Sound Blaster is a family of sound cards and audio peripherals designed by Creative Technology/Creative Labs of Singapore . The first Sound Blaster card was introduced in 1989.
76-831: Sound Blaster sound cards were the de facto standard for consumer audio on the IBM PC compatible platform until the widespread transition to Microsoft Windows 95 and the integration of commoditized audio electronics in PCs. Windows 95 standardized the programming interface at the application level and thereby eliminated the importance of backward compatibility with Sound Blaster cards. By 1995, Sound Blaster cards had sold over 15 million units worldwide and accounted for seven out of ten sound card sales. To date, Sound Blaster has sold over 400 million units, and their current product lineup includes USB -powered DACs as well as other audio adapters. The history of Creative sound cards started with
152-597: A 9-voice (11 voices in drum mode) FM synthesizer using the Yamaha YM3812 chip, also known as OPL2 . It provided compatibility with the market leader AdLib sound card, which had gained support in PC games in the preceding year. Creative used the "DSP" acronym to designate the digital audio part of the Sound Blaster. This stood for Digital Sound Processor, rather than the more common digital signal processor , and
228-548: A PCI busmaster interface to access sample-data stored in the host-PC's system memory. A/D- and D/A- converters as well as analogue mixing is done by an AC'97 chip running at 48 kHz sampling rate. All members of the SB Live! family have at least four-channel analog audio outputs and a 15-pin MIDI/Joystick multiport. For game titles, EAX 1.0 (and later 2.0) ( environmental audio extensions , which briefly competed with
304-490: A PCI busmaster interface. Analogue interfacing is done by a codec chip, which runs at a fixed sampling frequency of 44 (Ensoniq Audio PCI) or 48 kHz (Creative's versions). (ISA soundcards had not resampled but switched between different time bases.) ES137x do not support SoundFonts but a filter-less MIDI engine with wavetable ( sample table) sets of 2, 4, and 8 MB size. When the Sound Blaster Live!
380-502: A PCIe interface, but lacks the EMU10K DSP. De facto standard A de facto standard is a custom or convention that is commonly used even though its use is not required. De facto is a Latin phrase (literally " of fact "), here meaning "in practice but not necessarily ordained by law" or "in practice or actuality, but not officially established". A de facto standard contrasts an international standard which
456-483: A USB adapter in the box. The rapid takeover of USB meant that this was superfluous when the Precision Pro 2 was released the next year in 1998. By 2000, game ports were purely for backward compatibility with now outdated devices. Microsoft Windows discontinued support for the game port with Windows Vista , though USB converters can serve as a workaround. The game port's DA-15 connector includes inputs for
532-493: A fully decoded MIDI interface with separate Input and Output (along with on mini-DIN converter.) The Gold highlighted many features aimed at music composition; ease-of-use ( plug-and-play for musicians), real-time loopback-recording of the MIDI-synthesizer (with full freedom of Soundfonts, and environmental effects such as reverb, etc.), and bundled MIDI-software. The mainstream model was the Sound Blaster Live! Like
608-457: A fully-compatible Sound Blaster card that came with a game port, saved a slot, and included the "DSP" for not much more in price, many consumers opted for the Sound Blaster. In-game support for the digital portion of the card did not happen until after the Sound Blaster had gained dominance. When Microsoft announced Multimedia PC (MPC) in November 1990, it suggested to developers that they use
684-441: A proprietary memory format which could be (expensively) purchased from Creative. The main improvements were better compatibility with older SB models, and an improved signal-to-noise ratio . The AWE64 came in two versions: A standard version (later rebranded as Value ) with 512 KB of RAM and a Gold version with 4 MB of RAM and a separate S/PDIF output. In 1998, Creative acquired Ensoniq Corporation , manufacturer of
760-511: A single floppy with the basic utilities and game patches to allow Sierra Online 's games using the Sierra Creative Interpreter engine to play music with the card and it also included a later revision of the game Silpheed that added C/MS support. In 2017 hobbyists developed a clone CT1300 PCB. The Sound Blaster 1.0 (code named " Killer Kard "), CT1320A, was released in 1989. In addition to Game Blaster features, it has
836-488: A standard by market forces and competition , in a two-sided market , after a dispute . Examples: An example of an ongoing dispute is OASIS 's OpenDocument format vs Microsoft's Office Open XML format. Game port The game port is a device port that was found on IBM PC compatible and other computer systems throughout the 1980s and 1990s. It was the traditional connector for joystick input, and occasionally MIDI devices, until made obsolete by USB in
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#1732772428084912-405: A total of four analog channels and four buttons. These were almost always implemented as two joysticks with two buttons each, but it is also possible to support four paddle controllers each with one button, or a single gamepad with two analog sticks and four buttons using the same inputs. The port includes redundant pins, including a total of four +5 V supplies, and separate grounds for most of
988-460: A two-axis analog joystick, touchpad , trackball , or mouse (some of these being eventually developed for Atari systems). The Apple II , BBC Micro , TRS-80 Color Computer , and other popular 8-bit machines all used different, incompatible, joysticks and ports. In most respects, the IBM design was similar to, or more advanced than, existing designs. The IBM PC game port first appeared during
1064-468: A voluntary standard that is also a de facto standard is a typical solution to a coordination problem . The choice of a de facto standard tends to be stable in situations in which all parties can realize mutual gains, but only by making mutually consistent decisions. In contrast, an enforced de jure standard is a solution to the prisoner's problem . Examples of some well known de facto standards: There are many examples of de facto consolidation of
1140-518: Is a simple microcontroller from the Intel MCS-51 family (supplied by Intel and Matra MHS , among others). It can play back 8-bit monaural sampled sound at up to 23 kHz sampling frequency and record 8-bit at up to 12 kHz. The sole DSP-like features of the circuit are ADPCM decompression and a primitive non-MPU-401-compatible MIDI interface. The ADPCM decompression schemes supported are 2 to 1, 3 to 1 and 4 to 1. The CT1320B variety of
1216-421: Is defined by an organization such as International Standards Organization , or a standard required by law (also known as de jure standards ). Joint technical committee on information technology (ISO/IEC JTC1) developed a procedure in order for de facto standards to be processed through the formal standardization system to be transformed into international standards from ISO and IEC . In social sciences
1292-563: Is essentially an Audigy 2 with updated DAC and op-amps . Audigy 2 ZS uses the Cirrus Logic CS4382 DAC together with the op-amps and can produce an output SNR of 108 dB. There were a few slight printed circuit board modifications and 7.1 audio support was added. Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro (November 2004) was an Audigy 2 ZS with updated DACs and ADCs , the new DAC being the Cirrus Logic CS4398, boosting
1368-563: Is misleading—see the pictures for size comparison). It offered similar features to the AWE32, but also had a few notable improvements, including support for greater polyphony , although this was a product of 32 extra software-emulated channels (the additional channels could also be obtained on AWE32 hardware by using the AWE64's driver software). The 30-pin SIMM slots from AWE32/SB32 were replaced with
1444-524: Is more in line with the Audigy 2 Value series. The Audigy 4 had a shorter life span than its predecessors, due to the short window between it and the next-generation Sound Blaster X-Fi. Sound Blaster Audigy Rx (September 2013) is similar to the Audigy 4 but with a dedicated 600-ohm headphone amplifier and a PCIe 1x interface. Sound Blaster Audigy Fx (September 2013) also features a 600-ohm amplifier and
1520-778: The Atari joystick port was close. It was introduced in 1977 with the Atari Video Computer System , and was later used on the VIC-20 (1980), Commodore 64 (1982), and Amstrad's PC1512 (1986). In contrast with the IBM design, the Atari port was primarily designed for digital inputs (including a pair of two-axis/four-contact digital joysticks, each with a single pushbutton trigger). Its only analog connections were intended for paddles -- although, as there were two analog inputs per port, each port could theoretically support
1596-535: The MPU-401 used their own separate expansion cards and a complex external adapter, whereas the Sound Blaster only required an inexpensive adapter to produce the same result. By the end of the year the Sound Blaster was the best selling expansion card on the PC, and the game port was receiving widespread software support. With the exception of laptops—for which companies released joystick adapters for parallel or serial ports, which needed custom software drivers —through
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#17327724280841672-643: The Sound Blaster 16 for the OEM market. Creative Labs also used this chip for the Sound Blaster 32, Phone Blaster and Phone Blaster 28.8 (VIBRA plus modem, CT3120 and CT3220.) and many other value-edition cards. External Yamaha OPL3 FM music synthesis was retained in earlier boards built around the ViBRA16 or ViBRA16s controllers, whilst the later (and more common) ViBRA16 boards used CQM (Creative Quadratic Modulation) developed by E-mu Systems . This series included
1748-636: The Vibra chip to reduce component count, which meant bass/treble/gain control was limited compared to the AWE32. The loss of onboard RAM is offset by the inclusion of 30-pin SIMM RAM sockets, which allow up to 28 MB RAM to be installed and used by the EMU engine. The AWE32's successor, the Sound Blaster AWE64 (November 1996), was significantly smaller, being a "half-length ISA card" (that term
1824-470: The 3.5 mm jack ports as an SPDIF out, which allowed the connection of an external decoder. Creative also released a Sound Blaster Live! Player 1024 edition, which is identical to the regular Sound Blaster Live! , but with the addition of some extra software. The Sound Blaster PCI 512 (CT4790) is an EMU10K1-based sound card designed to fill a lower cost segment than the Live! Value. It is capable of most of
1900-632: The AWE32 design, the Sound Blaster 32 (SB32) was a value-oriented offering from Creative. Announced on June 6, 1995, the SB32 became the new entry-level card in the AWE32 product-line (previously held by the AWE32 Value .) The SB32 retained the AWE32's EMU8000/EMU8011 MIDI-synthesis engine and built-in instrument ROM, but dropped the onboard RAM , the Wave Blaster header, and the CSP port. The SB32 used
1976-558: The AudioPCI, a card popular with OEMs at the time. It was a full-featured solution with wavetable MIDI ( sample-based synthesizer ), 4-speaker DirectSound3D surround sound, A3D emulation, and DOS legacy support via a terminate-and-stay-resident program . It was cheap due to lack of hardware acceleration. It is full-duplex but at least in MS Windows cannot play back several sources at once. Creative released many cards using
2052-609: The C/MS board in particular, the Philips chips had white pieces of paper with a fictitious "CMS-301" inscription on them. Real Creative parts usually had consistent CT number references. Surprisingly, the board also contained a large 40-pin DIP integrated circuit bearing a "CT 1302A CTPL 8708" (Creative Technology Programmable Logic) serigraphed inscription and looking exactly like the DSP of
2128-581: The Creative digital audio section (audio codec , optional CSP/ASP chip socket, Yamaha OPL3), and the E-mu MIDI synthesizer section. The synthesizer section consisted of the EMU8000 sampler and effects processor, an EMU8011 1 MB sample ROM, and 512 KB of sample RAM (expandable to 28 MB). To fit the new hardware, the AWE32 was a full-length ISA card , measuring 14 in (360 mm). A derivative of
2204-778: The Creative/Tandy Multimedia Sound Adapter, 849–3030. This Sound Blaster Pro derived card was factory installed in Tandy Multimedia PCs. It combined the CT1330 with Tandy joystick and MIDI ports (not MPU-401 compatible). The revised version, the Sound Blaster Pro 2, CT1600, replaced the YM3812s with a more advanced Yamaha YMF262 ( OPL3 ). Otherwise it is functionally identical to the original Sound Blaster Pro. Shortly after
2280-461: The EMU10K1 in the original Live!), and all audio had to be resampled to 48 kHz in order to be accepted by the DSP (for recording or rendering to output.) Sound Blaster Audigy 2 (September 2002) featured an updated EMU10K2 processor, sometimes referred to as EMU10K2.5, with an improved DMA engine capable of 24-bit precision. Up to 192 kHz was supported for stereo playback/record, while 6.1
2356-415: The EMU10K1 processor that shipped with the Sound Blaster Live! . The Audigy could process up to four EAX environments simultaneously with its upgraded on-chip DSP and native EAX 3.0 ADVANCED HD support, and supported up to 5.1-channel output. The Audigy was controversially advertised as a 24-bit sound card. The EMU10K2's audio transport (DMA engine) was fixed at 16-bit sample precision at 48 kHz (like
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2432-530: The Gameport, and then measure the time it takes to charge them again by constantly polling Gameport. Using original IBM formula, Time = 24.2 μs + 0.011 (r) μs and assuming 100Kohm potentiometers this process can take up to 1.1ms per readout, or over 60ms if we decide to read joystick position 60 times a second. This significant overhead was the reason why using original Gameport on the PC could consume up to 10% of CPU time independent of CPU speed. Initially there
2508-463: The Gold, the Live featured multi-speaker analog output (up to four channels), and identical music/sound generation capabilities (without the bundled MIDI software and interfacing-equipment.) Later versions of the Live!, usually called Live! 5.1 , offered 5.1-channel support which adds a center channel speaker and LFE subwoofer output, most useful for movie watching. The Live! 5.1 could also use one of
2584-475: The ISA bus. While at first glance it appears to be a 16-bit ISA card, it does not have 'fingers' for data transfer on the higher "AT" portion of the bus connector. It uses the 16-bit extension to the ISA bus to provide the user with an additional choice for an IRQ (10) and DMA (0)m channel only found on the 16-bit portion of the edge connector. A short lived joint developed project between Creative and Tandy resulted in
2660-399: The Live! Value's features aside from being limited to 512 MIDI voice polyphony (a software-based limitation), lacking digital I/O , removal of expansion headers , and only stereo or quadraphonic output support. The card's circuit layout is somewhat simpler than that of the Live! series. The Sound Blaster Audigy (August 2001) featured the Audigy processor (EMU10K2), an improved version of
2736-520: The Microsoft MPC standard.. The Sound Blaster Pro supported faster digital input and output sampling rates (up to 22.05 kHz stereo or 44.1 kHz mono), added a " mixer " to provide a crude master volume control (independent of the volume of sound sources feeding the mixer), and a crude high pass or low pass filter. The Sound Blaster Pro used a pair of YM3812 chips to provide stereo music-synthesis (one for each channel). The Sound Blaster Pro
2812-542: The SB/Live family was the SB Live! Gold . Featuring gold tracings on all major analog traces and external sockets, an EMI -suppressing printed circuit board substrate and lacquer , the Gold came standard with a daughterboard that implemented a separate 4-channel alternative mini-DIN digital output to Creative-branded internal- DAC speaker sets, a S/P-DIF digital audio Input and Output with separate software mappings, and
2888-510: The Sound Blaster 1.0 typically has C/MS chips installed in sockets rather than soldered on the PCB, though units do exist with the C/MS chips soldered on. Some sources note that the original Sound Blaster 1.0 was produced under the CT1310 number. This however is a topic of ongoing debate. Creative refers to CT1310 for the Sound Blaster 1.0 on its website. In less than a year, the Sound Blaster became
2964-474: The Sound Blaster 1.5, CT1320C, dropped the C/MS chips, which were no longer popular with game developers. Instead, the board had two empty sockets, which could be user upgraded by purchasing the C/MS chips directly from Creative or Phillips SAA-1099s from another source. Otherwise the card functions identically to the Sound Blaster 1.0. The CT1320U variety has the same layout as the CT1320C. The final revision of
3040-505: The Sound Blaster Pro. The kit bundled the sound card, a Matsushita CD-ROM drive (model 531 for single-speed, or 562/3 for the later double-speed (2x) drives), and several CD-ROMs of multimedia software titles. As CD-ROM technology was new, the kit included CD-ROM software, representing a very good value to customers. One such kit, named "OmniCD", included the 2x Matsushita drive along with an ISA controller card and software, including Software Toolworks Encyclopedia and Aldus PhotoStyler SE. It
3116-449: The Sound Blaster as it was the only sound card that came close to complying with the MPC standard. The press speculated that Microsoft based the MPC standard on the Sound Blaster's specifications. By 1993 Computer Gaming World wondered "why would a gamer" buy a competing AdLib card that was not Sound Blaster-compatible. Creative advertised the Sound Blaster 16 ("the 16-bit sound standard") with
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3192-550: The ViBRA16 (CT2501), ViBRA16s (CT2502, CT2504), ViBRA16c (CT2505) PnP and ViBRA16XV (CT2511) chips. The primary advantage of the ViBRA16 was the inclusion of a 14.4 kbit/s telephony Modem; it also functioned as a telephone. Released in March 1994, the Sound Blaster AWE32 (Advanced WavEffects) introduced an all new MIDI synthesizer section based on the EMU8000. The AWE32 consisted of two distinct audio sections;
3268-539: The auto-init DMA and new MIDI capabilities of the Sound Blaster 2.0 but not the expanded sampling rates. The upgrade was necessary for full compatibility with the Windows 3.0 Multimedia Extensions upgrade. Sound Blaster MCV, CT5320, was a version created for IBM PS/2 Model 50 and higher and their ISA-incompatible Micro Channel architecture . The MCV Sound Blaster has some issues outputting audio while running on PS/2s with CPUs running faster than 16 MHz. However,
3344-424: The buttons. In most similar game ports, like those on the Atari, a single +5 V and ground is used for all the channels. The game port was originally mounted on a dedicated ISA card. Since the early 1990s, when the game port moved from dedicated expansion cards to PC I/O or sound cards , these connectors have usually doubled as connectors for MIDI instruments; two of the redundant +5 V and GND pins of
3420-439: The card itself, it failed for a number of DOS games that either were not fully compatible with this CPU mode or needed so much free conventional memory that they could not be loaded with the driver occupying part of this memory. In Microsoft Windows , there was no problem, as Creative's Windows driver software could handle both ISA and PCI cards correctly. The Sound Blaster ViBRA16 was an inexpensive single-chip implementation of
3496-418: The early 1990s, the game port was universally supported on sound cards, and increasingly became built-in features as motherboards added sound support of their own. This remained true through the second half of the 1990s, by which time integrated sound support had displaced the third-party sound card to a large degree. By the early 2000s, such support was so widespread that newer sound cards began to dispense with
3572-616: The early days of the IBM PC, and most games used the keyboard as an input. IBM did not release a joystick of its own for the PC, which did not help. The most common device available was the Kraft joystick, originally developed for the Apple II but easily adapted to the IBM with the addition of another button on the back of the case. When IBM finally did release a joystick, for the IBM PCjr , it
3648-496: The game port as it was certain the machine they would be used in already had such support, including MIDI. Every Sound Blaster card from the first model up to August 2001 included a game port. In 2001 the Sound Blaster Audigy moved the game port to a second expansion slot, which connected to a header on the card. The introduction of the first USB standard in 1996 was aimed squarely at the sort of roles provided by
3724-484: The game port was given a major boost in usage in 1989, with the introduction of the first Sound Blaster . As sound cards were primarily used with computer games, Creative Labs took the opportunity to include a game port on the card, producing an all-in-one gaming solution. At the same time, they re-purposed two otherwise redundant pins on the port, 12 and 15, to produce a serial bus with enough performance to drive an external MIDI port adapter. Previous MIDI systems like
3800-414: The game port, but initially had little market impact. The subsequent release of the iMac , which featured no legacy ports in favor of USB, started a rapid expansion of USB in the market. This led both to new gaming devices using USB, as well as the profusion of adapters. For instance, the 1997 Microsoft Precision Pro joystick was re-introduced in a version that used a game port connector, but also included
3876-478: The initial launch of the original IBM PC in 1981, in the form of an optional US$ 55 expansion card known as the Game Control Adapter. The design allowed for four analog axes and four buttons on one port, allowing two joysticks or four paddles to be connected via a special "Y-splitter" cable. Originally available only as add-on that took up an entire slot, game ports remained relatively rare in
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#17327724280843952-596: The joystick interface is still inoperable on PS/2s it was designed for due to the slow-speed Schottky chips that have been installed. None of these timing issues affect the Yamaha YM3812. Some of the MCV Sound Blasters were released with faster Schottkys which eradicated some of the problems. Model CT1330, announced in May 1991, was the first significant redesign of the card's core features, and complied with
4028-440: The late 1990s. Originally located on a dedicated Game Control Adapter expansion card , the game port was later integrated with PC sound cards , and still later on the PC's motherboard. During the transition to USB, many input devices used the game port and a USB adapter dongle was included for systems without a game port. At the time IBM was developing its game port, there was no industry standard for controller ports, although
4104-434: The later Sound Blaster. Software, including Creative's own, use this chip to automatically detect the card (by trying certain register reads and writes). A year later, in 1988, Creative marketed the C/MS via Radio Shack under the name Game Blaster . This card was identical in every way to the precursor C/MS hardware. Whereas the C/MS package came with five floppy disks full of utilities and song files, Creative supplied only
4180-503: The launch of the Sound Blaster 16 and related products. Rich Sorkin was General Manager of the global business during this time, responsible for product planning, product management, marketing and OEM sales. Moving the card off the ISA bus, which was already approaching obsolescence, meant that no line for host-controlled ISA DMA was available, because the PCI slot offers no such line. Instead, the card used PCI bus mastering to transfer data from
4256-521: The main memory to the D/A converters. Since existing DOS programs expected to be able to initiate host-controlled ISA DMA for producing sound, backward compatibility with the older Sound Blaster cards for DOS programs required a software driver work-around; since this work-around necessarily depended on the virtual 8086 mode of the PC's CPU in order to catch and reroute accesses from the ISA DMA controller to
4332-426: The now defunct A3D 2.0 ) added hardware-accelerated acoustic effects. The EMU10K1 provided high-quality 64-voice sample-based synthesizer (marketed as "Wavetable"), with self-produced or third-party customized patches or "Soundfonts", and the ability to resample the audio output as input and apply a range of real-time DSP effects to any set of audio subchannels present in the device. The first model and flagship of
4408-464: The opening music of Space Quest III with the card as "extraordinary", praising the quality compared to the Roland MT-32 and Ad Lib versions. Compute! approved of the card's DMA and Creative's dissemination of technical information, and concluded that while the more-expensive MT-32 was superior, Sound Blaster's audio quality was better than that of Ad Lib or Game Blaster. Released in 1990,
4484-533: The original AudioPCI chip, Ensoniq ES1370 , and several boards using revised versions of this chip ( ES1371 and ES1373 ), and some with Creative-labeled AudioPCI chips. Boards using AudioPCI tech are usually easily identifiable by the board design and the chip size because they all look quite similar. Such boards include Sound Blaster PCI64 (April 1998), PCI128 (July 1998), Creative Ensoniq AudioPCI , Vibra PCI and Sound Blaster 16 PCI . An ES137x chip contains three stereo sample rate converters, some buffers and
4560-481: The original Sound Blaster and Sound Blaster Pro) used a proprietary interface that was not compatible with the MPU-401. The analog channels are read by sending voltage into the line, through a potentiometer in the controller, in this case 100,000 ohm, and then into a capacitor. The value is read by timing how long it took for the voltage in the capacitor to cross a certain threshold. The rate varied depending on
4636-523: The original Sound Blaster, the Sound Blaster 2.0 was released in October 1991, CT1350, added support for " auto-init " DMA , which assisted in producing a continuous loop of double-buffered sound output. Similar to version 1.0 and 1.5, it used a 1-channel 8-bit DAC. However, the maximum sampling rate was increased to 44 kHz for playback, and 15 kHz for record. The DSP's MIDI UART was upgraded to full-duplex and offered time stamping features, but
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#17327724280844712-660: The original standard were rededicated to MIDI input and output to make this possible. To use a game port with MIDI instruments, a break-out cable with the necessary opto-isolation hardware and compatible connectors is required - typically these consisted of a male and a female DA-15 and two male 5-pin DIN connectors . For many sound cards, the game port midi capabilities were based around the Roland MPU-401 MIDI interface (in UART mode only), however some older sound cards (notably
4788-413: The output SNR to 113 dB. Other than a breakout box , it has no distinguishable difference from the Audigy 2 ZS. The DSP is identical to the Audigy 2 ZS's but Creative put an "Audigy 4" sticker to cover the chip, making it appear as if it is a new chip. The Audigy 4 Pro is not to be confused with the Audigy 4 (Value) which contains lower quality DACs and does not have golden plated jacks. The Audigy 4 (Value)
4864-731: The release of the Creative Music System ("C/MS") CT-1300 board in August 1987. It contained two Philips SAA1099 integrated circuits, which, together, provided 12 channels of square-wave "bee-in-a-box" stereo sound, four channels of which can be used for noise. These ICs were featured earlier in various popular electronics magazines around the world. For many years Creative tended to use off-the-shelf components and manufacturers' reference designs for their early products. The various integrated circuits had white or black paper stickers fully covering their tops to hide their identities. On
4940-502: The release of the Sound Blaster Pro 2 version, Creative discontinued the original Sound Blaster Pro. The Sound Blaster Pro 2 was also sold with the following on-board CD-ROM controllers: Packaged Sound Blaster cards were initially marketed and sold into the retail-channel. Creative's domination of the PC audio card business soon had them selling the Sound Blaster Pro 2 OEM , CT1680, to customers for integration into pre-assembled PCs. Creative also sold Multimedia Upgrade Kits containing
5016-403: The resistance, and thus physical position, of the potentiometer. In the Atari port, which had similar analog channels, there is a convenient timer available in the form of the video clock circuitry. In the PC there is no similar clock because video functionality is normally provided on an expansion card. Instead, a software routine needs to first trigger capacitor discharge by issuing an IO write to
5092-404: The slogan "Get Real", emphasizing its "real 100% Sound Blaster compatibility" and rhetorically asking "why those other manufacturers spend so much time comparing themselves to Sound Blaster". Compute! in 1989 stated that with Sound Blaster, "IBM-compatible computers have taken the lead in sound and music for personal computers". Naming it a Compute! Choice, the magazine described the quality of
5168-423: The top-selling expansion card for the PC. It achieved this by providing an AdLib-compatible product, with additional features, for the same, and often lower, price. The inclusion of a game port was important to its early success. PCs of this era did not include a game port. Game port cards were costly (around US$ 50) and used one of the few expansion slots PCs had at the time. Given the choice between an AdLib card or
5244-630: Was a version of the Kraft stick. However, it connected to the computer using two incompatible 7-pin connectors, which were mechanically connected together as part of a larger multi-pin connector on the back of the machine. This eliminated the need for the Y-adapter. Adapters for Atari-style "digital" sticks were also common during this era. The game port became somewhat more common in the mid-1980s, as improving electronic density began to produce expansion cards with ever-increasing functionality. By 1983, it
5320-470: Was capped at 96 kHz. In addition, Audigy 2 supported up to 6.1 (later 7.1 ) speakers and had improved signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) over the Audigy (106 vs. 100 decibels ( A )). It also featured built-in Dolby Digital EX 6.1 and 7.1 decoding for improved DVD play-back. The Audigy 2 line were the first sound cards to receive THX certification. Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS (September 2003)
5396-401: Was common to see cards combining memory, game ports, serial and parallel ports and a realtime clock on a single expansion card. The era of combo expansion cards largely came to an end by the late 1980s, as many of the separate functions normally provided on plug-in boards became common features of the motherboard itself. Game ports were not always part of this supported set of ports. However,
5472-540: Was compliant with the MPC Level 2 standard. The Sound Blaster Pro 2 MCV, CT5330, was a version created for IBM PS/2 model 50 and higher and their MicroChannel bus. The next model, the Sound Blaster 16, announced in June 1992, introduced: Eventually this design proved so popular that Creative made a PCI version of this card. Creative's audio revenue grew from $ 40 million per year to nearly $ 1 billion following
5548-511: Was fully backward compatible with the original Sound Blaster line, and by extension, the AdLib sound card. The Sound Blaster Pro was the first Creative sound card to have a built-in CD-ROM interface. Most Sound Blaster Pro cards featured a proprietary interface for a Panasonic ( Matsushita MKE ) drive. The Sound Blaster Pro cards are basically 8-bit ISA cards, they use only the lower 8 data bits of
5624-574: Was introduced in August 1998, the use of a programmable digital signal processor in PC-audio was not unprecedented, as IBM had already done that with cheap Mwave sound- and modem-cards and Turtle Beach with their professional Hurricane soundcards. The Live! was built around Creative's new EMU10K1 chip, which contained 2.44 million transistors and was advertised of processing a flashy 1,000 MIPS . The EMU10K1 (and its successors) did not use on-card RAM/ROM storage for instrument samples, instead it used
5700-534: Was no standardized software for running the joysticks; applications would poll the known ports associated with the sticks as part of their game loop. This did, however, leave the implementation of a lot of housekeeping tasks to every application that used them, such as looking for and enumerating the active devices, and calibrating them. This changed in Windows 95 , which introduced standardized Windows Registry entries to hold these values and make it easier for applications to find these devices. DirectX further expanded
5776-495: Was not yet compatible with the MPU-401 interface used by professional MIDI equipment. The Sound Blaster 2.0's PCB -layout used more highly integrated components, both shrinking the board's size and reducing manufacturing cost. Owners of previous revision Sound Blaster boards could upgrade their board by purchasing the V2.00 DSP chip from Creative Labs, and swapping the older DSP V1.0x with the newer replacement. The upgraded board gained
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