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PC Audio Issue 9

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PC Audio Issue 9 PC Audio The 1GHz utopia is already upon us. Glenn Bell keeps us abreast of some hardware developments. he rate of change in ‘computer land’ never ceases to amaze hardware could bring the system down. When Microsoft brought me. New software, processors, architectures and so on, are us Windows95 they started on the road to greater stability by intro- Tconstantly evolving and improving. While software, too, is ducing parts of a hardware management layer into the operating improving every day it’s really dependent on the computing system so that erroneous calls could be trapped. While this was hardware and, to some extent, the operating system as to what can good for stability it created difficulties for some software vendors, be done. Let’s take a quick look at some of the developments and particularly games related ones, as they couldn’t address the what it means to hard disk recording. hardware directly and hence performance decreased. This is where Many vendors will tell you the biggest news of the moment is DirectX came into being. DirectX established a standard method of the availability of the 1GHz processors. These are available from accessing hardware in a variety of different ways for better perfor- the two main processor companies: AMD and Intel. The mance and stability. breakneck speed of these processors means you can do more with New in DirectX 7 is something called DirectMusic. This is effec- your computer, for example, apply more real-time effects on audio tively a software GS sound set for playing Midi files, much like streams, or just run more audio streams. While the AMD proces- Roland’s Virtual Canvas. In fact, the sound set is the Roland Sound sors have, in many ways, been the slower, remedial second cousins Canvas, which was licensed from Roland a couple of years ago. to Intel (especially for PC audio), this is no longer the case. In fact, But DirectMusic is more than just a GM sound set. You can many now believe that the AMD processor has a number of employ it to download your own sound sets, using the download- advantages over the Intel processor. If you want to know more, able soundfont (DLS) standard. While this is no great news for then take a trip to Tom’s Hardware (www.tomshardware.com) those who have hardware or specialised software to do this, it’s which details all of the architectural information of the processors. important for those who don’t. With DirectMusic you can write But processor speeds are only a part of an efficient and music in the compact Midi format and distribute that music to powerful hardware package to run your favourite audio processing others, safe in the software. knowledge that the The Accelerated Graphics Port (AGP) may not be as new as the recipient is hearing latest Intel chip, but the benefits of using it for the graphics what you composed. controller should not be underestimated. The In addition you can principal advantage of the AGP over edit the sounds in the PCI graphics controller is that a similar way to it’s a dedicated high bandwidth that of many port, more suited to graphics. But, synthesisers. the knock-on benefit of using the While not new AGP is the fact that you’re freeing in DirectX 7, up the PCI bus to ‘concentrate’ on DirectSound has also what’s important to the hard disk been improved to help with the recordist – stuff like streaming large latency problems. It’s not the final solution audio files. to the latency bugbear but is an improvement if your Another very significant step forward equipment supports DirectSound. is the release of DirectX 7. Okay, so So how much is all the above goodies going to cost? The good DirectX is software-based, but it’s a news is that DirectX 7 is free, and while it should work with a protocol pertaining to the operating system and its benefits flow on variety of hardware it would be best to check for compatibility. If to all your audio software. Chances are you may already be using your hardware is okay, it’s well worth the upgrade. Meanwhile, a DirectX, especially for things such as DirectSound for software basic AGP video card is well under $100 and the significant perfor- synthesisers and audio processing, but I thought it might be useful mance improvements it offers means it’s well worth the upgrade as to recap on what DirectX is before I start discussing the new well. The bad news is that the 1GHz processors aren’t cheap. release. Currently you can’t buy a system for much less than $6000. But, by Prior to Windows95, a piece of software could make reasonably virtue of the 1GHz processor’s existence, you can acquire the direct calls to the various items of hardware in the computer (eg. 500MHz to 700MHz versions a lot cheaper – under $2000 for a the soundcard, video card, etc.). While this status quo was good for system. Great news, especially if you’re upgrading from a (relative- software programmers, it had the downside of reducing the ly recent!) 200MHz processor. A stability of the computer, as an erroneous call to a piece of T 59.
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