Talk:SoundStorm

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This article is wrong and repeats a common misconception. SoundStorm never was a sound chip. Soundstorm was/is a certification/branding. Perhaps it can be thought of as somewhat akin to Centrino. The Nforce APU was the sound 'chip'.

Okay I fixed it myself largely.

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I have replaced the information on Creative's purchase of Sensaura, adding a cite. This is very relevant to NVIDIA's discontinuation of the SoundStorm, given that without Sensaura's middleware, any further development of the SoundStorm platform would require NVIDIA to write that code themselves, increasing development costs substantially.

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And I have deleted the above statement which is categorically incorrect! Unlike most of Sensaura's customers, Nvidia developed their own drivers (using of course the Sensaura IP). Creative's purchase of Sensaura had no direct bearing on further development of Sensaura. It is just coincidental that Nvidia's decision to discontinue hardware audio acceleration happened around the same time as Creative's purchase of Sensaura. Other Sensaura licensees (e.g. Analog Devices with their SoundMAX branded audio) continue to use the technology and the Sensaura team continue to develop and support those customers and the drivers that they use.

Also, it should be noted that Nvidia remain a licensee of Sensaura technology. Although the Nforce 1 MCP chip is no longer shipping on PC motherboards, the Xbox 1 is still shipping with the MCP-X. If Nvidia chose to ship Sensaura on PC motherboards that use the MCP then they could still do so.

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"Creative's purchase of Sensaura had no direct bearing on further development of Sensaura." This is, of course, why there have been no new drivers for the cards of Sensaura licensees like the M-Audio Revolution series, the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz/Catalina, AD's SoundMax hardware, and other similar hardware since early 2004, even though those cards and chips are still on the marketplace.

Totally a coincidence. Nothing to do with Sensaura being purchased by Creative in late 2003 and the "repurposing" of their development staff. Anyone who says otherwise just hates Creative.

Not going to bother editing the main page because it'll just get changed back. Luckily, most people who actually know anything about sound cards already know what's going on.

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Sorry, typo on my part. I meant to write "Creative's purchase of Sensaura had no direct bearing on further development of Soundstorm." Of course Sensaura's customers had concerns about taking technology from major competitor Creative. Many chose to switch to QSound or their own in-house 3D audio solutions. But Sensaura/Creative do still license the technology to those that want it. The technology is still being developed. Analog Devices are one company that still use Sensaura and they have issued a number of driver updates since Sensaura's purchase.

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This article doesn't have any dates. Can we please mix in some of the chronology of what happened when? Rektide (talk) 18:40, 29 July 2023 (UTC)[reply]