restore my Mac's audio. If you know a good sound driver sweeper that would work for Mac it would really help me try again, or if my motherboard's S/PDIF out recognizes the external DAC in my Receiver in place of a built in audio device/soundcard, but it's nice that I'll now have an option and comparison to Silent Cinema. We'll see if I keep mine, but I'm highly interested what someone like you with more technical experience will get out of it.
Just another hour and a half...

You could try restoring the OS, maybe using the internet restore thing.  There doesn't seem to be a heck of a lot of recourse for macs when they go wrong short of apple stores.  

 

[Evshrug]

Sorry, but my Mac OS X knowledge is a bit limited. Just uninstalling drivers after they're installed leaves me confused a lot of the time, as there doesn't seem to be a dedicated uninstall control panel like in Windows (or Linux, through package managers). Instead, you have to hope that the driver installer leaves some sort of uninstall script somewhere.

That, and the only Macs I ever owned were old PowerBook G3s, which the Recon3D USB wouldn't support anyway (Intel-only drivers).

I wasn't expecting it to arrive today anyway; the estimated delivery date clearly says Wednesday. I am surprised that they'd hand it over to USPS when they could've delivered it themselves today, though. Perhaps that's what happens when you don't pay up for UPS Ground at the minimum.

Also, that would suck if you lost your Internet connection. I don't know what I'd do without an Internet connection of my own...it's just too valuable of a resource to me.

Well, the thing about Mac drivers... Since Apple knows all the hardware configurations, you don't have to install drivers. I went looking, and besides USB sound "cards" the only PCI expansion slot cards for the Mac Pros start around $1000, and they ain't gaming cards. In my case, things like losing sound are a risk of hacking support for custom hardware. I don't know if it'd ever interest you, but the website tonymacx86. Com wrote all the translation stuff I used and they have a bunch of helpful guides, including one about re-installing audio and Ethernet drivers after an update (thank god the Ethernet carried over so that just worked). In the guide, it basically says try to use their update tool once or twice, and if that doesn't work, reinstall the OS or revert to a backup. I have a backup option, but apparently I never turned it on. So I've got my stuff backed up as it is now, but I'm dealing with other things than reinstalling the OS nicely onto the translation layer right now, and the Recon3D should work and prevent future problems. I didn't really expect you to hand me a golden packet of answers (though that would've been shiny!), few people use Macs, fewer still bother to build their own.

I should've pony'd up for UPS Ground, sometimes the options aren't clear except for the estimated number of days. I also ordered it a day before you, and new jersey is the next state over from me.

Thanks for the Internet sympathy, it's part of my Mom's ongoing war against videogames. The side effects are worse, but this isn't as bad as the time I was playing a fighting game with a friend (who isn't very coordinated in games that aren't racing), I was winning pretty easily, and my sister ran upstairs and told my mom that we were beating up girls. My mom legit thought the girls were programmed to lose (dead or alive 2, kasumi vs hayate), and made me break the disk in half. Back to the current day, I'm just hoping to get past the email stage of job interviews before the Internet goes down, because moving out was my plan all along anyway.

 

[NamelessPFG]

Apple can account for internal hardware, but USB devices are another matter. They sure don't provide drivers for USB/FireWire audio devices, Wacom drawing tablets, and other assorted peripherals out-of-the-box.
 
I thought about Hackintoshing a few times because my primary desktop's components were, by coincidence, quite compatible with Hackintoshing efforts. However, I then realized that for a machine primarily used for gaming, using an OS that isn't Windows would largely be pointless, especially given the loss of hardware sound acceleration due to X-Fi non-support.
 
Then there's how OS X Lion started taking a turn for the worse interface-wise AND removed Rosetta, denying PowerPC backwards compatibility. I hope Snow Leopard still remains a viable option for years to come, but the harsh reality of OS X is that if you use a version more than once removed from the latest version, you're going to lose third-party app support very quickly. OS X Tiger has already lost support for even basic things like Web browsers, yet those same Web browsers STILL support Windows XP (released around the same time the earliest versions of OS X were). Go figure...
 
...Holy crap, your mom is nuts. Thank goodness my parents never were THAT insanely misguided about videogames. I wish you luck on your job search so that you can move out before the worst comes to pass.

 

[Evshrug]

Its true, printers and Wacom tablets get full functionality once the mfr drivers and software are installed, but my Wacom capture worked as a two button "mouse" (pointing device) with pen and touch out of the box, and the generic Mac drivers actually allow tabloid-sized printing/scaling on my grandfather's wide-format printer while his Windows 7 laptop only prints 8x10.5 sheets or an 8x10.5 sized image on the top-right of a tabloid sheet, lol. But yeah, after Bungie's Mac and Mac only games, AmbrosiaSW's Escape Velocity series, the Mac/Windows simultaneous releases of Lucasarts (Full Throttle!!!) and Blizzard games, and the failure of the Pippin (LOL), Mac gaming... died.

I actually find the fighting game story funny despite having lived it, sometime while owning a dreamcast was when she started really to grow her hate for games. Around the time when it was never ok to play games (and after breaking that one game) was when I started hiding my habits, and playing more than ever before, lol! It's like that kid who grew up only allowed to drink soda or eat candy but three times a month, then they get some measure of freedom and go completely overboard on the junk food.

 

[HalidePisces]

There seem to be a lot of USB sound cards around these days. Is there a quality difference between PCI/PCIe and USB? Also, NamelessPFG, did you get around to trying the Dolby/DTS decoding for the older X-Fi cards?