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SoundBlaster Live! October 1998 - Last updated February 12, 2001
First Impressions: Update: Creative Labs has now replaced the Live and Live!Value with Live X-Gamer 5.1, Live MP3 5.1 and LivePlatinum 5.1 in North America and LivePlayer 5.1 and Live!Platinum 5.1 in Europe. We suggest you check out our Live reference review for our latest impressions of the Live. The Live reference review covers all Live cards. What a marketing campaign. The Environmental Audio Extensions and the slick logo have been around the web and on the computer media leading up to the launch of the Live!
Technical Overview: This is truly an overview as the Sound Blaster Live! offers an incredible array of features many of which do not relate directly to the gamer. The Live supplies one hundred percent hardware acceleration of DirectSound, DirectSound3D and DS3D with the Environmental Audio Extensions, relieving the CPU of those duties and all at an incredible signal to noise ratio of better than 96dB. The card samples audio at up to 48 kHz and a total harmonic distortion of 0.002%. This horsepower comes by way of the EMU10K1 chip which boasts 1,000 MIPS and has the processing power of a pentium 90 all dedicated to audio. At the launch event Creative also talked alot about E-mu's patented 8-point Interpolation Algorithm that reproduces audio signals with new levels of fidelity, free from perceivable distortion. By taking multiple sample points of the sound source to generate the waveform, the audio reproduced is precise and almost no different from the actual sound. I can go on and on about features on this card. The Live! can do up to 256 voices for incredible MIDI sound. It also offers a range of sound fonts from 2 to 32 MB going into system RAM with a full range of effects on the MIDI playback. The joystick interface (aside from doubling as a MIDI interface) provides standard analog/digital joystick support. Something I found amazing is that in chatting with some of the engineers from EMU at the recent Sound Blaster Live! launch event I got the distinct impression that the power of the EMU10K1 has yet to be fully harnessed! A big selling point for some will be the inclusion of a digital i/o extension card. The S/PDIF connectivity will enable users to connect a S/PDIF-compatible device such as a DAT player for high-end playback, recording and production as well as the digital output of CD-Audio (if available) via the S/PDIF input (CD Digital In) on the Live!. The MIDI interface on the extension card uses a MIDI DIN connector which can be connected to any regular MIDI cable, so that musicians need not use custom MIDI adapter cables to connect their MIDI compatible devices. A feature that sounds really interesting to me (I love speakers) is a Digital DIN connector is provided for future connection of up to eight digital speakers! This is a futures though, so for now I have to stick to my four speaker set-up. Bundle: The Sound Blaster Live! comes bundled with the following third party and Creative Labs software: Sonic Foundry Sound Forge XP 4.0, Cake Walk Express Gold, Mixman Technologies Mixman Studio, Creative PlayCenter, Creative Rythmania, Creative Launcher, Creative WaveStudio, Creative AudioHQ, Creative Keytar, Prody Parrot and an On-line Sound Blaster Live! Tour and Demo and of course a special edition of Unreal. As I noted earlier, this multi-level Unreal demo has the optimized Environmental Audio Extensions to Direct Sound 3D built into it and is a fantastic showcase for the card. As I write this we are still waiting for a patch to bring the full version of Unreal up to maximum EAX quality, but the 209 patch available for Epic does provide the beta version of EAX. I am not going to get into the rest of the software aside from the Creative Launcher. Click Here to view Launcher This is a cool task bar that defaults to the top of the screen and gives easy access to frequently used applications and provides a load of pre-set Environmental Audio Extensions to enhance legacy titles. More on that later. Installation: The card ships with a good printed manual. Once again, bonus points to any manufacturer who makes the effort to stick with print. As you may know by now I am opposed to the going trend of 100-percent electronic documentation. When I am installing hardware I usually only resort to a manual when I have an issue (not ahead of time) and at that stage often times I can't get into the electronic files dues to whatever problems I am trying to resolve. I proceeded to pop open my case and pull out Monster Sound XL (original) that has been my main card for the past few months. I have been using the Monster Sound with 4 bookshelf speakers powered by two external amplifiers and chose to use this set-up rather than the Cambridge Sound Works PC Works FourPoint Surround System that I also have to test. (This was done for consistency in comparing quality between boards. As is customary, I had already prepared for the installation by checking for and downloading the latest drivers. The card installed flawlessly. As my existing CD player does not have a digital out, I connected with the standard CD connector. The provided CD connector was well designed to eliminate the guess work as to which way to turn it avoiding any chance of reversing channels coming from the CD player. For software installation I chose to install the basics, being the launcher, some other utilities and the PlayCenter, which is a handy integrated multimedia player that lets you play files of any format and use the Environmental effect on the output.
Next to test my gaming devices. My SpaceOrb was as usual all messed up by a change in sound cards. I am sure this is a software issue that can be pointed to Spacetec as it has happened with every sound card change I have gone through. FYI, the Spaceorb connects to a COM port but is selected through the gameport devices. A removal and reinstallation of the SpaceOrb software was all that was required to fix this problem. Next, I tested my Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro (a digital device) -which worked flawlessly in all games I tested it in. Unfortunately (at least for testing purposes) I don't have access to a force feedback stick so I can't offer test results in that area. Configuration:
Gaming Impressions: Before diving into Unreal and other 3d sound titles I wanted to see what the pre-set Environmental settings would do for legacy titles. The pre-sets are fantastic and while some detractors of the Live! point out that these effects are nothing more than blanket reverb and echo setting that can be done with any good av amplifier, they fail to point out the cost of doing such a set-up out of 4 speakers with positional audio (i.e. 2 separate amplifiers). The fact that the live offers these pre-sets and the ability to make your own is without spending $600+ on a pair of Dolby amplifiers is a great bonus. Quake 2 for example has a much more "being there" feel to it and the effects add to the already incredible atmosphere in Diablo. Yes, the effects are not dynamic, so if you set up for big echoes and enter a large open area your echoes won't go away, but in most legacy games your environment will hardly, if ever, change. The card also performed flawlessly in tests of demos of Barrage and Sin. All of these titles showcased the clean, four speaker output of the Live! and again hilighted the bonus of the legacy settings available to the user. Note that it is possible that in some older DirectSound titles, there may be problems with the acceleration of DirectSound similar to what I have seen on some other chipsets (e.g.. Wing Commander Prophecy). What I could not find was an easy way to simply turn off DirectSound acceleration as a work around (note that I did not experience this issue on the Live!, but it would still be nice to know that the option is there). DOS titles...sorry, I actually don't have any and from the perspective of a hard core gamer I would not penalize any company who chose to drop DOS compatibility Next in line was UnreaSE. I left the 3d sound channels in the advanced options of Unreal on 16 3D streams and never experienced a problem until I worked hard to create it rapidly firing and spinning in an empty room until suddenly there was no sound. This problem has been documented by several people on the net and in my opinion does not have anything to do with multiple 3d streams. Granted that's just a guess right now, but in my time playing Unreal on the Live! I have not suffered from persistent sound switching between the software rendered and hardware. Only time will tell for sure on this one. Over the next few months we will learn more about the EMU10K1 and whether or not 8 3d hardware streams are sufficient for next generation games. However, this is the one area where the Live! is open for criticism. Who knows, perhaps some of the EMU10K1's unharnessed horsepower can be channelled to address these concerns. I have seen a few other comments on how fantastic the Live!
sounds with four speakers in Unreal. While this is very true, especially because of the
great environmental audio effects, I still want to point out that many of these comments
are coming from people who had never heard Unreal on the Monster Sound Original or MX200.
The first big jump is from 2 speaker Unreal to playing it on any four speaker system, be
it the Monster Sound or the Sound Blaster Live!. Onwards...Given that there are not a lot of pure DS3D titles out on the market today I did alot of my testing on A3D enhanced games. I did try out the Star Siege demo in DS3D which is sounding great, then switched it over to A3D so see if there would be problems in the translation. None heard. I then threw Incoming at the Live! Fantastic! Everyone should have this game on their system to show off to friends! In summary, the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! performed virtually flawlessly in all my game tests. Performance: Speakers are an issue with performance on the Live. I feel that the two speaker offerings from the competition using the A3D algorithms are more effective at creating the illusion of 'sound from behind' than the Sound Blaster Live!. This is not surprising, since Creative has been consistently dissing the effectiveness of 2 speaker surround. (Don't mistake me here, the 4 speaker surround is, in my opinion, more effective than two speaker surround, but if you don't want to add rear speakers to your system then I would recommend checking out the existing A3D cards or cards to be based on the Vortex 2 chip expected later this fall). Compatibility: Right now this card will run everything thing you throw at it meaning almost 100 percent backward Sound Blaster compatibility with Sound Blaster 16 combatibility in a DOS box and Sound Blaster Pro compatibility in real mode. Direct Sound, Direct Sound 3D with or without the environmental audio extensions and translation of A3D calls back to DS3D so you can take advantage of 4 speaker positional audio in most A3D titles. I say most, as one of the features promised in A3D 2.0 is an A3D Authentication Protection system which according to Aureal "ensures a consistent, high quality playback experience for the user. A3D 2.0 applications will only run in full feature hardware accelerated mode on Aureal certified A3D systems. On other non-certified systems, especially those that claim A3D compatibility but are not Aureal certified, applications will not run positional 3D audio." If developerss choose to support A3D 2.0 and not DS3D, this could prove problematic for Creative. However, given Creative's marketing ability, I expect many developers to support both APIs. A quick browse through our own 3d audio game list will show that developers are already starting to support both A3D and DS3D with Environmental Extensions. Star Siege, Trespasser, Heavy Gear II and Interstate 82 are just a few of the games that will support both APIs. Again, only time will tell. Summary: This is without a doubt the best card I have had the
opportunity to review. I feel quite comfortable awarding this card the 3DsoundSurge *Surge
Of Approval*
and our highest score ever of 9.5/10. If you are
looking for a new sound card and four speakers are in your plans, then definitely take a
close look at the Sound Blaster Live! Editor's Note: Since this review was written the Sound Blaster Live has had extensive driver upgrades with positive results. For a full report you can check out our Liveware 2.0 review. This is still very relevant even though Liveware is now at 2.1
Have comments or questions on this feature? Questions, Comments are appreciated or you can let us know what you think or ask for help in our Sound Forum |
Sound Card Reviews Hurricane Extreme Initial Review SoundBlaster Live! reference review SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1 European Edition SoundBlaster Live! Platinum 5.1 America's Edition Sound Blaster Live! Player 5.1 Sound Blaster Live! X-Gamer 5.1 Hoontech SoundTrack Digital-XG Boostaroo Headphone Amplifier / Splitter Sound Blaster Live!Drive I and II Sound Blaster Creative Digital I/O 2 Spectrum Research Theater 2000 Articles A Gamer's Guide to Sensaura 3D Audio A Gamer's Guide to 3D Sound and Reverb APIs A Gamer's Guide to 3D Sound and Reverb Engines A Gamer's Guide to DS3D and A3D 1.x Virtual Surround Sound Technologies The Advantages of the Center and LFE channels Stereo to 4 or 5.1 Expansion Technologies |
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With all that marketing hype its been
difficult not to get a little excited about this card. On top of all the hype surrounding
the card itself, the bundle offers something for just about everyone. But now I have
to admit a bias. I am a pure gamer when it comes to my home PC and I really don't care
about 90 percent of the stuff that Creative packs into their product boxes. But this box
comes with a special edition of 
There are a couple of ways
to get at the multitude of options on this card. My preference is through the Creative
Launcher. From within the launcher I was able to set-up my 4 speaker system to "no
effects" .To test my initial set-up I used the the Microsoft DSShow program to
position a number of 3d sound streams just for a quick and dirty check that all was well
for positional audio. Worked no problems. Nice and easy...well not
quite.
All content, design and work is ©
2001 - 3D Sound Surge Please respect the copyrights of the articles and writers herein. All copyrights are enforced by 3DSS.
