Now this looks interesting

[Snake-Eyes]

Originally posted by MultimediaMan
As long as you don't have an AMD 760 chipset board, you're ok. (For those who don't know: the onboard USB is broken...badly, unfixably broke in silicon. Most vendors are shipping USB2.0 PCI cards with their boards)

Really? That's strange. My Asus A7M266 didn't come with a USB2.0 card, and I'm using a USB printer as well as a USB Sony Memory Stick reader just fine. And I have been since I bought this motherboard (I built the whole system myself all at the same time). Guess the badly, unfixably broke silicon is only on some systems?

[The PIT]

I've heard of problems with the new amd mulit processor chip 760mx ??? and usb.

[MultimediaMan]

Yes, the MX chipset is the one having problems...big time. Right now, about the only place to get one of these problem chips is on a Dual AMD.

As far as audio goes, step back for a second. If audio is such a big deal, then why do people still use ISA cards for Pro Audio editing? (In Stereo at least...). ISA bandwidth is REALISTICALLY 7 Mbps, though it can theoretically go as high as 16 Mbps again sticking with ISA PNP, and we don't need to go into EISA...enough on the Spec mongering, ok?

With the PCI bus new problems were introduced: most audio problems revolve around addressing and shared bandwidth: Audio requires good latency for good sound on the PCI bus, and when you try to do real time audio effects in 4,5 or 6 channels along with graphics and input devices. (Not unlike a lot of complaints about USB Audio sharing with other devices.) A good deal of these problems can be traced to poor drivers.

As far as sound quality goes, USB is about as good as it can get, digitally speaking, on paper; it's just that some manufacturers haven't really figured out USB drivers and chipsets - or don't see the need to (CoughVIACough). Ever since Intel introduced the 430TX chipset, a stable USB Bus/interface has been available that will support audio reasonably well, I've listened to a set of Microsoft USB powered speakers and they sounded pretty good..but gaming with those and a P233MMX didn't go too well. Hey, it's 4 years later now...give the development teams SOME credit.

Onkyo and Yamaha both offer USB Audio devices for the PC...the Yamaha unit even has a virtual 5.1 for headphones that is quite realistic. Bith are priced above the average person's means for such a thing though...about 600 USD for the Yamaha rig as of a couple of months ago.

Gurm goes off saying it's crap even before he's heard it. That's what prompted the reply.

[Gurm]

Look, I go off saying it's crap because it IS crap.

Creative are billing this as some astonishing solution... but for whom? Laptop users? Already have built-in sound. Desktop users? Have a PCI sound card.

Who will benefit from this? Not gamers. Their own FAQ says that anything beyond casual gaming is a no-no. So who are they trying to sell this to? It's hugely overpriced and underpowered. So are the devices from Onkyo and Yamaha - but yes, they provide astonishing fidelity if you want to listen to your PC on your home stereo.

That's the ONE useful thing about this - it's component quality audio, no signal degradation, etc.

But that doesn't change the fact that once you try to stream a half dozen sounds to it at once (your average game) or a couple full speed digital streams (DVD), it'll break down faster than you can say "POS".

- Gurm

[dZeus]

MultiMediaMan, you can say since the 4 years that USB Audio has been introduced many things probably have been 'fixed', but for a fact the bandwidth of USB 1.x has remained the same. There also haven't been introduced any revolutionary lossless audio-compression schemes that could have helped.

Think about it: ISA soundcards never had a DSP for 3D Audio effects... there's a reason for this: lack of bandwidth

[MultimediaMan]

We are in agreement, then about whether or not it will work. The thing probably sounds great and works well within narrowly defined limits, but probably won't work great (if at all) for serious gaming (unless MAYBE you've got a P4 2.2 and a ton of RAM under the hood, and you turn the sound acceleration settings down to nil).

This USB scheme has been demonstrated to work with Software DVD Decoding, however. There is little or no additional overhead to worry about since the audio decoding is done in software already...all the USB interface is doing at this point is forwarding the information to the offboard decoder.

I'm not sure, but I think all audio devices are high speed USB devices. I wasn't able to find any documentation on exactly what spec the Extigy uses.

I have used multiple USB devices for Gaming for years (Joystick, Mouse and Keyboard; I like my IRQs) with only a few game-specific problems which I have not experienced for about two years. Of course, these are all low bandwidth devices, but they are running concurrently (All three used in my Joystick-supported FPS, and all Flightsims and Combatflightsims.)

[Gurm]

Actually I don't think the processor will have a hell of a lot to do with it. It's really just an issue of how much data you can (or can't) pump out over an aging USB port. I don't know why they don't make these things FireWire. It's not like the target audience (audiophiles with nice computers) doesn't have the $50 to drop on a FireWire card.

I mean, AT LEAST making them USB 2.0 would be a major help, although less people have that than FireWire.

Hey, who knows? Maybe Creative will surprise us and this'll auto-sense USB 2.0 and work bett... GOD, what am I saying? This is Creative, right?

- Gurm

[MultimediaMan]

Yes, we are talking about Creative, unfortunately...What WERE we thinking!