Sound Blaster AWE64
Encyclopedia
Sound Blaster Advanced Wave Effects 64 is an ISA
sound card
from Creative Technology
. It is an add-on board for PCs
. The card was launched in November 1996.
The Sound Blaster AWE64 is significantly smaller than its predecessor, the Sound Blaster AWE32
. It offers a similar feature set, but also has a few notable improvements.
AWE64 has support for greater polyphony
than the AWE32. Unfortunately, these additional voices are achieved via software-based processing on the system CPU. The technology, called WaveGuide
, synthesizes the instrument sounds rather than using stored instrument patches like the hardware voices. This not only demands more processing power from the host system, but also is not of equal quality to available SoundFont
s. The inability to adjust synthesis parameters, unlike with the hardware portion of the AWE64, also limited the WaveGuide function's usefulness.
Another improvement comes from better on-board circuitry that increases the signal-to-noise ratio
and overall signal quality compared to the frequently quite noisy AWE32 and Sound Blaster 16 boards. This improvement is most notable with the AWE64 Gold, because of its superior RCA connector
outputs. The improvement also comes from increased integration of components on AWE64 compared to its predecessors. Increased integration means the board can be simpler and trace routing to components is reduced, decreasing the amount of noise-inducing signal travel. This also made it possible to reduce the size of AWE64's board noticeably, compared to AWE32.
The Sound Blaster AWE32 boards allowed sample RAM expansion through the installation of 30-pin fast-page DRAM
SIMM
s. These SIMMs were commodity items during the time of AWE32 and AWE64, because they were used for many other applications, including plain system RAM. As such, Creative had no control over their sale. So, with the AWE64, Creative moved to proprietary RAM expansion modules which only they manufactured and sold. These memory boards were priced rather high. Their limited production also has made it quite difficult to expand an AWE64's RAM capacity since the AWE64 left production.
AWE64, in the end, was basically a revision of the AWE32. Quality of components and output was improved and cost of manufacturing was lessened. Functionality of the hardware was nearly identical. The boards were based around the AWE32's E-mu 8000 sample-based synthesis
chipset, E-mu effects processor, and a Creative audio DSP
and codec
for digital sound playback.
A fourth version that arrived later was designed around the PCI
bus. It offers the features of the original ISA AWE64, but it has the PCI interface and is built around an even more integrated ASIC
. This made the board even more compact, and thus cheaper to build. Unfortunately, during this card's time, the issue of compatibility with older legacy DOS
applications accessing PCI audio cards had not been ideally addressed. Creative created a motherboard port called the SB-Link that assisted the PCI bus in working with software that looked for the legacy I/O resources of ISA sound cards. Without this motherboard port, the card was incompatible with DOS software.
AWE64 PCI was later followed by the AWE64D, which was a variant of the PCI AWE64 that was developed for OEM
s. It again offered the same feature support as other AWE64 cards, including the DOS support issues. The AWE64D was not quite compatible with AWE64 PCI drivers, however, and had to use separate driver packages.
An AWE64 Mark II was also designed, and prototype boards and drivers made. This card added 4 speaker surround sound for games, and a hardware Dolby Digital
decoder. The six extra phono plugs (sub/center/left rear/right rear/digital in/digital pass through) and the extra Dolby decoder chips were placed on a second board which connected to the main board via a ribbon cable. The project was dropped in favor of the Sound Blaster Live!
cards due to the high expense of such a solution, and the aging ISA interface.
s. The AWE-SIMM was available for several years starting in 1998 but is no longer available.
One other product can take the place of Creative's proprietary memory module, SIMMCONN. Its basically the same design as AWE-SIMM, and is currently available.
Industry Standard Architecture
Industry Standard Architecture is a computer bus standard for IBM PC compatible computers introduced with the IBM Personal Computer to support its Intel 8088 microprocessor's 8-bit external data bus and extended to 16 bits for the IBM Personal Computer/AT's Intel 80286 processor...
sound card
Sound card
A sound card is an internal computer expansion card that facilitates the input and output of audio signals to and from a computer under control of computer programs. The term sound card is also applied to external audio interfaces that use software to generate sound, as opposed to using hardware...
from Creative Technology
Creative Technology
Creative Technology Ltd. is a Singapore-based global company headquartered in Jurong East, Singapore. The principal activities of the company and its subsidiaries consist of the design, manufacture and distribution of digitized sound and video boards, computers and related multimedia, and personal...
. It is an add-on board for PCs
IBM PC compatible
IBM PC compatible computers are those generally similar to the original IBM PC, XT, and AT. Such computers used to be referred to as PC clones, or IBM clones since they almost exactly duplicated all the significant features of the PC architecture, facilitated by various manufacturers' ability to...
. The card was launched in November 1996.
Overview
Sound Blaster AWE32
Sound Blaster AWE32 is an ISA sound card from Creative Technology. It is an expansion board for PCs. The Sound Blaster AWE32, introduced in March 1994, was a near full-length ISA sound card, measuring 14 inches in length, due to the number of features included.-MIDI capability:The Sound Blaster...
. It offers a similar feature set, but also has a few notable improvements.
AWE64 has support for greater polyphony
Polyphony
In music, polyphony is a texture consisting of two or more independent melodic voices, as opposed to music with just one voice or music with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords ....
than the AWE32. Unfortunately, these additional voices are achieved via software-based processing on the system CPU. The technology, called WaveGuide
Waveguide
A waveguide is a structure which guides waves, such as electromagnetic waves or sound waves. There are different types of waveguides for each type of wave...
, synthesizes the instrument sounds rather than using stored instrument patches like the hardware voices. This not only demands more processing power from the host system, but also is not of equal quality to available SoundFont
SoundFont
SoundFont is a brand name that collectively refers to a file format and associated technology designed to bridge the gap between recorded and synthesized audio, especially for the purposes of computer music composition...
s. The inability to adjust synthesis parameters, unlike with the hardware portion of the AWE64, also limited the WaveGuide function's usefulness.
Another improvement comes from better on-board circuitry that increases the signal-to-noise ratio
Signal-to-noise ratio
Signal-to-noise ratio is a measure used in science and engineering that compares the level of a desired signal to the level of background noise. It is defined as the ratio of signal power to the noise power. A ratio higher than 1:1 indicates more signal than noise...
and overall signal quality compared to the frequently quite noisy AWE32 and Sound Blaster 16 boards. This improvement is most notable with the AWE64 Gold, because of its superior RCA connector
RCA connector
An RCA connector, sometimes called a phono connector or cinch connector, is a type of electrical connector commonly used to carry audio and video signals...
outputs. The improvement also comes from increased integration of components on AWE64 compared to its predecessors. Increased integration means the board can be simpler and trace routing to components is reduced, decreasing the amount of noise-inducing signal travel. This also made it possible to reduce the size of AWE64's board noticeably, compared to AWE32.
The Sound Blaster AWE32 boards allowed sample RAM expansion through the installation of 30-pin fast-page DRAM
Dynamic random access memory
Dynamic random-access memory is a type of random-access memory that stores each bit of data in a separate capacitor within an integrated circuit. The capacitor can be either charged or discharged; these two states are taken to represent the two values of a bit, conventionally called 0 and 1...
SIMM
SIMM
A SIMM, or single in-line memory module, is a type of memory module containing random access memory used in computers from the early 1980s to the late 1990s. It differs from a dual in-line memory module , the most predominant form of memory module today, in that the contacts on a SIMM are redundant...
s. These SIMMs were commodity items during the time of AWE32 and AWE64, because they were used for many other applications, including plain system RAM. As such, Creative had no control over their sale. So, with the AWE64, Creative moved to proprietary RAM expansion modules which only they manufactured and sold. These memory boards were priced rather high. Their limited production also has made it quite difficult to expand an AWE64's RAM capacity since the AWE64 left production.
AWE64, in the end, was basically a revision of the AWE32. Quality of components and output was improved and cost of manufacturing was lessened. Functionality of the hardware was nearly identical. The boards were based around the AWE32's E-mu 8000 sample-based synthesis
Sample-based synthesis
Sample-based synthesis is a form of audio synthesis that can be contrasted to either subtractive synthesis or additive synthesis. The principal difference with sample-based synthesis is that the seed waveforms are sampled sounds or instruments instead of fundamental waveforms such as the saw waves...
chipset, E-mu effects processor, and a Creative audio DSP
Digital signal processor
A digital signal processor is a specialized microprocessor with an architecture optimized for the fast operational needs of digital signal processing.-Typical characteristics:...
and codec
Codec
A codec is a device or computer program capable of encoding or decoding a digital data stream or signal. The word codec is a portmanteau of "compressor-decompressor" or, more commonly, "coder-decoder"...
for digital sound playback.
Variants
The AWE64 came in three versions initially: A "Value" version (with 512KB of RAM), a standard version (with 1 MB of RAM), and a "Gold" version (with 4 MB of RAM, high quality 20bit DAC and a separate SPDIF output).A fourth version that arrived later was designed around the PCI
Peripheral Component Interconnect
Conventional PCI is a computer bus for attaching hardware devices in a computer...
bus. It offers the features of the original ISA AWE64, but it has the PCI interface and is built around an even more integrated ASIC
Application-specific integrated circuit
An application-specific integrated circuit is an integrated circuit customized for a particular use, rather than intended for general-purpose use. For example, a chip designed solely to run a cell phone is an ASIC...
. This made the board even more compact, and thus cheaper to build. Unfortunately, during this card's time, the issue of compatibility with older legacy DOS
DOS
DOS, short for "Disk Operating System", is an acronym for several closely related operating systems that dominated the IBM PC compatible market between 1981 and 1995, or until about 2000 if one includes the partially DOS-based Microsoft Windows versions 95, 98, and Millennium Edition.Related...
applications accessing PCI audio cards had not been ideally addressed. Creative created a motherboard port called the SB-Link that assisted the PCI bus in working with software that looked for the legacy I/O resources of ISA sound cards. Without this motherboard port, the card was incompatible with DOS software.
AWE64 PCI was later followed by the AWE64D, which was a variant of the PCI AWE64 that was developed for OEM
Original Equipment Manufacturer
An original equipment manufacturer, or OEM, manufactures products or components that are purchased by a company and retailed under that purchasing company's brand name. OEM refers to the company that originally manufactured the product. When referring to automotive parts, OEM designates a...
s. It again offered the same feature support as other AWE64 cards, including the DOS support issues. The AWE64D was not quite compatible with AWE64 PCI drivers, however, and had to use separate driver packages.
An AWE64 Mark II was also designed, and prototype boards and drivers made. This card added 4 speaker surround sound for games, and a hardware Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital
Dolby Digital is the name for audio compression technologies developed by Dolby Laboratories. It was originally called Dolby Stereo Digital until 1994. Except for Dolby TrueHD, the audio compression is lossy. The first use of Dolby Digital was to provide digital sound in cinemas from 35mm film prints...
decoder. The six extra phono plugs (sub/center/left rear/right rear/digital in/digital pass through) and the extra Dolby decoder chips were placed on a second board which connected to the main board via a ribbon cable. The project was dropped in favor of the Sound Blaster Live!
Sound Blaster Live!
Sound Blaster Live! is a sound card from Creative Technology. It is a PCI add-on board for PCs.-Overview:Sound Blaster Live! saw the introduction of the EMU10K1 processor, a 2.44 million transistor audio DSP, rated at 1000 MIPS...
cards due to the high expense of such a solution, and the aging ISA interface.
AWE-SIMM
In response to Creative's move towards a proprietary memory module (for no particularly good reason from the user's perspective), Jeff Briden created an adapter board that plugged into the AWE64 and allowed the user to install normal 30-pin SIMMSIMM
A SIMM, or single in-line memory module, is a type of memory module containing random access memory used in computers from the early 1980s to the late 1990s. It differs from a dual in-line memory module , the most predominant form of memory module today, in that the contacts on a SIMM are redundant...
s. The AWE-SIMM was available for several years starting in 1998 but is no longer available.
One other product can take the place of Creative's proprietary memory module, SIMMCONN. Its basically the same design as AWE-SIMM, and is currently available.
Links
- Linux Self Help Linux solution for AWE64