SoundStorm was an advanced integrated 5.1 sound technology certification developed by NVIDIA for the nForce2 platform based on the nForce audio processing unit (APU). NVIDIA corporate logo This is a copyrighted and/or trademarked logo. ... Surround sound is the concept of expanding the spatial imaging of audio playback from 1 dimension (mono/Left-Right) to 2D or 3D. This is often performed for a more realistic audio environment, actively implemented in cinema sound systems, technical theatre, home entertainment, video arcades, computer gaming, and a growing... NVIDIA Corporation (NASDAQ: NVDA) is a major supplier of graphics processors (graphics processing units, GPUs), graphics cards, and media and communications devices for PCs and game consoles such as the original Xbox and the new upcoming next generation Playstation 3. ... The nForce2 Chipset was released by NVIDIA as a refresh to the original nForce product offering. ...

Certification

To achieve SoundStorm certification, a motherboard manufacturer had to include the nForce APU and include the necessary discrete outputs. It was also necessary to meet certain sound quality levels as tested by Dolby Digital sound labs. Dolby Digital is the marketing name for a series of lossy audio compression technologies by Dolby Laboratories. ...

The SoundStorm certification ensured that many manufacturers produced solutions with high quality sound output. For this reason, SoundStorm achieved significant popularity in the hardware enthusiast community, offering high quality for a bargain price. It was also, at the time, the only PC sound card capable of producing real Dolby Digital 5.1 output (a technology called Dolby Digital Live), which was important for home theater PCs. A home theater PC (HTPC) is a personal computer that replaces components in a home theater system. ...

Hardware

It is often referred to as an audio chip but this is a misconception. The audio 'chip' component of SoundStorm is the nForce APU, which is included in the MCP-D and MCP-T southbridges of the nForce and nForce2 chipsets respectively. A series of fixed-function and general-purpose processing units provide a combined total of reportedly 4 billion operations per second. A fully programmable, Motorola 56300-based digital signal processing is provided for effects processing but with very limited support under DirectX on the PC. The XBOX developers are provided far more extensive access to the various features of each processing unit than is available to PC developers. The Southbridge is a chip that implements the ‘slower’ capabilities of the motherboard in a northbridge/southbridge chipset computer architecture. ... NFOrce. ... A chipset is a group of integrated circuits (chips) that are designed to work together, and are usually marketed as a single product. ...

The DSP on the APU was normally driven by code largely derived from the 3D audio middleware company Sensaura. The Sensaura middleware was also used by the Windows drivers of nearly every sound card and audio codec other than those by Creative. Unlike the usual software implementations of the Sensaura code, the SoundStorm solution ran the same code on a hardware DSP, which resulted in extremely low CPU usage. It was also capable of realtime Dolby Digital 5.1 encoding. Compared to other audio solutions of the day, the difference in CPU usage when running popular multimedia applications was as much as 10-20%. While the Creative Audigy offers similar performance, it does so at a much higher price point, and only as a discrete add in solution. Sensaura, a division of Creative Technology, provides sophisticated 3D audio technology for the interactive entertainment industry. ... A Sound Blaster Live! Value card, a typical present-day PCI sound card. ... Creative Technology Limited (SGX: C76) (NASDAQ: CREAF) is a listed manufacturer of computer multimedia products based in Singapore where the firm was initially founded by Sim Wong Hoo (born 1955) on July 1, 1981. ... Intel 80486DX2 microprocessor in a ceramic PGA package A central processing unit (CPU), or sometimes simply processor, is the component in a digital computer that interprets instructions and processes data contained in software. ... Dolby Digital is the marketing name for a series of lossy audio compression technologies by Dolby Laboratories. ... Creative Technology Limited (SGX: C76) (NASDAQ: CREAF) is a listed manufacturer of computer multimedia products based in Singapore where the firm was initially founded by Sim Wong Hoo (born 1955) on July 1, 1981. ... The Sound Blaster family of sound cards was for many years the de facto standard for audio on the IBM PC compatible system platform, before PC audio became commoditized, and backward-compatibility became less of a feature. ...

Drivers

Since the SoundStorm solution was a general-purpose DSP where code was uploaded to the card by the drivers at boot time, this made it easy to add new functionality to the card. However, it also meant that it was not possible to create third-party drivers for the SoundStorm, since they did not have access to the DSP code. Linux drivers for the SoundStorm actually talk directly to the audio codec (like a RealTek ALC650), bypassing the APU completely and doing all audio operations in software.

It should be noted that the nForce2 APU was a purely digital component, and that motherboard manufacturers still had to use codec chips such as the 650 from Realtek for the audio output functions, including the necessary digital to analog conversion (DAC). After the demise of SoundStorm, codec chips such as the Realtek 850 have become standard integrated audio solutions, with audio processing functions offloaded on the host processor. As such, the quality of the drivers is very important to ensure resonably low host processor usage, without an audio quality issues. Realtek logo Realtek Semiconductor Corp. ... Realtek logo Realtek Semiconductor Corp. ...

Xbox

SoundStorm development was originally funded by Microsoft for use in the Xbox gaming console. At time of writing reportedly a second generation chip has been developed, this time with funding from Sony, as part of the PlayStation 3 project. It is hinted SoundStorm may make return to the PC scene, possibly as part of a multimedia graphics card, along the lines of the original NV1 card, rather than as a discrete or onboard solution. While there did appear to be plans for a discrete product at one point, this never in fact materialised. Microsoft Corporation (NASDAQ: MSFT, SEHK: 4338) is an international computer technology corporation with 2005 global annual sales of close to $40 billion USD and about 64,000 employees in 85 countries and regions which develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. ... The Microsoft Xbox is a sixth generation era video game console first released on November 15, 2001 in North America and Puerto Rico , then released on February 22, 2002 in Japan, and on March 14, 2002 in Europe. ... Sony is a Japanese leading manufacturer of audio, video, communications, and information technology products for the consumer and professional market. ... The PlayStation 3 (PS3) is Sonys seventh generation era video game console in the PlayStation series. ... The NV1 was a multimedia PCI card released in 1995 and sold to retail as the Diamond Edge. ...

Discontinued

Sadly for many in the enthusiast community, NVIDIA decided the cost of manufacturing SoundStorm as an integrated product was too high, and while it was retained on nForce2 Athlon XP boards, nForce3 and beyond dropped it. Athlon is the brand name applied to a series of different x86 processors designed and manufactured by AMD. The original Athlon, or Athlon Classic was the first seventh-generation x86 processor and, in a first, retained the initial performance lead it had over Intels competing processors for a significant... nVidia nForce3 logo The correct title of this article is nForce3. ...

Furthermore, in the absence of a formal certification process, there is little incentive for motherboard manufacturers to use the quality of components necessary for high fidelity output. It needs be considered that from a purely technical point of view, there is no reason why onboard sound from motherboards without the nForce APU and SoundStorm certification cannot reproduce non-processed sound such as a MP3 or CD without effects applied, as well as can a SoundStorm certified nForce2 motherboard.

Other manufacturers have since produced stand-alone sound cards with real-time Dolby Digital and DTS encoding features. These manufacturers include Turtle Beach^[1] and Auzentech^[2] DTS DTS (formerly known as Digital Theater Systems), owned by DTS Inc (NASDAQ: DTSI), is a multi-channel surround sound format used for both commercial/theatrical and consumer grade applications (with significant technical differences between home and commercial/theatrical variants: the latter being a traditional ADPCM compression system and the... Turtle Beach Systems is a sound card and headphone manufacturer and direct competitor with Creative Labs-branded Sound Blaster. ...

References

1. ↑ Montego DDL. Turtlebeach.com.
2. ↑ HDA X-Plosion 7.1 DTS Connect. Auzentech.com.

External links

• NVIDIA: SoundStorm
• Digital Audio System (Integrated Audio) By : NVIDIA
• Sensaura (now owned by Creative)