QUOTE(vey99 @ Feb 9 2007, 12:42 PM)
True enough, just because its not flourishing doesn't mean its sure death for the SC. Creative still wants to have market presence, just that probably the advancements will not be so great compared to other components.
On the contrary, if it's not flourishing and been stagnant for so long, it's definitely dying.
(1) Creative sales figures tells it all. The biggest boy in the business with sales dropping like flies...what else is there to say.
(2) No active competition. This simply means other companies don't see this as a potential market. Otherwise, you think so many people out there dunno how to do business when there's demand? The truth is, no demand=no market=minimum supplier.
(3) Some on-board sound has proven to beat even discrete sound card. SoundStorm is a fine example of this. Too bad it was dropped due to various issue by Nvidia. Anyway, this can be heard in the original XBOX. IMO, the sound in my XBOX with real-time Dolby Digital encoding toast all the PC games i ever heard.
Bottom line: The sound card business is a sunset industry. There'll probably still be market for the music professional, but mass market is a thing of the past.
Added on February 9, 2007, 2:22 pmQUOTE(ikanayam @ Feb 9 2007, 07:35 AM)
Haha, no way. GPUs are not going to disappear anytime soon, if ever. By the time 16 core CPUs are available (in a couple of years, latest), GPUs will have advanced too. In fact, if you compare GPU and CPU performance increases over the last few years, i think you will see that the latter has improved faster. Thing is, GPUs are purpose built for massively parallel processing, while CPUs are still largely dependent on single thread performance. They are attacking different problems. GPUs also have a lot of specialized hardware for texture filtering and other fixed function operations which would take forever for a CPU to do. I don't think anyone in their right mind would say multi-core CPUs = death of GPUs. That's just daft.
Back to the soundcard issue, just as with GPUs, if you want something good or at least better than average, you always have to go with a discreet solution. And right now if you listen to music and game, x-fi is the only way to go. CPUs alone won't cut it. EAX really does work well on new creative cards.
I didn't said that. Valve did. Who am i to comment?
As for EAX, i don't think it'll flourish anymore under the control of OpenAL. MS will not let anyone else have their own ways.
Added on February 9, 2007, 2:39 pmQUOTE(Najmods @ Feb 9 2007, 08:45 AM)
Whatever you guys said, sound card is here to stay. Same like floppy, even though not many people use it (and been announced dead), there are some people still use it. And GPU will dead? Give me a break! No CPU can render as fast as a graphics card, no matter how fast and how great this integrated graphics or sound solution is, I still buy discrete sound and graphics card. Period
We're not comparing integrated graphic-ler...we're talking future multi-core CPUs.
QUOTE(Najmods @ Feb 9 2007, 08:45 AM)
Putting everything onto motherboard isn't a good choice no matter how good the audio codec is. This is because a motherboard is like an electrical thunderstorm, it have lots of interference that can distort audio and makes cracking sound. And I don't want to buy a overcrowded motherboard with everything integrates on it
There's a lot of rumours like this going on around about "interference". Frankly, i've never heard any crackle with on-board sound. What thunderstorm??
The only crackle and hiss i heard is on my Prodigy LT card..due to some dodgy drivers. Luckily, with the drivers fixed, it sounds great.
IMO, the bottomline is something like this:
1) There's no doubt at this point, on-board sound will most likely unable to challenge an expensive discrete card for sound quality...PROVIDED you have the speakers to go with it. Personally, I would only listen to music using my Prodigy LT on my HT system coz it's really rocks compared to my old SB Live 5.1 or onboard sound. There will be SOME difference if use on lower end speakers with onboard sound and a high-end card, but to most people, this will be hardly noticeable to justify a sound card purchase.
2) However, most people with average expectation and average speakers and average ears will find most on-board sound quality nowadays more than acceptable. This is the main reason why the business is dying. The mass market does not see spending another RM400 Sound card as critical as upgrading their GPU or CPU or RAM.
3) With markets getting lesser and lesser, there's simply no way Creative can keep
pumping money into R&D to fund a dying market and one which improvement is ever difficult to be seen (or heard in this case) by consumers. In the end, it'll be only a small market meant for hardcore audiophile/musicians.
4) With technology improving and such, on board sound will get better and better at rock bottom price. The trend is already moving sound processing to multi-core CPUs as shown by Xbox360 and PS3 where there's no dedicated sound chip. MS is also moving in this direction, and with MS pushing the wind of change, it is an unstoppable force.
my 2 cents.
This post has been edited by Matrix: Feb 9 2007, 02:43 PM 
Feb 7 2007, 05:16 PM
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