ZanQuance wrote on Today, 15:29:It's been a long while since I looked at how the Voodoo 1 and 2 chips operated, but I do know that Aureal even called themselves […]
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MattRocks wrote on Today, 14:33:
Ensoniq AudioPCI and 3Dfx Voodoo share one design philosophy: minimalism in the hot path. They both pump data from CPU to expansion card using a simple command FIFO and minimal driver intervention. Ensoniq AudioPCI and 3Dfx Voodoo both run fine on a Pentium 100.
The Aureal Vortex represents the complete opposite of that! Aureal Vortex is philosophically more aligned to GeForce 256: far more capable, far more CPU offloading, but with significantly higher driver and control overhead due to its DSP-driven spatial pipeline.
It's been a long while since I looked at how the Voodoo 1 and 2 chips operated, but I do know that Aureal even called themselves the 3DFX of Audio.
The Aureal Vortex 1 and 2 ASIC's aren't all that complicated in their design and there seem to still be many misunderstandings on what they can and cannot do.
They are not like GPU's at all, they do not contain internal geometry processing units for offloading or calculating room reflections for wavetracing or reverb. They contain a set of FIFOs which are then linked into different fixed function processing units via the Vortex Data Bus. Those fixed function units do allow uploading of certain parameters or coefficients for filtering or panning of the audio streams. But aside from that they are very much CPU/Software dependent for preparing and processing all 3D Audio functions, which is why A3D has cpu overhead whenever it is turned on.
The diagrams which Aureal shared in their chip product fliers do accurately represent what you get in the Vortex 1 and 2 ASIC's.
Here is the one for the Vortex 1 Au8820
and here is the AU8830 Vortex 2
The A3D Engine seemed mystical without further investigation, however it turns out to be a collection of FIR filters attached to delay lines for HRTF processing on 16 audio streams. It only allowed uploading coefficients and not any world geometry.
Inside the Wavetable engine where the reflections were "processed" we see a wavetable engine which also allowed being placed in a direct sound mode for 64 direct sound streams to be played through it, also attached to delay lines and panning/filters, nothing GPU accelerated here either.
They were very cost effective ASIC's which focused mostly on fixed function units piped through a routable bus.
And all this isn't said to dismiss that Ensoniq may have also followed this simplicity in design, however I do not believe the "crown" of being 3DFX like should go to them.
It belongs to rightfully to Aureal for all the reasons leileilol listed and more.
🤣 - this is not about crowing anyone!
I'll give you one point: 3Dfx and Aureal both went bust and their parts discarded, so they have that much in common - but I'm not talking about business leadership or financial management, I'm talking about how their products behaved when installed into a PC.
3Dfx approach did not produce accurate renderings - they just focussed on using less CPU time than more design accurate renderers like FireGL.
3Dfx approach produced higher FPS.
Ensoniq approach did not produce a more authentic audio - they just focussed on using less CPU time when playing the 22KHz audio produced by games.
Ensoniq approach produced higher FPS.
Aureal cards produced spatially accurate audio positioning - FireGL territory, slow but correct.
Aureal cards produced lower FPS.
In 90s PC games, all audio mixing was done by the game engine itself before audio ever reached the sound card. Under that constraint, sound cards that added effects or mixing could only increase CPU load and lower FPS. Ensoniq leaned into that constraint by making a sound processing pipeline that did little as possible. And that materially mattered in competitive gaming because FPS chasing was real at every tier in the 90s.
Where Ensoniq sucks is in accuracy, immersion, sensations. But if accuracy, immersion, sensations matter then 16bit renderings of low detail 8 bit textures sucks too. So, let's be consistent: Are we praising each solution for its accurate precision or its fast approximation?
P.S. Ensoniq, Aureal, and Sensaura each presented a threat to Creative - so Creative acquired all three, but only Ensoniq provided a synergy that Creative could immediately profit from.
