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CMI8738 CS3000 Card any good?

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First post, by Gahhhrrrlic

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Today I came across a random sound card that looked like nothing special but when I read the chip and saw HRTF on it, I figured it was worth the gamble so I bought it for $3. Turns out it's a C-Media card (I never heard of it) with EAX/A3D support and 4-channel HRTF. To this extent, it sounds a lot like my Santa Cruz except it uses a different chip and API. I think the retail name for this card is the Diamond Xtreme 5.1.

Does anyone have any experience with this card in terms of quality, performance, or how it compares to its contemporaries like the Aureal or Sensaura cards? Does it offer anything unique? The PDF for the processor seems to brag about how it's the only one in the world to do 3D properly, etc but I feel this could be greatly exaggerated or I'd have heard of it by now.

What are your thoughts?

http://www.overclockersclub.com/siteimages/ar … mond_xs51/4.jpg

https://hubpages.com/technology/How-to-Maximi … -Retro-Computer

Reply 1 of 3, by Gahhhrrrlic

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I ended up installing this into a Win7 machine. Certainly not the best platform to evaluate it but at the moment it was the best I could do and better than nothing. However I can't get utilities like Minerva working on 7 (is there perhaps a newer version that works?) and I am unaware of any modern day software that can test A3D.

Seems Phil did a review of this card but perhaps the driver selection of the time led to a bit of mystery around whether or not the card was as fully capable as it claimed. I had read that mp3 playback with virtual multi-speaker is pretty good on this card but I know of no media player that supports this feature via A3D. If anyone knows of a music player or diagnostic utility that will test the A3D function on a Win7 machine, that would help me evaluate this card a bit more myself.

That aside, my initial impression is that the card is competent but unremarkable when it comes to generic run of the mill sound needs. It's fine. But without testing its hardware 3D capabilities, it's unfair to say how good this is.

https://hubpages.com/technology/How-to-Maximi … -Retro-Computer

Reply 2 of 3, by Ozzuneoj

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I don't believe you're going to get any hardware audio of any kind from Windows 7 unless it is through OpenAL, Windows audio changed completely after XP (Vista removed DS3D) and I'm sure it'd be quite difficult or impossible to run A3D on anything newer than XP... maybe even 98SE\ME.

Now for some blitting from the back buffer.

Reply 3 of 3, by Gahhhrrrlic

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Ozzuneoj wrote:

I don't believe you're going to get any hardware audio of any kind from Windows 7 unless it is through OpenAL, Windows audio changed completely after XP (Vista removed DS3D) and I'm sure it'd be quite difficult or impossible to run A3D on anything newer than XP... maybe even 98SE\ME.

You make a good point about hardware support. I'd forgotten that this was dropped after XP. However the drivers are not an issue. For this card, there are drivers for every OS - a bit odd why this card would get support this long while other better ones wouldn't but I guess that's just one of its little oddities. I guess I'll just have to put it into a 98 or XP machine to check it.

Have you used this yourself? What can you say about it?

https://hubpages.com/technology/How-to-Maximi … -Retro-Computer

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