Has anyone heard the latest of teh release of the SoundBlaster card for the Mac?

[roders]

I read recentlty that Soundblaster had had some meetings with Apple, a couple at the very highest level, aparently these were something to do with Soundblaster providing the Audio in Mac's as OEM.
This might make a lot of sense with OSX around the corner, as the new OS has built in 5.1 sound and would need suitably more advanced hardware to take advantage of this + Apples audio team left recently so Creative could deal the software side too.
Whatever happens though Creative have deffinetly recently been in talks with the management at Apple.
But the release for this card is getting beyond a Joke, I'm desperate for one 7 sick of waiting, I think they might just wait until OSX is out, then agian it might never turn up!

I was told by creative at MacWorld that they will be out in time for Christmas.

so if I go out and get one of these cards when they get released, what will it let me do that I can't do now?

[Evangellydonut]

32 bit audio, 4.1 and 5.1 surround sound support. Also, since it releases the audio processing from your CPU, your games will run faster.

This sounds cool, but I wonder if they'll really sound any better...
Also if they'll come with a digital optical out jack for connecting to minidisk.

There are several more VERY important feature of these SoundCards, particularly for musicians. They will not only include digital ports, but also include a midi port as well. These sound cards are also General Midi Synthesizers and you can add many sounds with the soundfont technology. There is also a software mixer included that controls treble, bass, and seperate volume controls for midi, microphone, CD, DVD, balance, so you can control all the sounds in your speaker from one control panel. The biggest feature is that you can have True Surround Sound by using 4 speakers and a woofer!

[Misha]

Games should also beneift. Right now the processor handles all of the audio.

With the SoundBlaster handling audio, preformance will increase... about 20%, from what I've heard...

[blizzard]

Games also benefit from such things as environmental audio - the sound changing as you go from one locale to another. Imagine walking around in a cavern and hearing your footsteps (or those of your enemy) echoing off the walls. If you have a four- or five-speaker spetup, then sound will emanate from one speaker sooner than the others depending on how close you are to each wall. Then, if you jump into water, the sound quality will immediately change so that each noise made sounds as though it were made underwater. Whether or not you are willing to spend over a hundred dollars to achieve this level of realism is up to you, but it does wonders to the immersiveness of any game. Just go watch (and listen) to someone on a PC with one of these cards play Half-Life, and you'll see (hear) what we mean. The card can also change the sound of any alerts your computer makes, as well.

Blizzard.

[SMacEslin]

I've been using SoundBlaster products on the PC side for years, and I can verify that by moving the sound processing from the CPU to a separate card will provide increased speed (read: responsiveness) to games and audio processing. Similarly when OSX's support for 5.1 audio is realized, the SoundBlaster will definitely be worth the cost and wait...