Talk:Sound Blaster

message: This badly looks like a sales pitch:
: It has 10,340 MIPS of processing power (for reference, a 3.6 GHz Pentium 4 has 10,224 MIPS). This is 24 times more power than offered by the Audigy. [...] X-Fi will also bring about 24 bit 3D MIDI. For more information, see Creative's website.
That content and wording sounds like it was directly ripped from one of Creative's Web pages. As the MIPS article which is linked to describes, it is a number only really quotable for marketing purposes. You don't see Pentium 4 even mention MIPS, for example.
I'm going to scrub it. Leedar 06:55, 8 October 2005 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sound Blaster X-Fi 

message: Someone forgot this card from 1996! The name is Sound Blaster 32
 
*I have one. It's basically an AWE32. They even have the 30-pin RAM slots. Completely compatible with AWE32. I will put a paragraph about it in. --Swaaye 20:00, 5 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: I have a SB AWE32 CT3780 which has no SIMM slots and no ASP. It does have 3 different CD drive connectors. IIRC it was either some sort of OEM card or a value card Nil Einne 14:26, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sound Blaster 32 missing! 

message: I have one. These are rebranded ensoniq chips, but this doesn't mean they don't support soundfonts. Though they are in Ensoniq format, typically named *.ecw. At least they are included on the install cd. It seems that due to lack of format information there are no selfmade .ecw soundfonts around?!?
141.48.167.181 11:05, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text:  The .ecw files aren't Soundfonts. They are "Ensoniq Concert Wavetable" sound sets and are in a completely different, and unknown, format. Ensoniq never bothered to release information on them so no one was ever able to make a custom set, to my knowledge. No board with an ES137x chip can use Soundfonts. You can not load a Soundfont in DOS on an Audigy->SBLive due to the use of this Ensoniq driver, btw. SoundFonts are an E-mu technology and are only supported in Windows, never in DOS. Even on a ISA SBAWE32 you had to load them in Windows if you wanted to use them with a DOS game. Tricky. --Swaaye 18:58, 25 January 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you sure? I distinctly remember loading soundfonts in DOS on some card, possibly an AWE32 or an AWE64... Indeed I seem to remember one or two DOS games even came with soundfonts an autoloaded them (not as common as with Gus patches tho IIRC) Nil Einne 14:32, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sound Blaster PCI64, PCI128 does support Soundfonts 

message: 84.254.189.37 18:39, 29 January 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  sound card/sound blaster 

message: According to Crossfire Design the SB 16, at least the original version, is actually a 12-Bit card that can accept 16-Bit data. Does anyone know if this truly is the case? Anss123 16:39, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
replies: text: Yes, this is correct.  The Adlib Gold used 12-bit DACs and marketed itself as a 12-bit card... Creative, in their shrewd sneaky ways, did exactly the same thing but marketed the card as a 16-bit card and propogated the myth by having the card only accept 16-bit data, which the DSP would truncate before feeding to the D/A converters.  So this was yet another stab in the heart for AdLib (poor little guy :-) --Trixter 16:24, 12 April 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  SoundBlaster 16 truly 12-Bit? 

message: :The Sound Blaster family of sound cards was for many years the de facto standard for audio on the IBM PC compatible system platform, before PC audio became commoditized, and backward-compatibility became less of a feature.
This seems rather wrong to me. IMHO, the reason backward compatibility and Sound Blaster lost it's de facto standard was primarily because of Windows. Windows basically removed the need for backward compatibility, yuo only need a Windows driver. It was with Windows that Creative's dominance really began to crumble. Up to then, you SB was what you needed for games (which was what you generally needed audio for, baring the odd CD). Sure Gus and Roland MIDI boards had some support but SB was the defacto standard. No credible game didn't support SB. 14:41, 16 June 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  Intro statement 

message: I have an AWE64 here (CT4380, made early 1997), and the EMU8011 has an interesting piece of information in its markings. The originals used an 
Asahi Kasei Microelectronics (AKM)-made EMU8011 with an AKM-specific part number, but this one was apparently made by UMC, and has a standard part number: UM23C8100. Googling "23C8100" turns up an 8-megabit mask ROM, capable of operating in either 8-bit (1M x 8) or 16-bit (512k x 16) mode; the AWE cards would be using it in 16-bit mode. Since the AWE32 has always had ROM patches, and the part number and package haven't changed since the first AWE32/SB32, I would say the theory of this being an effects CPU is dead in the water.  -lee 17:10, 3 October 2006 (UTC)
thread_title:  EMU8011 

message: http://www.answers.com/topic/sound-blaster has largely the same text as the wikipedia, including an annoying error I corrected here ("The SB32 lacked onboard RAM no Wave Blaster header, and no CSP port."). Who copied who? Jalwikip 15:05, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: They copied Wikipedia, it says so in the article.--Anss123 22:27, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  answers.com 

message: I remember that Creative used to sell CD kits with a Sound Blaster, CD drive, and a bunch of games, and called it the Game Blaster... I think there's also a modchip for the PSX called GameBlaster. --Ttttttttttt 01:58, 28 March 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Game Blaster

message: There has to be an own section for the Resampling issues! I think this a quite anoing "feature" and the articel should stress it in an obviouse way —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 84.56.175.158 (talk) 17:17, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
replies: text: Are you referring to the 48KHz resampeling done by the SB Live? You guys actually could hear that? W3ird.--Anss123 17:20, 17 April 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  Resampling 

message: :Image:Sound Blaster Org.jpg is being used on this article. I notice the image page specifies that the image is being used under fair use but there is no explanation or rationale as to why its use in this Wikipedia article constitutes fair use. In addition to the boilerplate fair use template, you must also write out on the image description page a specific explanation or rationale for why using this image in each article is consistent with fair use.
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BetacommandBot (talk) 07:59, 15 January 2008 (UTC)
thread_title: Fair use rationale for Image:Sound Blaster Org.jpg

message: Can anyone confirm the dates for the C/MS (1987) and original Sound Blaster (1987?)
When I got a Radio Shack Game Blaster, I had heard the Sierra demo tape that came out in 1988, and nobody had heard of the Sound Blaster yet.  I can't remember how I learned of it, but there must have been some next-big-thing-be-on-the-bleeding-edge announcement about it in some context in my life at the time.  When I did get one, it was a very early example with hand solder bridges, and it must have been 1988 or later.
It troubles me to think that the Sound Blaster could have already existed at that time.  I remember talking to Creative on the phone.  They sproke vely bad Engrish, and had obviously just gotten their toes wet getting into the US market.  In fact, I might have had to order the original Sound Blaster directly from them, come to think of it.
If anyone knows of a way to confirm the timeline, that would ease my mind, even if it turns out my memory is off.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Dmmcintyre (talk • contribs) 01:51, 16 March 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: Date of Sound Blaster 1.0 seems wrong, see http://www.islandnet.com/~kpolsson/comphist/ or http://library.thinkquest.org/22522/timeline4_en.html . They are also speaking about founding Creative Labs in 1988. So, I do not know what to think about Game Blaster and C/MS. Who created them? PCJohn-2008-Jun-13  —Preceding unsigned comment added by Pcjohn (talk • contribs) 14:39, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
replies: text: The Adlib was out in '87, and it was the first PC sound card. Creative introed the CMS in '88. Putting the SB in '87 was probably just someone confusing the SoundBlaster with the Adlib.--Anss123 (talk) 15:21, 13 June 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  Confirm the dates of C/MS and SB 1.0? 

message: I remember in the past there used to be a list or table of model numbers (CT4830, etc.) somewhere on Wikipedia, but it's nowhere to be found now. Was it removed for some reason? 82.81.2.14 (talk) 23:58, 8 July 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  List of model numbers gone? 

message: The Sound Blaster Live! 24bit, Audigy SE and X-FI Xtreme Audio cards are basically the same soundcards.
All are based on an upgrade of the old E-Mu-Chip from the SBLive and just feature better overall sound quality.
You can especially easily verify that the extreme Audio is not a real X-Fi card by looking at the product pictures on Creatives website.
All "real" X-Fi PCI chips are BGA chips, the one from the extreme Audio is a normal FPGA-chip.
The model number is also almost the same as the one on the Audigy SE / Live! 24bit (just a newer revision).
These cards can render less 3d voices in hardware than their "fully featured" counterparts and are also limited to EAX software emulation, whereas real Audigy/X-Fi cards render all voices in hardware. 
Creative themselves have a comparison chart on their website which also doesn´t mark the extreme Audio as EAX5 compatible.
To top it off, no marketing blurb about the "X-Fi audio engine" or similar comments can be found on its page, so the careful reader should be aware that it is not a real X-Fi card (it was the same story back then with the Audigy SE).
Joe Average will only hear from a friend that his X-Fi sounds really good in games and "boosts fps" when using 3D sound, so he buys the cheapest one he can find at the mall - and is bound to be disappointed as it sounds clearer than his onboard sound, but it surely doesn´t make his game run faster.
(to top it off, the card will not be recognized by some games with EAX5-support as an X-Fi card)  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 145.253.209.143 (talk) 12:18, 17 October 2008 (UTC)
thread_title:  "unclear" labeling for marketing purposes 

message: The product-listing (starting from the SB Live) starts to deviate from the purpose of this article, which is to summarize concisely the MAJOR features and MAJOR products of Soundblaster line.  I have no objection with including minor models for the sake of comprehensiveness/completeness, but some of the sections are line-for-line restatements of their linked articles.
If no one has objectinos, I will trim these down, the link to the main-article on 'SB Live', 'SB Audigy', 'SB X-Fi' gives interested readers more depth...while a short summary here keeps *this article* on track.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 99.50.57.242 (talk) 04:18, 17 June 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  card summary is way too long/detailed/unfocused 

message: The article doesn't mention anything about the price tag the soundcards had at their launch.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 201.22.51.15 (talk) 14:47, 14 November 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Price at launch 

message: No mention of the extremely high failure rate for XP users? Sound Blaster cards are notorious for randomly stopping working upon clean installs of Windows XP. Creative refuses to address this as well. Unfortunately, I can't find any reliable sources, so this will remain in the talk page. Makes me wish I was a Technology Journalist, because I've had 3 of these things fail on me. JEMdev (talk) 05:13, 15 May 2010 (UTC)
thread_title:  Failure rate 

message: Is there any evidence this number was ever used?
queststudios mentions different software packages for the 1.0/1.5 but all actual cards yield the ct1320(a/b/c) model number. Thread here: http://queststudios.com/smf/index.php?topic=2590.0
Also the "killer card" prototype found recently yields the model number "CTT 1320" Picture here: http://www.hurtley.info/Media/KillerCardFront.jpg
Therefore I suppose we can assume the CT1310 model number never was officially used.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.76.210.91 (talk) 07:04, 18 January 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  CT1310 model number 

message: Wouldn't it be worth mentioning the USB line of Sound Blaster products? Most interestingly the Tactic3D series which apparently uses a new technology rather than X-Fi.
--85.82.228.249 (talk) 11:50, 3 April 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  USB and headset devices 

message: the Audio DSP Circuits table is missing a few chips, namely the CA20K2 and CA0106 which are both named in the Sound_Blaster_X-Fi article.  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.232.179.73 (talk) 04:20, 26 January 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  missing CA20K2 and CA0106 in Audio DSP Circuits table 

message: I recall a Sound Blaster Pro card to be among, if not the first to use stereo output, at least in proper gaming (wolf 3d). I'll try to look into it, but can't yet actually confirm this.
192.84.179.104 (talk) 07:33, 26 October 2012 (UTC)
thread_title:  First to use stereo sound? 

message: I believe it would be very useful to many to include a section on the included software packages that came with each model, or at least with the first model, since that's what is dear to so many people.  There is already a page for Dr. Sbaitso, which is great, but it doesn't have any screenshots!  There was another program I remember getting which many are fond of, the Tetra Compositor by Bram Graveland v1.0 it was a non-interactive demo featuring a tracked module called Echoing.  This song is originally a 1988 Amiga pieces from a cracktro Dugger by World of Wonders.  There was a third application included with the original Sound Blaster of a talking parrot, you'd talk with a mic into it, and it would pitch-shift what you said and add it's own words into it's response.  I can't find the name of that program though.  :(  I think we could make a page called "Sound Blaster original software" and then have links from that page to Dr. Sbaitso page, and make a page for Tetra Compositor.  I am new to Wikipedia and don't yet know how to do any of this!   Najob (talk) 10:38, 20 January 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Included Software Package info 

message: "The loss of onboard RAM is offset by the inclusion of 30-pin SIMM RAM sockets, which allow up to 8 MB RAM to be installed and used by the EMU engine."
Is it true that SB32 supports only 8 Mb of ram? Any source?  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 178.93.53.7 (talk) 21:33, 21 March 2013 (UTC)
thread_title:  Sound Blaster 32 memory upgrade 

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thread_title:  External links modified 

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