A short introduction to the AWE hardware

Written by Mathias C. Hjelt
V2.0 - 18 Sep 95

Because the documentation and manuals that are bundled with the AWE don't say very much about the actual structure of the hardware, and because there has been quite a lot of misleading stuff floating around on the newsgroups, I felt that there is a certain need for a page like this. Simply, it just tries to explain the basic structure of the AWE and describe the various parts and their tasks. There's also some stuff about the other AWE and SB models.

The 32-series

Creative has got a whole family of 32-cards, and as usual, there's a lot of confusion regarding the differences between all these models. Before you read all these pages you should know what's what and why.

AWE32
AWE32 IDE
AWE32 VE (Value Edition)
AWE32 VE IDE
AWE32 PNP
Sound Blaster 32
Waveblaster II
From now on, these pages will use the names "AWE32" and "AWE", referring to the original AWE32 card with the old CD-ROM interfaces.


The basic structure of the AWE

Basically, but only theorethically, the AWE32 is like a SoundBlaster 16 MCD ASP plus the EMU subsystem. This means that it has got all the regular SB16 functions (various CD-ROM interfaces, joystick/MIDI interface, 16-bit 45kHz AD/DA conversion with real-time on-board compression / decompression, OPL3 FM synthesizer, WaveBlaster connector, etc) in addition to the new EMU-8000 Advanced WavEffects digital sample playback synthesizer. The SB16-part is not, however, a 1:1 copy of the original card - the AWE has got better wave audio playback and recording characteristics than the original SB16 cards.

Watching the newsgroups, I have noticed that many don't quite understand the difference between the various parts of the AWE. There has for instance been confusion between the two signal processors on the card, etc. To make sure everyone understands as much as possible of the basic structure of the AWE, I've made a simplified functional block diagram of it. Note that this does not show how the AWE is built up physically (ie how the chips are organized, how the functions are spread among the chips etc), it just shows how the various instances and functions fit together and what their roles are. (Purists may claim that this is not completely correct -- and I do of course have to agree, but that's not the point here. The point is to make the whole thing as clear and comprehensible as possible. See below for further comments on this.)


Symbolic block diagram of the AWE

Here's a brief list of what the various instances are and do:

- Music synthesis stuff

- Wave audio

- Other logics

- The mixer



What's wrong with that block diagram?

For more and deeper information about all these things, see the page called "AWE tech - a look under the cover"