VIA announces high end audio chip

[Wulfman]

http://www.via.com.tw/en/multimedia/envy24pt.jsp

The VIA Envy24PT is a multi-channel audio controller that delivers the latest audio standards in a versatile integrated solution. Enabling 24-bit resolution and 96KHz sampling rates, the VIA Envy24PT enables the latest audio content with breathtaking clarity. The VIA Envy24PT also supports up to 8-channel outputs enabling support for the latest Dolby Digital EX and DTS ES DVD-Video soundtracks.

no AC97 anymore?

mfg
wulfman

[K6-III]

Death to AC97!!!!

[Indiana]

Yes, VIA bought the ENVY chip which is a fine one and used in most higher end / non-gaming soundcards for the semi-professional users like those Gina ones.

[Chrono_Wanderer]

well... benefits for the end-users... at least if they release a built-in audio chip used in conjunction with mobo chipsets...

of course on-board VIA audio won't be for most of u NLE guys... if they dun fix their crap PCI bus

[The PIT]

I suppose Via will destroy the envy chip with bad drivers and revision. I wonder if boards equiped with this will suddenly delete your entire hard drive.

[K6-III]

I'm not so sure....the IC Ensemble team should have been retained...

[Chrono_Wanderer]

Originally posted by The PIT
I wonder if boards equiped with this will suddenly delete your entire hard drive.

lol

[[GDI]Raptor]

This will be alot of fun....

Creative vs VIA

Who makes the "best & bigest" driver.....

[Chrono_Wanderer]

a creative user may say: my audio drivers are bigger than my OS...

[rugger]

Umm, whats so interesting about this chip.

1) Its does not contain DAC/ADC components. Thus it does not output analog audio. Whatever codec is paired with this chip is what will determine the final quality of the analog audio. Unless the codec is REALLY good, it won't matter if you are doing 24/96 audio or 16/48 audio.

2) It does not go against the AC'97 design. The AC'97 design simply says that you have the sound processor and the DAC/mixers separate, and the specifications of the bus that connects them. The idea behind this was that the analog output was somewhat separated from the digital processor, giving cleaner output (Of couse, what the AC'97 specifications really did was split the hardware up, so that intel could absorb the sound processor into software and sell more powerful CPUs) With this VIA chip, it outputs to AC'97 for normal output and to I2S for digital output (and 24/96 output)

[K6-III]

Yeah, but AC97 forces you to resample all audio to 16/48, resampling which reduces audio quality.

By bypassing kmixer.dll and using ASIO output, you get absolutely no resampling...

[MultimediaMan]

They should rename the chipset "Despair".