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The three new consoles have been compared to death on the terms of the processing and graphics cababilities, but an area which is largely overlooked has been the sound of a system. There could be a few good reasons as to why games players don't look at the sound availability of a system when it comes to looking at which console they want, and in my opinion the most significant one is the fact that until now there has been very little difference in the capabilities of consoles sound processing.
In 1992 the Commodore Amiga 500 was released, and to many people's surprise was overshadowed by the Atari ST in the music world, because the ST had MIDI ports built in. The Amiga however had something that no other home computer, or any system below a few grand had before. Multi channel sample support. In fact the Amiga could play back 4 channels of audio simultaneously, something which wasn't matched or bettered until the release of the Playstation and some high end PC sound cards. The current crop of consoles use exactly the same channel technology as the old Amiga, although there are more of them. The PS2 has 48 channels, and the Gamecube has 64. The Xbox on the other hand has 256 seperate channels.
By now your probably wondering what this means to the gamer, well, I'll explain. When your console plays back the sound of a car moving, it has roughly 5 seperate sounds to recreate the sound to a fairly decent standard. The engine noise, the exhast, the gear box, wind resistence and something else which the company adds. If you have more channels, the more things you can play back, and the more detailed the sound becomes. But the effects which can be applied to these channels is limited, and the technology is beginning to show weaknesses, so another system has to implemented.
The Xbox supports the future of home and cinema audio entertainment. It is called Physical Modelling, and it accurately recreates a model of the sound being produced, rather than just playing back a sampled recording. This allows many more parameters such as the RPM etc. of an engine be recreated to a much more impressive level, and when you hear the system being run, you just feel all the more underwhelmed by the current ability of the Playstation 2 and the upcoming Gamecube.
In terms of the auido quality shown and supported by these two systems, the Xbox is far in front. Also with a Dolby Digital decoder supplied by Dolby themselves, the Xbox will be the true sound system for the audio enthusiast. The future was very much thought of when the Xbox was produced, and although many of you will never have heard of Physical Modelling before, it is sitting in the wings, just waiting to replace the poor, aged sampling techniques introduced by the Amiga.
In 1992 the Commodore Amiga 500 was released, and to many people's surprise was overshadowed by the Atari ST in the music world, because the ST had MIDI ports built in. The Amiga however had something that no other home computer, or any system below a few grand had before. Multi channel sample support. In fact the Amiga could play back 4 channels of audio simultaneously, something which wasn't matched or bettered until the release of the Playstation and some high end PC sound cards. The current crop of consoles use exactly the same channel technology as the old Amiga, although there are more of them. The PS2 has 48 channels, and the Gamecube has 64. The Xbox on the other hand has 256 seperate channels.
By now your probably wondering what this means to the gamer, well, I'll explain. When your console plays back the sound of a car moving, it has roughly 5 seperate sounds to recreate the sound to a fairly decent standard. The engine noise, the exhast, the gear box, wind resistence and something else which the company adds. If you have more channels, the more things you can play back, and the more detailed the sound becomes. But the effects which can be applied to these channels is limited, and the technology is beginning to show weaknesses, so another system has to implemented.
The Xbox supports the future of home and cinema audio entertainment. It is called Physical Modelling, and it accurately recreates a model of the sound being produced, rather than just playing back a sampled recording. This allows many more parameters such as the RPM etc. of an engine be recreated to a much more impressive level, and when you hear the system being run, you just feel all the more underwhelmed by the current ability of the Playstation 2 and the upcoming Gamecube.
In terms of the auido quality shown and supported by these two systems, the Xbox is far in front. Also with a Dolby Digital decoder supplied by Dolby themselves, the Xbox will be the true sound system for the audio enthusiast. The future was very much thought of when the Xbox was produced, and although many of you will never have heard of Physical Modelling before, it is sitting in the wings, just waiting to replace the poor, aged sampling techniques introduced by the Amiga.
Amendment................
THE Playstation 2 has the SAME physical modelling capabilities as the Xbox. The middleware is called SoundMAX and is priduced by a company called Analog Devices. No Gamecube support is in development, yet.
THE Playstation 2 has the SAME physical modelling capabilities as the Xbox. The middleware is called SoundMAX and is priduced by a company called Analog Devices. No Gamecube support is in development, yet.
The three new consoles have been compared to death on the terms of the processing and graphics cababilities, but an area which is largely overlooked has been the sound of a system. There could be a few good reasons as to why games players don't look at the sound availability of a system when it comes to looking at which console they want, and in my opinion the most significant one is the fact that until now there has been very little difference in the capabilities of consoles sound processing.
In 1992 the Commodore Amiga 500 was released, and to many people's surprise was overshadowed by the Atari ST in the music world, because the ST had MIDI ports built in. The Amiga however had something that no other home computer, or any system below a few grand had before. Multi channel sample support. In fact the Amiga could play back 4 channels of audio simultaneously, something which wasn't matched or bettered until the release of the Playstation and some high end PC sound cards. The current crop of consoles use exactly the same channel technology as the old Amiga, although there are more of them. The PS2 has 48 channels, and the Gamecube has 64. The Xbox on the other hand has 256 seperate channels.
By now your probably wondering what this means to the gamer, well, I'll explain. When your console plays back the sound of a car moving, it has roughly 5 seperate sounds to recreate the sound to a fairly decent standard. The engine noise, the exhast, the gear box, wind resistence and something else which the company adds. If you have more channels, the more things you can play back, and the more detailed the sound becomes. But the effects which can be applied to these channels is limited, and the technology is beginning to show weaknesses, so another system has to implemented.
The Xbox supports the future of home and cinema audio entertainment. It is called Physical Modelling, and it accurately recreates a model of the sound being produced, rather than just playing back a sampled recording. This allows many more parameters such as the RPM etc. of an engine be recreated to a much more impressive level, and when you hear the system being run, you just feel all the more underwhelmed by the current ability of the Playstation 2 and the upcoming Gamecube.
In terms of the auido quality shown and supported by these two systems, the Xbox is far in front. Also with a Dolby Digital decoder supplied by Dolby themselves, the Xbox will be the true sound system for the audio enthusiast. The future was very much thought of when the Xbox was produced, and although many of you will never have heard of Physical Modelling before, it is sitting in the wings, just waiting to replace the poor, aged sampling techniques introduced by the Amiga.
In 1992 the Commodore Amiga 500 was released, and to many people's surprise was overshadowed by the Atari ST in the music world, because the ST had MIDI ports built in. The Amiga however had something that no other home computer, or any system below a few grand had before. Multi channel sample support. In fact the Amiga could play back 4 channels of audio simultaneously, something which wasn't matched or bettered until the release of the Playstation and some high end PC sound cards. The current crop of consoles use exactly the same channel technology as the old Amiga, although there are more of them. The PS2 has 48 channels, and the Gamecube has 64. The Xbox on the other hand has 256 seperate channels.
By now your probably wondering what this means to the gamer, well, I'll explain. When your console plays back the sound of a car moving, it has roughly 5 seperate sounds to recreate the sound to a fairly decent standard. The engine noise, the exhast, the gear box, wind resistence and something else which the company adds. If you have more channels, the more things you can play back, and the more detailed the sound becomes. But the effects which can be applied to these channels is limited, and the technology is beginning to show weaknesses, so another system has to implemented.
The Xbox supports the future of home and cinema audio entertainment. It is called Physical Modelling, and it accurately recreates a model of the sound being produced, rather than just playing back a sampled recording. This allows many more parameters such as the RPM etc. of an engine be recreated to a much more impressive level, and when you hear the system being run, you just feel all the more underwhelmed by the current ability of the Playstation 2 and the upcoming Gamecube.
In terms of the auido quality shown and supported by these two systems, the Xbox is far in front. Also with a Dolby Digital decoder supplied by Dolby themselves, the Xbox will be the true sound system for the audio enthusiast. The future was very much thought of when the Xbox was produced, and although many of you will never have heard of Physical Modelling before, it is sitting in the wings, just waiting to replace the poor, aged sampling techniques introduced by the Amiga.