Update on personal SBLive tests

[Dr Mordrid]

That's the same conclusion I reached. The Santa Cruz/Sonic Fury has to be the top choice for video systems at this point.

What really got me were the almost imperceptible CPU loadings with the Santa Cruz. Obviously that big Cirrus Logic DSP taking over the load....

Piece of advice: when installing the Santa Cruz in Win2K FOLLOW THE INSTRUCTION SHEET TO THE LETTER. The installation procedure is non-intuitive. Also, get the multi-mixer patch and install it too. Even if you don't think you need it, you might.

Dr. Mordrid

[AndrewDV]

Update on personal SBLive tests

Hello,

Just wanted to pass this along. I have been testing the new 4.31 VIA 4in1 drivers to see if the SBLive plays nicer with my system. FYI, here is my system:

Win2K
IWill KK266-R
Matrox Marvel G400-TV
Hauppage WinTV-Radio
Promise FastTrack-100
Linksys Ethernet
128MB
2-45GB IBM 75gxp (RAID0)
1-20GB WD (non-RAID)
1-20GB Maxtor (non-RAID)
Panasonic 16x DVD slot
Mitusmi CDRW

After installing the VIA drivers, I captured with 3 different sound cards: CMI8378 (onboard), SBLive!, and the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. All captures where done with sound from a Hi8 source through SVideo using the WinTV-Radio plus AVI_IO. Both Huffyuv and PIC MJPEG were used as codecs. Resolution captured was 640x480.

Also, I tested capturing audio separately from the LineIn as well as Mic to check for the snap, crack, pop problems (levels checked for clipping after taking VMU samples).

Here is what I notice:

CMI8378
=======
-Approximately 70+ drops for a 45minute capture. Sometimes, it reached over 150 drops for the same capture.
-Intermittent stutters in playback.
-Good audio levels.
-No snaps, crackles or pops.
-AVI_IO buffers are in the 1-7 range.

SBLive!
=======
-Approximately 10-15 drops for a 45 minute capture.
-With the exception of bad frames from the drops, playback is fine.
-Low audio levels.
-No snaps, crackles or pops.
-AVI_IO buffers are in the 1-5 range.

Turtle Beach Santa Cruz
=======================
-0 drops for a 45 minute capture
-Playback had no problems.
-Great audio levels
-No snaps, crackles or pops.
-AVI_IO buffers are in the 0-2 range.

*Note1: Playback analysis done through MSP6
*Note2: ACPI was turned off.

I had high hopes the onboard sound would show good results. The sound, itself, is good. However, there is obviously some strain on the system. The 4in1 drivers did nothing to elivate the situation.

The 4in1 drivers have seemed to help the SBLive. Before the install, I was getting about twice the number of drops. The snap, crackle, pop errors I had before are now gone. However, there is cause for concern on those dropped frames when compared to the Santa Cruz. The SBLive is probably good enough for a game machine, but could cause trouble for video capture.

To me, the Santa Cruz is still the top of the list. There are no problems when using it with video capture. The audio levels on this card are much nicer than the SBLive. It worked great before and after the 4in1 drivers were installed.

Well, hope that helps someone out there.