G9X with soundstorm?

[Absolution]

I was thinking about theinq's article about sound output from hdmi. That doesn't seem to far fetched out and eventually would happen because of the fact that hdmi can output 5.1 sound, so why wouldn't they add it as a feature (another reason to buy right...).

Anyway, I remember reading an article that nvidia was still developing soundstorm to some extend but it wouldn't be avalible as any consumer knows of it then (couple years ago). So... would the logical step to counter ati's video card with a sound codec be to reintroduce soundstorm on a video card?

Why not?(nana2) (nana2)

One can only hope though (yes, this is pretty far fetched but yet has may be true)....

[Lone_Bullet.be]

Let us drea...prey v.v

[superklye]

I could've sworn I read somewhere that it would only pass video over HDMI.

[DRen72]

They will need to get the die sizes down even further to properly impliment both video and sound on one card. Imagine an 8800GTX with quality onboard audio. The card is already huge. However...I think it can be done eventually.

[Lone_Bullet.be]

They will need to get the die sizes down even further to properly impliment both video and sound on one card. Imagine an 8800GTX with quality onboard audio. The card is already huge. However...I think it can be done eventually.

Not exactly the die...( hopefully the G90 is a 60nm though ) just add it as a seperate chip on the PCB.
The R600 is rumoured to do the exact same. It'd be a dreamcard for HTPC if it was some midend card with passive cooling....but yeah, like that is going to happen..

x

[kevJ420]

They will need to get the die sizes down even further to properly impliment both video and sound on one card. Imagine an 8800GTX with quality onboard audio. The card is already huge. However...I think it can be done eventually.

They need an EMI shield, or at least I think they would.

As for the return of Soundstorm, I don't really know of anything that can be done differently with Vista in terms of audio.

Other than games need to take advantage of Vista's handicapped audio stack and render audio internally at 24/96, 192.

That would be cool as ****.

[gulizard]

Soundstorm was the ****. I loved it, best sound ever. The neat little nvidia control panel made me feel like hot **** when I'd start it up or take a pic of my desktop, and everyone else was stuck with SB Audigy cards.. My ST owned on my nforce2 board.. man I miss those days.

[Redeemed]

I'm not sure what my opinion is on this- but I'm thinking I don't like it. Now video cards are also gonna' be soundcards? Next they'll have the CPU on the video card as well... then the system ram... then the motherboard... then the hard drive...

Heck, let's just have the video card replace every other component- atleast it seems to be heading in that direction... and I don't like it.

[kevJ420]

I'm not sure what my opinion is on this- but I'm thinking I don't like it. Now video cards are also gonna' be soundcards? Next they'll have the CPU on the video card as well... then the system ram... then the motherboard... then the hard drive...

Heck, let's just have the video card replace every other component- atleast it seems to be heading in that direction... and I don't like it.

I have the same vision.

[Redeemed]

I have the same vision.

I wouldn't quite call it a "vision". Unless, of course, you have literally seen the future. :p

But yeah, it does seem as if things are headed that way. Before long, the video card will become the entire computer itself- all integrated. I hope this doesn't happen.

[rhink]

I'm not sure what my opinion is on this- but I'm thinking I don't like it. Now video cards are also gonna' be soundcards? Next they'll have the CPU on the video card as well... then the system ram... then the motherboard... then the hard drive...

Heck, let's just have the video card replace every other component- atleast it seems to be heading in that direction... and I don't like it.

There's two pathways to follow, and I think we're seeing both of them happen at the same time.

One path is increased integration, which drives lower cost. There's actually been experiments with video, north bridge, and CPU on one chip. We see a lot of integration of various components on current motherboard chipsets as well.... sound, video, networking, etc. We've seen it with integration of the memory controller on the Athlon 64. I think we'll see more of it when the K8L comes out and we start seeing the ability to create chips with multiple cores- but those cores being different components, ie, video, physics, sound, whatever.

But as long as there's a market for it, there's going to be high end discrete components as well. And at the moment, on an 8800 GTX, it doesn't seem to me that there's a lot of transistor or power budget to spare to cram on sound or anything else... anything you add will come at the expense of something else. Willing to give up a bit of video memory and maybe a dozen shaders so they can add audio as well?

[Redeemed]

There's two pathways to follow, and I think we're seeing both of them happen at the same time.

One path is increased integration, which drives lower cost. There's actually been experiments with video, north bridge, and CPU on one chip. We see a lot of integration of various components on current motherboard chipsets as well.... sound, video, networking, etc. We've seen it with integration of the memory controller on the Athlon 64. I think we'll see more of it when the K8L comes out and we start seeing the ability to create chips with multiple cores- but those cores being different components, ie, video, physics, sound, whatever.

But as long as there's a market for it, there's going to be high end discrete components as well. And at the moment, on an 8800 GTX, it doesn't seem to me that there's a lot of transistor or power budget to spare to cram on sound or anything else... anything you add will come at the expense of something else. Willing to give up a bit of video memory and maybe a dozen shaders so they can add audio as well?

I just don't like all these bundled packages- currently the NB isn't an issue with all it's included components cause you can still add a new sound card, or a new networking card, etc. Even for integrated video, just disable it and you can add a new video card.

With all this integration crap I fear that the choices and wealth of options we have now may very well start to dwindle. And I don't like the thought of me (or any consumer for that matter) loosing options.

As far as sacrificing shaders and video memory for Sound Storm- only if it can provide movie-like DD and DTS Digital encoding for all my audio and do it in real time. The surround sound had better be exactly as awesome as it is on my DVDs and in the theater. Otherwise, no, I'm not willing to sacrifice the shaders and video memory. But that might just be me... ;)

[kevJ420]

I just don't like all these bundled packages- currently the NB isn't an issue with all it's included components cause you can still add a new sound card, or a new networking card, etc. Even for integrated video, just disable it and you can add a new video card.

With all this integration crap I fear that the choices and wealth of options we have now may very well start to dwindle. And I don't like the thought of me (or any consumer for that matter) loosing options.

As far as sacrificing shaders and video memory for Sound Storm- only if it can provide movie-like DD and DTS Digital encoding for all my audio and do it in real time. The surround sound had better be exactly as awesome as it is on my DVDs and in the theater. Otherwise, no, I'm not willing to sacrifice the shaders and video memory. But that might just be me... ;)

It's time to move on to True HD. DD sucks and is compressed. DD is ancient of day.

I agree with you 100%. If sacrifices need to be made, then they shouldn't do it.

I think that they need to add a few new features and several old features to video cards, before they should even think about audio.

[superklye]

You know that TrueHD is compressed too, right?

[kevJ420]

You know that TrueHD is compressed too, right?

You may be joking, but I didn't come up with that.