Readers pound on Nvidia's Sound Storm door

READERS HAVE sent us a sheaf of emails for Drew Henry, Nvidia's chipset director, in a bid to get him to put Sound Storm back into the Nforce 4 roadmaps.

The dominant word was disappointed, and the dominant feeling was disappointment. A heap of people said they won't go for Nforce 4 because of this and many even said they will switch to Intel.

We are expecting Nvidia's comments on your points and we thank you for dropping us a line.

Here are some of the letters we've had:

Hi.. just read your article, and yes.. I am very dissapointed with nVidia decision. I am not going to buy any nForce 4 mainboard as VIA will also have better PCIe solution compared to dual PCIe 8x from nVidia. ATI will also have a good solution. There is no reason to wait for nForce 4 anymore right now.. I'll reconsider my purchase regarding this news..

As of your comment regarding Creative and Terratec, I assure you, that Creative and Terratec doesn't have that solution. All I need is a card to play games on my six B&W speakers, using Marantz as receiver. And none other than SoundStorm has that solution. There is no other sound card in the world that able to send DirectSound3D signal as Dolby Digital encoded stream to external receiver but SoundStorm.

nVidia just lose a customer.. I think I'll keep my old Abit NF7-S, and waiting for Intel's cheap 64 bit solution, then migrate to Intel or we'll see if ATI can put Azalia on AMD64 system, I'll go all the way to ATI. All I need right now is a sound card capable of DTS or DD encoding. I don't care how I can get it, and I don't care what it cost. I can still cough up $400 for it. I got more than $8000 computer setup designed specifically for SoundStorm, and $400 is nothing compared to my $8000 setup. Without those kind of card, my $8000 money is wasted.

I didn't pay £200 on Logitech Z680 speakers to hook them up to AC97. SoundStorm, Mr. Henry, and nothing else. Or lose out to the weaker chipsets.

Chris

I'm really disappointed to see the SoundStorm go, it was the one thing that could compete with Creative in terms of processor usage and sound quality.

Coming from dual CPU background, Creative never gave me a good impression with multiple processors. The drivers were extremely unstable, and Creative wouldn't do anything to fix the problems. I'm afraid of what will happen when dual core processors become more ocmmon...

If I was nVidia and knowning that people are willing to put the money down for it. I will add SoudStorm in the Ultra version if licensing is an issues. I mean Via and ATI will provide for sure better chipset based on what people know right now .. I mean a dual 16x PCIe from via comapred to a 8x PCIe from nVidia makes the former a clear choice knowing that people will money wil want what's best. ATI doesn't offer SLI but their IGP is by far the best compare to what Via and nVidia has to offer (Plays Doom3 at 30ftp... now that's the king of IGP's if you ask me).

Anyway as your article mentioen that nVidia will have different version based on features then an Ultra version should have SoundStorm and paying Dolby for a license fee will be convered. Anyway have they forgot about their hardcore PC gamers? High derf Intel audiois fine but come on the only difference between them an the competition is SoundStorm. Now what makes the NForce 4 so special if it's not there.

Cheers

Reading the articles about lack of soundstorm in latest nforce chipset upset me. I have a external reciever and home cinema with digital connection to my computer and i could really use a soundstorm in nforce4 when i upgrade to amd64 939. I saw Nforce2 with MCP-T as a DELUXE mothercookie, i recently bought one for my sister... Only a soundstorm would do for her.

Now they have taken away what makes the nforce chipset a differential product, and going for a competetive low-price niche instead. I think thats a big mistake and they might have underestimated the power of the soundstorm. I am willing to pay extra for it.

There is currently very little reason to choose nforce4 over anything else.

John

Hi,

The reason that I write this email is to point out that in the complaint email written under "Where is our Sound Storm matey?" the writer stated that no other sound card in the world supports digital output for direct3d, but in fact audigy 2 zs supports not only digital (SPIDF) output, it ALSO supports DTS digital output just you need to buy a mini-jack to RCA line. Just few days ago, I've decided dig into my pocket and get myself a augdigy2 zs and finally ditch my goddamn A7N8X-E deluxe's sound storm. I must say the sloppy EAX supports from nvidia really pisses me and hundreds of other nforce2 owners off ever since it came out. We waited, and waited for nvidia to fix the EAX problems that exists in almost every game that supports EAX (that included Battlefield Vietnam, Far cry, prince of persia, Star wars:KOTOR .....etc). Just go to the forems in nforcersHQ.com, you'll find hundreds of unsatisfied and really frastrated gamers out there spending hours trying to find a solution to this problem and they finally hit the brick wall....... THIS IS NO SOLUTION OTHER THAN TURNING EAX OFF!!! I hope not even one more gamer has to go through with this. I'm glad that nvidia takes out sound storm, they know they cannot compete with Creative in the audio area and that is a correct decision. Please warn other people about sound storm, it's not worth it. Thank you for reading my mail and thanks for this fantastic site :)

Dear Drew Henry,

I'm really disapointed about the decision to drop SoundStrom from Nforce 4 chip. I was really waiting for the Nforce 4 chipset, but I can't really see any reason to do so as SoundStorm is the only feature that makes sense: a) Firewall - I run Linux, so I don't really care about it _that_ much anyway. b) NIC - Nvidia ethernet nics are just a joke, see its wireless these days. c) PCIe - I'll get there anyway.

I hope you will seriously reconsider the inclusion of SoundStorm in a format or another.

Best Regards,
Mr. Kare Nuorteva

Nvidia are a bunch of rude content If there was one thing that was going to really going to get them above the competition was the inclusion of SoundStorm 2.

Instead they think having SLI is good enough. But how many people are going to be able to afford to pay for 2 graphics card instead of 1? They would have easily sold more boards compared to their competitors if they had SS2 and not SLI.

Next thing we know they will cut off making their high end cards also, saying the are too expensive to produce and do not yield enough consumers compared to the mid range cards.

If this is the new kind of philosophy being taken up by such an advance Hi-Tech company, well I am saying "g'day" to them and sticking with ATI and VIA or anything else. The more products we buy from Nvidia's rival companies, the more chance we have of getting better offerings in the future. Who knows, maybe with such attention, VIA or ATI might come around to make a NForce Killer. Remember the 9700 Pro that slaughtered the GEFORCE 4 and then sat there shitting on Nvidia's face for ages and ages???

Up rude content Nvidia, rude content! Seth

Hong Kong

Hi Fudo,

Like many of your readers i miss the soundstorm support from my nforce 2. For dolby support? no, because for gaming, it uses less cpu than any plugin card that you can buy! This, like their network solution, was a killer app for me - as you said, much more important that the bloomin firewall (im behind a linux firewall so not much help from that).

Andy

Hello,

Maybe you could make this suggestion to nVidia:

They should create a separate chip to do all the audio.

Motherboard manufacturors then could decide to add the extra chip onto their motherboard for dolby digital output (obviously costing more $$$). Otherwise no built in sound.

A separate sound audio chip (that does everything - no crappy realtek etc addons required) should be made available to motherboard manufacturors.

Also if nVidia makes the chip with the standard PCI interface then P4 motherboards could have it added on as well. Naturally the P4 sound chip would be slightly pricier as its not bundled with an nVidia chipset. nVidia would open up a new market and increase sales quite a bit I believe.

The more I think about it, the more I see that nVidia are missing a golden opportunity.

And if they do take up my suggestion I would like a christmas bonus mailed out to me!

Please don't give out my email or last name.

Regards,

Tom

Drew,

I love nvidia and I love the motherboards you make. However the nforce3 150 and 250 both missed a large component that the earlier nforce motherboards had. That was soundstorm. Rest assured I holded out on buying a motherboard assuming due to the “lack of soundstorm outrage” nvidia would undoubtedly switch their tactics and release at least one if not two versions of nforce4 motherboards with soundstorm. I hear now that you aren't. You are disappointing your customers and making people with nforce/nforce2 soundstorm motherboards very unhappy about upgrading. Please fix the issue and include soundstorm on the newer motherboards. You are hurting your reputation as a company for the people. The people want this and you guys do that. Please, please, reconsider.

so to stay competive with via they dont include sound but usa an external via sound chip? oh the irony... :D

Fuad,

I, like many others, was waiting for the Nforce 4 before upgrading to an Athlon 64 machine. Now that Soundstorm is out, there's no reason not to go with a cheaper VIA based board instead. I have stateful firewall software that works great - and why do I need gigabit Ethernet when my DSL connection maxes out at 1Mbit?

Who makes these stupid decisions? At least they could offer it as an option.

John Richael

Hello,

This is regarding polite questions to Mr. Henry. The move for dropping DICE support is understandable, and I know how it is dealing with the OEM's. I'll be frank, the DICE was never a really important feature to me, however, the muscle in the APU is extremely interesting to me. Being the only solution with native hardware support for D3D Sound and OpenAL besides the Creative Labs Audigy series, I can hope that this APU is going somewhere. Which leads to my question, all the news and vagueness about future support for "Soundstorm" has me confused. Will there be future chipset support with the APU (without DICE obviously)? This also includes (more importantly) standalone cards in either PCI and/or PCI-Express format which I would love to see. It is my firm belief that you and your company have the chance to turn the APU into something that could do for the PC audio market that which you did for the 3D VPU market back in the 90's =) Going up against Creative Labs, who is known for crippling or outright gobbling up competition can be daunting (resource-consuming), so I would understand if it is too draining to get into in the near future. However, nVidia is such a high profile company, and it is loved by many and so Creative Labs couldn't play dirty without every single move heavily scrutinized, unlike it is now where they just wave a wand and for a couple million dollars they purchase Sensaura.

Thanks for any and all answers, and for taking the time to read this.

Regards,
Anthony Brayton

Buying my Abit NF7-S rev 2.0 was an easy decision it's based on the Nforce2 chipset and it has NVIDIA's SoundStorm audio, hearing that NVIDIA will not include there SoundStorm in there Nforce4 motherboards is sad news, I guess VIA, INTEL and ATI are celebrating, this is a decision that in the long run will greatly hurt them, they are counting too much on SLI which is good but still expensive, adding SoundStorm would have been the icing on the cake, doesn't NVIDIA have people scanning the forums? If they don't they need too, this way they will know how much of an impact this decision will be.

Thanks
David Pagan

Hi. I am a daily reader of the inquirer.

Although Seawolf on nforcershq.com forums has been trying to tell everyone for quite a while that there would be no soundstorm on the next nForce, I always preferred to belive the news here about SoundStorm2 being on Nforce4. I am so very disappointed now! I never got it why nvidia chose to exclude the soundstorm from nforce 3. I subsequently decided that I wouldn't go the AMD64 route until soundstorm was back in the game, and adviced my friends to do the same. nforce orginally caught my eyes because of the dolby-encoding properties of it. Getting to know that there was a 'free' audio solution on the marked that beat all the others. No other consumer level soundcard can encode dolby in realtime while not depending on the cpu. Most of them can decode the stream from i.e. DVD's but only the nforce COULD encode. Note though that the soundstorm is nothing special if you don't have a audio system that can recieve the dolby signal and decode it. I for one have the Logitech-Z-680 connected optically to the nforce, recieving and decoding a dolby signal all the time. If one does not have a dolby reciever, nforce is no more than a lazy AC97 chip. Those facts got me very excited about nforce and it sort of made me a nvidia fan. Because of it I not only buy their motherboards and GPU's, I also tell everyone I know to buy nvidia products. In example I adviced my brother to buy an acer laptop, and through his advice to others there were bought about dozen other acer laptops. I do the same about nvidia stuff, and the same happens. Now one could think that there are not so many that love the soundstorm as I do, and they are right, at least proportionally. But those few soundstormlovers advice everyone they konw to buy nvidia based products and all of the sudden there are a heap of people that are buying nvidia stuff undirectly because of the soundstorm. And btw, no SATA,firewall or LAN solution is going to have that effect on people. Soundstorm is unique, the others aren't. Now what happens if they take the soundstorm away? those nvidia advices disappear, nvidia starts to lose. Some sour souls may start to advice not to buy nvidia. Can anybody tell me how this is smart? Don't even try to blame the Dolby Licence fee, it's probably the same or little higher than it was with nforce 2. Over at nforcerhq they want to blame the manufacturers...they chose to exclude the soundstorm. But, why give the manufacturers any choice regarding this? This is just bullshit. And what about the former Aureal engineers? What in the world are they doing @ nvidia now? They are responsible for the soundstorm, but since nvidia has forfeited the audio game, they must be out of work. What about me? I am going to hold on to my nforce 2 amd k7 system as long as I possibly can. Then what? Well if nvidia hasn't come with nforce yet, I have no reason to buy their chipset, so shall we say ATI? ATI may have to come up with a audio solution for the Xbox 2, I'll just hope it will be as good as my nforce2 audio is. And one can only guess what I'll be advicing people to buy after that....

Nvidia just threw away their only unique product, a product that can get alot of people on their side, and they expect it to be a smart move. Well, if you want to lose costumers, it sure may be!

my best regards
Eythor Gisli Thorsteinsson
in Iceland

Hi Fuad,

Some time ago I signed the SoundStorm petition at http://www.petitiononline.com/NVAPU/petition.html. Unfortunately it doesn't look like that petition has had any impact, so I welcome the chance you are giving me to pass on my thoughts on to Nvidia through a different channel. Here's what I have to say:

I don't consider myself to be particularly brand-loyal. Whenever upgrade time comes around I typically do a lot of research into the various alternatives and chose what I think gives me the best price/performance, features and stability, regardless of brand. You will no doubt be pleased to hear that as a direct result of this approach the last 3 graphics cards I've had have been based on Nvidia processors, and I have recommended the same to many less tech-savvy friends.

I'm about a month away from upgrading again, and again it seems like Nvidia have the edge with the 6800GT or similar. AMD also seem to have the edge on the CPU front, and moving to PCIe seems like a logical choice as far as future-proofing goes. So, which motherboard to choose? An nForce 4 with SoundStorm would have instantly been granted "must buy" status. In truth I've delayed my upgrade by a couple of months hoping for just such a beast (I'd decided I could live without PCIe. However without SoundStorm nForce becomes just another chipset out of the many that are about to hit the market supporting socket 939+PCIe. And regardless of which chipset/MB I end up chosing, there's no soundcard that will give me the features I want anyway!

I don't care about hardware firewalls (that's my router's problem). I don't care about Gb LAN (I'm on wireless). I don't care about RAID, or half the other chipset features. But please please please give us the SoundStorm technology. Ideally in the chipset itself, but I'd settle for a PCI card if need be, since it looks like I'm going to need to buy a soundcard now anyway :-( I personally know several people who would snap up a SoundStorm chipset the moment it became available. Surely you can see the demand is there too?

Thanks for your consideration,
Chris Miller.

I was disappointed when I found out the Nforce3 chipset didn't have sound storm I bought via chipset motherboard for my 754 AMD now I am planning to get another amd64 system that is 939 but I was planning on waiting for Nforce4 because I heard that sound storm was going to be put back in but now hearing that you guys are not going to put it back in I won't bother waiting any longer I will just pick up either via or ATI which ever offer better goodies. Sound storm was the breaking point for all other chipset but no sound storm no Nforce. I am even willing to pay extra for that goodie. I guess you just lost another customer.

David Luong

Hi.. just read your article, and yes.. I am very disappointed with nVidia's decision. I am not going to buy any nForce 4 mainboard as VIA will also have better PCIe solution compared to dual PCIe 8x from nVidia. ATI will also have a good solution. There is no reason to wait for nForce 4 anymore right now.. I'll reconsider my purchase regarding this news..

nVidia just lose a customer.. I think I'll keep my old Epox 8RDA3+ and waiting for Intel's cheap 64 bit solution, then migrate to Intel or we'll see if ATI can put Azalia on AMD64 system, I'll go all the way to ATI. All I need right now is a sound card capable of DTS or DD encoding.

Hehe, i had Ati 9800Pro on a Nvidia chipset, now i'll try a 6800GT on a Ati northbridge, LOL.

Just a reader, too lazy to write his own lines

Hi,

I waited a long time for a soundsolution that is comparable to the good old soundstorm on the nforce 1/2- chipsets. I understood that it was not possible to make a pci- card because of the bandwith that is needed to encode dolby digital.

What I don`t understand is that the only reason now not to implement it in future mainboards is the money that has to paid to dolby and that it makes mainboards to expensive. Well, my nforce 2 board wasn`t that expensive and I`m absolutely willing to pay much more for a mainboard that delivers sound which is much better than any terratec or creative labs solution.

I really don`t know why Nvidia simply doesn`t understand that soundstorm was and is the main reason for lots of people to buy an nforce 2 board and also don`t switch to the AMD64- platform since there is no equal soulution. I agree that sometimes controlling is more important than marketing but in this case Nvidia will lose lots of customers (including me) by that decision and that will cost much more than paying the fee to the dolby labs.

So without an option to encode dolby digital I see absolutely no reason to buy an Nforce 4- board. My choice will be an ATi- or Via board, depending on the features. Nvidia is no choice...

regards

Pierre Aden

Fully agree with the posting on article #19148:

Soundstorm was the only reason for me to go nforce. I had a nice, stable Via setup before with Audigy soundcard. Via was good, Audigy kinda sucked as it doesn't offer Dolby Digital (DD) encoding. I went into quite some troubles and rebuilt my whole machine around a nforce2 board (the Asus Deluxe one).

DD encoding is the one killer criterium for people with home theater setups with external a/v receivers (aka the guys with the money for beamers, big speakers etc). One digital cable from computer to receiver, no switching, no hassle.

Who needs a firewall built into a NIC? If I want a good firewall I'll get myself a small hardware box with stateful firewall for a couple of bucks. If I want RAID I get myself a PCI(e) card for it.

But there is NO consumer level sound card that does DD ENcoding today. Not a single one (not enuff bandwidth on PCI they say). Soundstorm was the one unique feature that nvivdia built into their chipset. Everything else I can get from other vendors (and will do so in the future as nvidia's motherboard driver are sub-standard imho). So I spent 4000 Euros for my beamer, 2000 for the speakers, 500 for the a/v receiver and do they really think I wanna save 10 bucks on the motherboard because of Dolby's licensing? Come on.

So feel free to forward this to nvidia:

No SoundStorm = one less customer in the future.

Thank you for giving us the chance to convince nVidia to include the Sound Storm in the Nforce 4.

As a gamer I can honestly say I have never had a soundcard as good as Sound Storm. The games sound amazing and music is fantastic. I am truly disappointed in their decision. I can only hope that this effort will convince them to include Sound Storm in the nForce 4 chipset.

Without Sound Storm I may not go with any nForce 4 motherboard. Sound Storm was the biggest reason why I was waiting for it.

James

I seem to recall that Creative bought out Sensura, the principle 3D sound technology employed by Nividia's Soundstorm. With out knowing the particulars, I'll speculate that there is more to this issue than just Dolby licensure.

sorry, but i dont buy this license fee BS.
they just want to save transistors... im very dissapointed...

then whats the difference between nf3 and nf4 after all? pci express...

oh yeah, some extra sata slots and a slightly improved hardware firewall... WHO CARES? in my opinion nf4 doesnt even deserve the name nforce4 but should be called nforce3 350gb, because thats all it is! a slightly improved nf3 chipset...

sascha

Hello,

My brother and I are quite upset that Soundstorm won't make it into the Nforce4. We were both planning on upgrading our current A64 systems with an nforce4 motherboard when it came out. But now we won't be doing so. Soundstorm was a huge part of our wanting to get nforce4 boards. If nvidia insists on leaving Soundstorm out of the nforce4, they should atleast listen to the market and release an add-in card with Soundstorm. If they are truely worried about the price associated with having dolby technology, then give us the choice. We are the consumers, and it's our choice to spend extra on the technology we see is superior. I also find it hard to believe that a company the size of nvidia couldn't cut a deal with Dolby labs to lessen the expenses of licensing their technology.

Loyal Inq reader and avid AMD fan waiting for his Soundstorm,

Brian

I too was waiting for nForce4 with Soundstorm having used the Abit NF7-S for a good while. Much like the example in the article I too use the AC3 stream through a 5.1 setup, this time from Denon and Tannoy. I really do not want to go back to analogue or have to route such cables as far as I do my digital ones, so far the Creative cards only pump out 2 channels over their digital outs ('why bother?' always enters my head).

I guess we will not see integrated Soundstorm again but maybe we will in discreet cards utilizing Dolby's DICE. Where are those nVidia, Creative... anyone?

Saddened,
Steve Hughes

I am a big fan of the nVidia products in general, but I am dismayed at the knowledge that nForce 4 will not be including the well-regarded SoundStorm support in the chipset. I have always looked at the nForce chipset as being the ultimate in providing top-notch solutions in terms of performance and quality to the marketplace. As a result, I am willing to pay a little extra to buy that type of product. I'll bet that I am not alone. AMD platforms are often the platform of choice for more discerning computer enthusiasts. These folks look for quality in their purchasing choices and this made the nForce chipset a good choice in the past. Now, however, other manufactures have ventured good products into the marketplace and nothing allows the nForce chipset to stand-out above the competition. The lack of SoundStorm really places the nForce chipset in a crowd of others, rather than the product to beat. Really, this is too bad because ultimate performance often relies on the peripherals and not only the benchmarks (which just about equal to the competition). In 2005, I will be in the market for an AMD64 system and was looking forward to getting a SoundStorm product, but only nVidia can bring it to the marketplace. To be frank, I will not say that an nForce for is definitely out of the picture, but I will say that everyone else (VIA, ATI, SiS) will definitely have a chance to get my money. nVidia, why would you want to kill one of the key features which makes your product superior, where people will pay a little more for it? Why would you want to encourage your customers to “downgrade” the reputation of your product and let other companies have chance at stealing your air tight market? If you want a cheap product for market, build a cheap chipset for it, but don't erode the product that made the nForce top-of-the-line by not offering a chipset that will protect your reputation.

Sincerely,
Nick Bhagroo, former customer

Dear NVidia,

Intel now offers 7.1 digital SPD/IF our. Intel has upped the bar on what I expect from my motherboard, without adding additional cards. I no longer want to purchase any additional cards except for my U320 RAID 0 SCSI card and graphics card. I was expecting nForce5 to at least match Intel's features and capabilities. Sadly, without Sound Storm, I'll be looking for other alternatives, including Intel, that provide me with the features I want. This makes me very sad, considering I have been a loyal NVidia purchaser since GeForce3 & nForce2.

Dave Kliewer from California

Ok, the only reason I even baught an nvidia nforce2 board was the soundstorm. It took me 3 weeks to get the board I have now, I eventualy found a computer store that could order me one than had the APU on board, see thay had run out of stock on the mcp-t versions and only had mcp versions left, the store owner told me that he had order both versions of this board (Asus A7N8X and A7N8X-Deluxe) but his customers have only been buying the deluxe version and that he is have problems getting more of them from his suplier.. In My Oppinion with all the problems I've had with their IDE drive not working Properly (ASPI Required for cd ripping program - doesnt work with thier drivers installed) for me No Soundstorm = No NForce in my next system going back to VIA.....

Thank You,
James Kittsmiller Jr.
DJ A.J. Slye

I have been waiting to purchase a new system until the nForce 4 boards w/939 sockets became available. One of the main reasons for waiting for an nForce 4 board was SoundStorm was supposed to be back. Without SoundStorm as part of the package I will be looking more closely at VIA's boards. The lack of SoundStorm (and PCI express) was one of the main reasons I didn't opt for an nForce 3 board.

I am very disappointed that SoundStorm is not part of the nForce 4 boards. nVidia will see how this decision effects sales at the launch time. I may just end up buying a VIA board just as a protest. (I have a VIA board in my current system. I have had nVidia & ATI video cards. I buy from quality board manufacturers and quality vendors based on my system needs.)

I support companies that support customers.

Customers want SoundStorm! I was holding off on purchasing an Athlon 64 until the nForce 4s came out, rather then buying an Asus Via board solely because of SoundStorm. I was even going to buy a PCIe video card for my nForce 4, even though my card is current, JUST so I could have SoundStorm. Its a better option then spending the money on a P.O.S. Creative soundcard, which hogs PCI bandwidth and makes systems unstable. Why can't they have a version with, and a version without? The SLI boards will carry a price premium anyways, taking a little more on for the APU won't turn anyone away who was going to buy on in the first place. I bet it will convince a lot of customers to buy SLI when they normally wouldn't. Thanks, -Jared Raia

You've requested some nice emails for NVidia, so here's another to add to your pile:

I've built 11 NForce systems with SoundStorm for friends and family using the ABIT NF7-S Rev2.0. I've recommended to other people NForce and they havebuilt them too. SoundStorm was the only real reason I went with stayed with NForce.

While their LAN performance looks nice on their new models, I really don't want the firewall and would disable it for my own use. It hardly makes up for the lack of SoundStorm.

My motherboard of choice for AMD socket 754/939 is still up in the air, and NForce is not currently in the lead. I don't see any compelling reason to choose it by default over the competition, either.

-Troy Manning

I've got to say that I was pretty disgusted when I heard that Soundstorm 2 wouldn't be released with Nforce4. I've been holding out for that chipset mainly because of the new tech. that will be coming with it. I don't really care about DDRII right now, and pci x is too new to be able to tell what will happen with it. For me, I wanted the chipset and the onboard sound, because those are my favorite things about my current NF7-S rev.2.

The sound quality that I get from my SB is great, and after sinking it, I no longer get crackling from the speakers, giving perfect sound even after hours of gaming. I'm glad your putting out the Nforce4, but without soundstorm, there's nothing to look forward too. I'd be better off just buying the Abit NF8 with the NF3 chipset. I hope you reconsider your decision, because Soundstorm is part of the reason that people buy the nforce chipset. You'll be on Via's level

I was ready to upgrade to an Athlon-64, but I have actually delayed my PC purchase until MB sound capabilities catch up with my current AthlonXP Nforce board. But with Nvidias Current stance, I will probably be looking at an Via Envy board or an Intel HD sound board. Though either would still be very inferior to my current Nforce with soundstorm. Soundstorm made Nforce my ONLY choice when getting my last MB.

My setup has one digital cable into my Denon HT receiver. This is the only solution that gives you everything on that one cable. There is absolutely no need for an extra expensive sound card with this kind of setup. Soundstorm keeps CPU usage as low as an Audigy 2 in gameplay. DD encoding means I can multichannel game on a pure digital hookup. Pure digital delivers unbeatable sound quality in my setup as the DAC's of the Denon are used intead or the DAC's on the card and then noise susceptible analog to my reciever.

Nforce went from my ONLY choice, to barely in the running with this move. Maybe ATI/Via/Intel can get a leg up now.

So attention MB and chipset manufacturers. Audio is big for many of us, especially as we converge our PC's with our entertainments systems. This will actually be the first thing I look for in my next MB chipset.

Features important to me: 1: Low CPU usage in games/Audio streaming 2: Native sampling rate (no conversions) without aliasing (play 44.1KHz and 48KHz etc without artifacts). Current Nforce doesn't do this properly BTW. 3: pure digital out of all sound. Analog out is archaic in my book. I have been digital out exclusively for last few years now and I am not going back. As PC's converge into the home entertainment system this will only get more important. I am already there, but many are following.

-- Peter Guidry

Hey,

Im just coming to terms with what Ive read and just cant believe you guys are SERIOUSLY not putting SS II on the Nforce IV`s...I mean, your producing topend enthusiast chipset boards, feature rich but missing one of the most essential peices of kit an enthusiast looks for, FANTASTIC sound ! Top of my list has been an Nforce IV, I specifially didnt upgrade from my Nforce II to the Nforce III due to lack of Sounstorm, to me and many people the board was a step back in time...Ive just scored this mobbo of my list and feel sadly depressed about it !

Every person Ive spoken to on this has been waiting on the Nforce IV, believeing and hoping that SS II would this time be included...But its not, and we all say the same, we willl just hold off on the mobbo`s now and see what else arrives.

Cost....YOUR building a topend set of boards,SLI, PCIex2, COST, the COST doesnt concern your core customer unless your starting to add lots of 00000`s on the end..You get what you pay for, and wed rather pay the money to get the board with soundstorm II than pay for a "cheap" normal board...Oh, but I hear you say theirs onboard firewall, a gigabit, 2 gigabit, 10zillion gigabyte LAN.....NO ONE CARES ! Sure its nice to have, but take all those features off, add the SoundStorm II on and youll have a FAR more appealing saleable board..

So how much does the licencse with dolby cost per board, I think we should be told so that we can see just how much were talking about...Are we talking £10,£20,£50,£100,£1000 ??? How much ? Its all very well saying the dolby license is VERY EXPENSIVE, but what does that equate to interms of the cost per board...

Steve

Hi

I still have my Asus A7N8X Deluxe nForce 2 due to its ability to encode Dolby Digital to my receiver, and I was planning to upgrade to a nForce4 board with Soundstorm, the positive is that I have just saved a bundle :)

I cannot understand why Creative or any other soundcard producer cannot get their finger out and produce a card capable of encoding a 5.1 digital output, yes I know Dolby or DTS require a steep license, and it wouldn't be feasible to pay a license for each soundcard Creative produces as only 5-10% of the customers actually needs it, but I cannot understand why no one produce just a single edition capable of encoding a 5.1 digital output, as they could easily charge 200$ for it.

(You can get a 5.1 digital output from a Creative soundcard, but it just passthrough from e.g. a DVD-movie and not live encoded)

Best Regards
Martin Guld Thomsen, Denmark.

Dear Fuad,

I also just read the article on the Sound Storm 2 not being incorporated into the nForce4 chipset. In my personal opinion, this is a shame, not so much because of the Dolby Digital sound, but more so because the original Sound Storm simply gave the best sound, and utilized the CPU the least of all PC sound sollutions, including the famous Creative cards.

I'm eagerly awaiting the nVidia SLI setup, and it would be perfect when it could be combined with Sound Storm, 1 or 2. It seems however that nVidia would rather have us buy an extra Creative card than spend (probably less than half that) the money on the perfect on-board sollution. This certainly would be a shame.

I do hope the nForce4 boards come with onboard Sound Storm. That'll be my chipset of choice!

..RJT.

Dear Mr. Drew Henry,

Hehe - you guys need to lobby for more clout with those NVidia folks! What the heck, how do they KNOW the market won't support the extra license costs unless they make the chip available on some of their mobos? If faced with spending an extra $50 for SoundBlaster in a PCI slot (and chewing up CPU) or an extra $50 for SoundStorm on the HyperTransport bus (and virtually no impact on CPU), there's no comparison.

Silly, but they didn't ask me...

Is SoundStorm available as a PCI card competitive to SB?

Bill Reister
HOT-lanta, Georgia

i've been waiting to upgrade from my nf7-s to a socket 939 mobo. i would have been getting the nforce4 chipset for sure but without soundstorm there's nothing stopping me from going to another chipset. i would boycott nforce4. the main reason i bought my nf7-s is soundstorm. i could have got a cheaper board with crappy onboard. do you know any sound cards comparable to soundstorm with digital optical out? other than on a front panel? with 5.1 dd encoding? bottom line is 3 other people plus me bought boards with soundstorm specifically for soundstorm. no soundstorm in nforce4 means the 4 of us will probably go elsewhere.

thanks for your time.

please don't be stupid. just do what it takes to get soundstorm in nforce4.

Gord

Hi there,

Len Layton from C-Media here. For over a year we have been shipping a Dolby Digital Live* solution on USB, AC-97 and it's now available on HD audio, from either Realtek (our partner) or us directly. DDL-equipped mobos are out from ASUS, Gigabyte and others right now, but they are all Intel, of course.

You can also buy a little DDL-equipped USB-S/PDIF dongle from some of our customers, and soon some PCI cards based on the C-Media 8768 will be available.

Anyway, happy to discuss further and help you all out. Check out www.cmedia.com.tw

*Dolby's new name for what used to be called DDICE -- Dolby Digital Interactive Content Encoder)

Kind Regards,
Len.
Len Layton
Senior Vice President
C-Media Electronics, Inc. (USA)

I'm very disappointed that Nvidia decided not to include the soundstorm audio with it's upcoming chipset. Soundstorm is the whole reason I was waiting for their new chipset, SLI is a nice feature too, but mainly I wanted the Soundstorm. That's all I really have to say. I hope they change their mind and decide to include it.
Thanks
Matt

Dear Inquirer.

I cannot understand Nvidia's attitude to Soundstorm. When you look at the growing PVR market and look through the forums at the peoples boxes then Soundstorm equipped motherboards dominate the market.

I wonder why that is. Could it just be that people like that Dolby capability. I would however grant that people that are building these systems probably don't tell the place of purchase what the board is being bought for so possibly Nvidia don't get that feedback.

I would have thought however with Nvidia developing the Forceware Multimedia Centre Application that they would be aware of the benefits of Soundstorm. Partnered with a 6200 graphics card then it looks to be an awesome combo for the burgeoning home theatre / digital media market that the PC industry seems to be pushing us too.

In the gaming area, then yes I can appreciate it does cost more to produce the Dolby chipsets however when you look at the nForce2 boards, the difference between an MCP and MCP-T board is roughly £20.

When you consider that apparently Nvidia has spent 2.5 years developing SLI for that market, and look at the costs involved in buying an SLI system. Assuming that buying 6800 Ultra PCI-E boards then looking at £700+ VAT for these two cards. Factor in a 20" LCD for gaming, NEC 2080UX+ sits on my desk at another £700+VAT and £500+VAT for an Athlon64FX. Thats £1900+VAT on the graphics and CPU. People that have spent this sort of money want the best audio they can get. Certainly after spending that much money on the CPU and Graphics people wouldn't be quibbling about £50 - £100 to get a decent sound system on the PC.

If there's enough of a market for SLI then surely the market is big enough for Soundstorm.

Yes the motherboard makers might not specifically ask for it, but they don't always get it right. After all the Western Digital Raptor hard disks are for the enterprise. Surely they don't expect home users to adopt them in droves.

Surely if the buying public complains about Soundstorm then people want it despite what the mobo makers think. After all there was a petition on nforcershq website appealing for Soundstorm to come back when nForce3 launched.

Nvidia has spent the money and silicon developing PS 3.0 on the 6000 series, on the basis that the people would develop the software to use PS 3.0. If they put the Soundstorm out there then surely the developers can be encouraged in the same way. If they can invest in PS 3.0 then why not invest in Soundstorm, afterall if Nvidia do it then surely the other chipset makers will have to follow. Intel is making a push to improve there audio and pushing the Dolby Digital in the marketing.

Despite this Nvidia do not believe that it is worth the extra cost of Soundstorm. Why is this?

Mike McNally
(another disapointed person)

I have waited and waited for the best onboard audio solution. I skipped the nforce3 completely, as no SoundStorm audio was introduced with the range.

Hoping that a nVidia would get their act together. I have been waiting with baited breath for the latest incarnation, and now this dreadful news.

What was Nvidia thinking? That SLI would save their brand? a "better" FireWall and "LAN"? Who cares? You can get those devices cheaply and use the PCI slots as was intended. The creative Audigy is a system glut, 100MB drivers and audio that only works when games are supported, costing as much as a decent motherboard! Where is the sense in that? High definition audio should be for the masses, and integrating into Motherboards is the step forward!

SoundStorm is what made the nforce and nforce2! If you took that away, it would just be another AMD motherboard. Now, if putting all their R&D into the NV40 range, and not having any facility to compensate with the addition of SoundStorm on their nForce4 motherboards, more concerned about SLI shipping so you can buy two of their graphics cards, is what they consider a brilliant marketing strategy, I must object!

I will skip the nForce4 maybe the entire range for good. ATI's solution should be interesting, and if I wanted SLI-like technology I could just wait for the video-array from Alienware or VIA's to become mainstream, maybe ATi will integrate it then also. Sorry Nvidia, you have lost again!

I remember when I moved to my nforce3 based system, and it was VERY hard leaving soundstorm behind. I am perfectly willing ot shell out $30 more for a board that has decent sound while keeping pci open. In short, if nvidia drops soundstorm they will lose another customer. I can save cash and get a via board with a nice soundblaster.

Sound Storm is a killer feature of nForce chipsets, and it's a real shame that it's missing from nForce 4; and means I'll be shopping elsewhere for my mobo chipset too.

Why? Because all those other sound systems like Creative and Terratec output three or four analogue pairs of signals for 5.1 or 7.1 or a DTS/DD stream from a DVD; none of them except Sound Storm can output a DirectSound3D signal as Dolby Digital encoded stream to external receiver.

This is really important if you've got a lovely hi-fi as your sound system and want a single digital cable and the system to use it's DACs.

If nVidia must do this as cost cutting, can't they please produce a sound card? Not one with same analogue solution as others, but a Sound Storm based one?

Stuart Fotheringham

The only reason why did I buy my last motherboard was soundstorm chip, and only reason becouse I wait for nforce 4 was soundstorm Chip on motherboard. I didn't see anything worth of my attention on new nforce4 boards, I noticed only that only part that I excpected on Nfroce 4 is missing.

I think that I will reconsider my decision and wait litle bit before getting any nforce4 powerd board.

i use a home receiver via optical cable.

games movies everything are great. but only with soundstorm do i get 5.1 encoding in games. creative optical connections are all 2 channel crap so the 5.1 sound gets all screwed up unless i do analog 3x 2rca-minijack

thanks for showing interest. after this last year of anti american sentiment from journalist its great to see you taking an interest in us regular folk.

Dear Sir,
I am including a link to the nVidia APU Petition started by Seawolf of nForcersHQ forum just in case you might want to link it in any further articles on the Sound Storm dilemma. Thanks for your time I am sure you stay quite busy. The Link http://www.petitiononline.com/NVAPU/petition.html

Thank you,
Robert Cherry

Hey FUDO...

Just wanting to let you and NVIDIA know that many people down here in Brazil just simply NEED soundstorm. What the heck will we gonna do with our top-line receivers just nerby the computer, but with no way to connect them digitaly in 5.1 configuration?

Soundstorm was the best sound card that was ever launched, but I think that it wasn't just marketed enough to let the average buyer know the beneficts of it in front of ANY OTHER sound card in the market. But the socketA is now just plain OLD, and we want soundstorm with an Athlon 64.

I will also make a calling in a home-theater brazilian forum (www.ht-forum.com) so many others will send a e-mail complaining about Nforce4 not having Soundstorm. Just like someone said in the letter posted at The Inquirer, now there is just NO reason to wait for Nforce4 anymore. I can just go with Nf3 250, KT880, KT890...none of them has Soundstorm anyway.

Leo Huf Campos Braga

Sound Storm is missing,I am very disappointed with nVidia's decision. I am not going to buy any nForce 4 mainboard. I will switch to Intel.

Hi Fudo,

You should know that no soundcard supports Dolby Digital encoding besides Soundstorm, not even Creative and even less Terratec.

It's the only card on the market that can forward a Dolby Digital signal to a receiver or another device.

No soundcards can replace that.

Thank you very much,
Simon

Hello Fudo,

This is my comment on the nForce 4/Sound Storm.

For home, I usually buy a motherboard every year. Probably as good as home customers get. A while ago, I bought an nForce2 based motherboard, because it was a good chipset AND it had Sound Storm. A bit pricey but had the right performance and features. In the end, it really had two important distinguishing features: the double channel DDR interface and Sound Storm. The memory interface was a bit a bit of a fizzer. By the time VIA worked out things in their chipset, the memory performance was very similar. ...but there was APU! The extra sound features still made it worth getting the nForce2.

Just recently, I bought another motherboard, for an Athlon64, and naturally I looked at nForece3, but ended up buying a VIA chipset based mobo. The nForce boards were good, but not enough to justify the price difference. Not having Sound Storm was pretty much the decider. I don't mind paying a premium _IF_ I get value for it.

I think nVidia wants to have the cake and eat it too. They want us to still pay premium price for something that is pretty similar to what you can get from their competitors?! You can always dream!

I join the dots and extend the line: as it looks, my next purchase is unlikely to be nForce4. Not without Sound Storm, anyway.

They had a sure crowd pleaser and through it in the bin??! I guess now they just have to pray and hope their marketing department have done their sums right.

They haven't, if you ask me.

Cheers,

Sandor
Sydney, Australia

Well, we all know that this is a wonderful solution. We also know the cost factor. Well, how hard is it to produce a MB with the SoundStorm chip as an option? I'll cost more, but they will sell more.

Vince Lanese

I believe that the only way I can express this is as follows: "If nForce4 doesn't support Dolby Digital, I won't be buying the nForce4."

I'm sure tech guys and corporate moguls can all understand the aforementioned if-then statement. Although I currently use an Asus A7N8X Deluxe in my computer, I hold no allegience to nVidia. I bought the nForce2 board because it supported Dolby. I liked the extra features like a unified driver base and integrated MCP. But the true selling point was the Dolby. I can easily save money and buy a VIA board... they are impressive (not to mention currently available) but they don't offer the supreme audio quality that nForce2 offers. This is as simple as I can make it. No Dolby, no nForce4.

Thanks,

David Wetty

Have you ever concidered that maybe Soundstorm isn't realy NviDiAs chip. M$paid a lot of money for that(in X-Box)and maybe it limited its use in nV chipsets. If all this isn't correct why nVidia isn't selling PCI Sounsdstorm audio cards?

Again this probably isn't true but who knows?

Sorry for speling. I am from Croatia. We useded to be part of the eastern block so we only learned Russian. ;-)

Hi.. just want to inform you that there is a soundstorm petition going on at http://www.petitiononline.com/NVAPU/petition.html

well yeah we want soundstorm

James Wise

I also had a setup with my nforce2 plugged into my A/V receiver, for an amazing sound experience. I vividly remember how startled I was when I first plugged it in and played some music. I expected it to sound good, but was not prepared for the clarity and quality.

I'm done buying nforce boards now. If they had kept soundstorm in, even as an expensive option, I would have stuck with them. After all, I had built a system around that feature. Now that they've abandoned it, I put a different receiver in, and am using a plain old Audigy 2. Good enough for me, but still disappointing, and involving a mess of cables.

I don't know what they were thinking at nvidia. I would have probably been willing to pay a $150-$200 premium for soundstorm in an nforce 3 or 4. After all, a dolby encoding card costs a lot more than that.

Anyway, too late now. They chose to abandon a high-end market.

-- Phil Gross

I think Nvidia has seriously underestimated the importance customers place on audio. The main reason I switched to the Nforce2 chipset was its integrated sound. I was tired of Creative's bloated, often buggy or uncooperative drivers, and Nvidia offered a viable alternative that just worked. It's likely I'll be looking elsewhere for my next system. And if Nvidia does decide to put SoundStorm back in, they'd better bring it up to speed with the times. Full support for DVD-Audio discs and 7.1 sound would be good.

Hello, I am an owner of a nForce 3 150 motherboard. It really disappoints me that the nForce 3 chipsets didn't have Sound Storm in the first place.

I mean we have all these games (UT2004, Far Cry, Doom 3 etc) that fully support 5.1 audio, yet on my SB Audigy 2 Plat. Pro Optical & Coax Digital out I am stuck with stereo, I have to revert to analog 5.1 out. The Sound Storms Dolby Ineractive Content Encoding APU solves this problem.

There is no other card out there (that I know of) for gamers that supports digital 5.1 Directsound3D. If we dont't have Sound Storm with nForce 4, then it (nforce 4) doesn't really offer much more or less useful features than competing motherboard solutions from VIA and other competitors.

If we can't have nForce 4 motherboards with Sound Storm, could we at least have PCIe 1x Sound Storm cards?

BTW cost here is not an issue the nforce 2 mobos with DICE were always a bit more expensive than other socket 462 solutions but I am sure that they sold well (and still do for now) due to DICE.

The generic response by Nvidia to the lack of soundstorm has been that it does not affect users buying decision. This is not quite true. If my memory serves, didn't NVIDIA originally say somewhere that they didn't see a need for audio based on the hardware reviews?

Tech publications have a role to play in advocating consumer needs. Everyone made such a fuss over AGP/PCI bus locks (a feature that only interests overclockers, a minority) that NVIDIA and VIA had to put locks in. Now just because the overclocking minority doesn't buy the nforce4 platform for the audio, doesn't mean that general users will not benefit from having the feature.

What ever happened to providing quality products? This is a rip off to the general consumer, and I would have hoped that tech sites would have picked up on it and made it a problem it is. Nforce4 is a step back from all the other chipsets in terms of audio. Intel is pushing hi-definition audio with azilla; VIA has got its ENVY series; why would nvidia leave out soundstorm? I am not sure how NVIDIA came to the conclusion quality audio was not needed, but it is the stupidest thing I have heard. For those of us building media PC to hook up to an audio receiver to a proper hi-fi system, the original soundstorm on nforce2 was a great option. For gamers who did not want to pay $100 for creative cards (or put up with the headache of buggy drivers), sound storm provided a better solution than your typical mobo audio.

The new excuse I am hearing is that the Dolby license is too expensive. It didn't seem to be a problem for the nforce2 series, and that was the bestselling NVIDIA chipset. On the other hand, nivdia had a tough fight on its hand with VIA over K8 generation. Lack of features anyone?

I really don't care for raid, hardware firewall…. I want my soundstorm. How much does it the exclusion of soundstorm save? $1, $5?

NVIDIA put soundstorm back in, and I'll gladly pay the extra $5.

Dear Fudo,

thanks for giving us NVIDIA fanboys the opportunity to express our concerns because of soundstorm support not being added to NForce4. Pls forward to NVIDIA and / or put the INQ.

It looks like NVIDIA didn't read my letter posted at the INQ here (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=10819, last letter) on behalf of the GeForce FX series. Well at least their chipset staff is ignorant of the facts stated there. It seems their GeForce 6 designs are very competitive if you ignore the facts that the Ultra versions were paper launched again. But that is another story.

One fact contributing to the tremendous impact NForce 2 had on the market was Soundstorm audio support. It didn't just make many cutting edge soundcards like Creatives Live! and Audigy line obliterate, it even offered superior features that showed real benefit in a world where marketing department bloat their valueless feature lists. The thing most people really liked was Dolby Digital encoding of DirectSound3D stream for positional audio. Porting the audio signals to digital made them immune to any kinds of EM interferences that weigh heavily on old-school analog audio. That is the right direction for gaming and audio enthusiasts. Thats where NVIDIA always always wanted to position themselves, because thats where the margins are considerably higher. Leave the medium and low end to Realtek, Via and C-Media ! NVIDIA, you had that killer feature ! ... and gave it away in NForce3...

Personally what am I supposed to do with that hardware firewall. Like the many other people I surf through a firewall equipped router. This is as well of no use to any office user. There are many other solutions in the area of software firewalls. D#@*, even operating systems, both Linux and Windows, incorporate them these days. But nobody can bring back my soundstorm experience to a modern K8 chipset.

There is a flood of soundcards out there but not a single one could offer Dolby Digital encoding due to bandwith restrictions of the PCI bus. I doubt that Creative will get the idea and bring a PCI Express solution to the market, capable of that soundstorm feature.

NVIDIA simply look on the sales figures of Abits, Asus' and MSI's NForce 2 solutions with and without soundstorm. Look at how many people were willing to pay the small premium between those two kinds of boards. They may even be willing to pay that little (<5 US$) Dolby royalty as well.

Or are they planning another great deal and deliver that PCI Express soundcard, the idea mentioned before ? Hey, they could even reach for Intel P4 based enthusiasts out there. I'm sure that PCIE x1 bandwith is about enough (IIRC about four times of classic PCI bandwith). Maybe there's a chance to buy an updated EAX HD licence as well ?... Surely... in my dreams....

Greetings, Frank

If Dolby's license really is "too much," then perhaps DTS would like to undercut them. If they have not already, Nvidia should talk to DTS about a license instead. Most receivers sold in the last 4 years or so have had DTS support and, unlike Dolby, DTS can support a discrete sixth speaker for the rear "center" making it a true 6.1 wheareas the best Dolby can do today is a true 5.1 with a simulated (matrixed) 6.1.

Soundstorm AC3 support was a deciding factor in the last two AMD systems I purchased and it could end up being the same for the next few as well.