Thursday, July 29th 2010
Creative Announces Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2 Software Suite
Creative Technology Ltd. today announced the Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2 software suite - a powerful audio platform equipped with cutting-edge audio technologies designed to enhance ordinary PC systems limited by only basic onboard audio. The Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2 software suite builds on the success of the original Sound Blaster X-Fi MB, bringing enhancement of onboard PC audio to even greater echelons. Through THX TruStudio Pro audio technology and the latest Creative EAX Advanced HD 5.0, users get to enjoy premium audio quality, effects and features on their PC systems.
Gamers can anticipate being blown away by the amazing realism from the unrivalled headphone surround and gaming sound enhancement technologies delivered by the Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2. Creative EAX Advanced HD 5.0 features state-of-the-art multi-environment rendering and reverb modelling, delivering an ultra-realistic and incredibly immersive 3D gaming experience for powering the next generation of cutting-edge PC games. The additional audio cues provided by EAX can also give gamers a competitive advantage in early detection of enemies.
"We are extremely excited to see the Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2 software going into ASUS Republic of Gamers motherboards, with ASUS being the top manufacturer of motherboards in the world and constantly committed to delivering the most innovative and best performing PC solutions to enhance the gaming experience of power users. Our partnership will continue to push the boundaries of PC gaming audio, providing the much-needed realism and immersion in game-play that modern PC games demand," said Steve Erickson, Vice President and General Manager for Audio and Video at Creative.
Creative EAX Advanced HD 5.0 allows greater detail and speed in gaming audio and adds a dedicated bass feed for 128 voices, so gaming audio becomes more cinematic. Developers can also add interactive music to games, where the music can change based on actions during game-play.
Additional features of Creative EAX Advanced HD 5.0 include EAX Voice, EAX PurePath and EAX MacroFX. EAX Voice allows gamers to literally become part of the game by speaking and hearing their own voices with the same effects as the environment their character is in. EAX PurePath delivers the most accurate and cinematic surround sound ever experienced by allowing developers total control over Low Frequency Enhancement (LFE) and which speaker(s) gaming audio is played through, while EAX MacroFX recreates close-up audio so accurately that bullets would never have sounded more frightening as they zip past players' heads only centimetres away.
THX TruStudio Pro provides the latest groundbreaking technologies that are products of years of collective experience and research by Creative and THX. THX TruStudio Pro creates unprecedented levels of audio realism, adds dynamics and punch to every gunshot, explosion and gaming sound; and includes stunning surround effects, producing an incredibly realistic surround sound experience even from just a pair of stereo headphones. The THX TruStudio Pro suite of technologies features THX TruStudio Pro Surround, THX TruStudio Pro Crystalizer, THX TruStudio Pro Speaker, THX TruStudio Pro Dialog Plus and THX TruStudio Pro Smart Volume.
Other audio technologies such as EAX reverbs and a 10-band graphic equalizer allow users to enhance their music even more. These essential audio effects and controls are conveniently placed in a central and intuitive Sound Blaster Console. In addition, a suite of cool players are included to enhance the PC music listening experience, giving users full control over their music streaming and integrating seamlessly with iTunes and Windows Media libraries.
Key Features of Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2:
Gamers can anticipate being blown away by the amazing realism from the unrivalled headphone surround and gaming sound enhancement technologies delivered by the Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2. Creative EAX Advanced HD 5.0 features state-of-the-art multi-environment rendering and reverb modelling, delivering an ultra-realistic and incredibly immersive 3D gaming experience for powering the next generation of cutting-edge PC games. The additional audio cues provided by EAX can also give gamers a competitive advantage in early detection of enemies.
"We are extremely excited to see the Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2 software going into ASUS Republic of Gamers motherboards, with ASUS being the top manufacturer of motherboards in the world and constantly committed to delivering the most innovative and best performing PC solutions to enhance the gaming experience of power users. Our partnership will continue to push the boundaries of PC gaming audio, providing the much-needed realism and immersion in game-play that modern PC games demand," said Steve Erickson, Vice President and General Manager for Audio and Video at Creative.
Creative EAX Advanced HD 5.0 allows greater detail and speed in gaming audio and adds a dedicated bass feed for 128 voices, so gaming audio becomes more cinematic. Developers can also add interactive music to games, where the music can change based on actions during game-play.
Additional features of Creative EAX Advanced HD 5.0 include EAX Voice, EAX PurePath and EAX MacroFX. EAX Voice allows gamers to literally become part of the game by speaking and hearing their own voices with the same effects as the environment their character is in. EAX PurePath delivers the most accurate and cinematic surround sound ever experienced by allowing developers total control over Low Frequency Enhancement (LFE) and which speaker(s) gaming audio is played through, while EAX MacroFX recreates close-up audio so accurately that bullets would never have sounded more frightening as they zip past players' heads only centimetres away.
THX TruStudio Pro provides the latest groundbreaking technologies that are products of years of collective experience and research by Creative and THX. THX TruStudio Pro creates unprecedented levels of audio realism, adds dynamics and punch to every gunshot, explosion and gaming sound; and includes stunning surround effects, producing an incredibly realistic surround sound experience even from just a pair of stereo headphones. The THX TruStudio Pro suite of technologies features THX TruStudio Pro Surround, THX TruStudio Pro Crystalizer, THX TruStudio Pro Speaker, THX TruStudio Pro Dialog Plus and THX TruStudio Pro Smart Volume.
Other audio technologies such as EAX reverbs and a 10-band graphic equalizer allow users to enhance their music even more. These essential audio effects and controls are conveniently placed in a central and intuitive Sound Blaster Console. In addition, a suite of cool players are included to enhance the PC music listening experience, giving users full control over their music streaming and integrating seamlessly with iTunes and Windows Media libraries.
Key Features of Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2:
- THX TruStudio Pro audio technology creates unprecedented levels of audio realism, adds dynamics and punch to every gunshot, explosion and gaming sound; and includes stunning surround effects, producing an incredibly realistic surround sound experience even from just a pair of stereo headphones
- Creative EAX Advanced HD 5.0 features state-of-the-art multi-environment rendering and reverb modelling, delivering an amazingly realistic and immersive 3D gaming experience
- Creative VoiceFX technology allows users to morph their voices into other personas to help players stay in character and add flair to their online role-playing experiences
- Creative ALchemy is a powerful tool that restores EAX effects and 3D surround audio for legacy, DirectSound 3D game titles running on Windows Vista and Windows 7, re-enabling that same great gaming experience
- Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2 comes with native OpenAL support, ensuring compatibility with a wide range of PC games developed with OpenAL for an incredible 3D audio experience
64 Comments on Creative Announces Sound Blaster X-Fi MB2 Software Suite
strangely, the link given at the end of the post doesnt mention X-fi MB2 at all - just the original
EAX 5.0, is how old?
Being "Creative", is certainly going to cost money. How much is the question.
Trust me ever since port-ritis Xram, EAX and all the other mumble jumble crap just seems pointless, developers are hard pressed to jump on that bandwagon, but who knows...
Creative might as well stop making soundcards there stuff is junk, i bought the X-Fi- plat a while ago i have yet to see any game that it works properly in more less any games that support it.
In fact BF2 and BF 2142 touted xfi as a feature for the best sound which is why i bought it yet when enabled in game it sound great for the first 5 min then sounds start looping i can hear grenades blowing up from miles away and then it just turns into one big screeching cacophony of sound and crashes.
the only thing i do like is being able to upmix 2.0 to 5.1 when listing to music.
and can free of charge be downloaded from either vip.asus.com/ or support.asus.com/download/Download.aspx?SLanguage=en-us - remember to select a ROG motherboard ex. Crosshair IV Formula and select Utilitys......
The Supreme FX 1 an 2 are ADI codecs on risers and use X-Fi MB,
with Trustudio(kinda like X-Fi MB 1.5) though the X-Fi Xtreme Audio is also supported but the drivers are only given to specific vendors and are hard to find even for the version that supports the codecs.
with X-Fi MB and Trustudio any codec that supports software host(IE:Creative Host Program) is supported but creative has to add them in(it was easier to add it in yourself with X-Fi MB but creative blocked it out and coded it into the dll's instead of an ini in the very first version of Trustudio).
To Creative: GJ on releasing stuff that already existed. Next time you release something, I hope it's a fix for all the problems everyone's been having with your hardware.
Took me 1 month to get XP drivers for the SB Live... they ended up coming on a nice neat drivers disk from the UK (they simply never realesed them in the US). WTF?