Free ALchemy for Audigy!   Posted on 08/05/2008 at 17:10 by Nicolas - source: tweakers.net

	While Alchemy’s version for Audigy has now been available for more than 10 months now, Creative decided to make it payable while the X-Fi version free. You had to spend $9.99 to take advantage of this "wrapper" that enables going around certain limitations inherent to Windows Vista by preventing the management of DirectSound 3D effects by a specialized DSP. In reality, it intercepts DirectSound 3D effects and converts them into OpenAL thus enabling to continue to benefit from audio acceleration in hardware as well as advanced functions such as EAX. This rather unfortunate choice should soon just be a bad memory because the Singapore company should soon put it on line for free the week of May 19th and has pledged to reimburse those that chose to pay. So this is some good news and probably not entirely unrelated to the upcoming announcement of the Sound Blaster X-Fi 2 as Creative apparently judged it necessary to improve its image that suffered in the "Daniel_K" incident.

Toshiba delivers the first few SpursEngine SE1000s   Posted on 08/04/2008 at 23:25 by Nicolas - source: Toshiba

	Toshiba has announced the delivery of the first samples of a card in PCI-Express x1 format, the SpursEngine SE1000, which is accompanied by a kit destined for développeurs. It has 128 MB of XDR DRAM and a processeur (with 4 cores) derived from the Cell that equips the Sony PS3 set at 1.5 GHz. This enables hardware support of the encoding and decoding of MPEG-2 and H.264 in Full HD as the calculation of the card attains 48 GFlops. Because the support of developers and partners is crucial in attaining the ambitious goal of 6 million cards sold in the next 3 years, the Japanese manufacturer has announced that it is now working with big names like Corel, CyberLink and Leadtek.

Sound Blaster X-Fi 2 on the horizon   Posted on 03/04/2008 at 18:42 by Nicolas - source: Xbit-labs

	Creative created quite a stir recently for having criticized ASUSTeK’s Xonar DX PCI Express 7.1 and its supposed software support of EAX 5.0 as well as even more recently having publicly threatened daniel_k, someone who provided unofficial drivers that simply activated functions that Creative decided to deactivate in Windows Vista. However they calmed down after the user community disapproved of its reaction. Now the Singapour company is planning on launching the Sound Blaster X-Fi 2 which has appeared on the Windows Vista Hardware Compatibility List. It’s impossible to be sure if there is a connection between the upcoming release of this card and the limited number of functions activated with former models in Windows Vista; however, because Creative is able to put “Designed for Windows Vista” and “Vista Premium" logos on Sound Blaster X-Fi 2 boxes since March 11th, we can assume its release is in the near future. Barely any other details were revealed on this card, but in theory we shouldn’t expect any radical changes. Normally, it should have better codecs, improved audio processing and more complete drivers.

ASUS Xonar D2X: sound in PCI-E   Posted on 08/10/2007 at 22:52 by Nicolas - source: ASUSTeK

	ASUSTeK has just launched the Xonar D2X, the first audio card in PCI-Express format. According to its creator, one of its advantages is the presence of a new extension called DS3D GX in drivers which allows the material acceleration and complete support of surround sound as well as EAX. The Taiwanese manufacturer insists on the fact that this doesn’t require specific game support or supplementary installation and therefore aims to shake up Creative's ALchemy. The card offers a signal-to-noise ratio of 118 dBA for all audio channels even in 7.1. It also integrates AEC (Acoustics Echo Cancellation) technology which aims to eliminate the sound emitted by speakers and which is captured by microphones. Finally, AC-3 encoding in real time is included with this card.

Intel picks up Havok   Posted on 17/09/2007 at 22:17 by Nicolas - source: Intel

	Intel will acquire Havok, the physics engine specialist, whose Havok FX allows this type of management via the GPU and which has already created quite a stir. A final agreement for this transaction was signed last week. While the press release explains that the Irish company will continue to operate independently with its clients, either way, this is a nice move by Intel who has thus acquired a company whose technology is used in more than 150 games including BioShock, Stranglehold, Halo 2, Half Life 2, The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Crackdown, Lost Planet: Extreme Condition, and MotorStorm. It would be misleading to think that this buyout is without motive. Indeed, Intel most likely isn’t too happy with the possibility of moving CPU physics processing to the GPU. Finally, we can also count on first-rate optimizations from Havok for current and future Intel architecture.