OS X.1 & Surround Sound

A while ago Maccentral had an article saying that 10.1 had some sort of Surround Sound Frameworks. Does anyone know anything about this? Is Apple going to impliment Surround Sound through the CPU like they do with stereo sound? Or is it the frameworks for a 3rd Party card :confused: . Any "Insiders" know what type of attitude Apple has towards Surround Sound? Do they care?

If they are going to have it through the CPU how would you connect Surround Sound speakers? I assume you can't do it through the regular jack right? Would USB have enough bandwidth? What about FIrewire? Are there/will there be any Firewire speakers?

Currently I have a SBL:Mac & since it doesn't look like Creative's ever going to write OS X drivers I'm just curious as to what options we may have down the road as mac users.

[quote]Originally posted by Kuku:
<strong>You are talking about creative soundblaster cards here, not the OS.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

Did you read my post at all? <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" /> Yes I mentioned Creative but my main question was about OS 10.1 & the Surround Sound frameworks that it has, not "why doesn't my SBL:Mac work in OS X".

[quote]<strong>
There is a BIG difference between hardware driven and software driven effects.
</strong><hr></blockquote>

I realize that & I think I demostrated that in my post ... not sure why you think I don't understand the difference ... OS 9 & X use the CPU (software) to do thier Stereo ... Apparently 10.1 has some sort of Surround Sound frameworks, I was wondering if this was for the CPU to handle (software) or if it was frameworks for a 3rd Party (Hardware) company to plug in too.

[quote]<strong>There is a creative soundblaster card for mac, which sadly doesn't have osx drivers.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Again, did you read my post? I said I have one & I'm quite aware it doesn't have OS X drivers, that's why I'm interested in the 10.1 Surround Sound frameworks .... :confused:

[quote]<strong>You really should think about what you post.</strong><hr></blockquote>

One of us certainly should <img src="graemlins/bugeye.gif" border="0" alt="[Skeptical]" />

Edit: Added a bit

[ 12-06-2001: Message edited by: X704 ]</p>

[quote]Originally posted by Kuku:
<strong>X704, Your post was a little hard to understand, but then so was mine I guess.

My post was directed at "Falcon" who boaster his PC can wow this and that.</strong><hr></blockquote>

Thanks for clearing that up, perhaps I could've been more clear in my question (although I thought I was relatively clear ...).

[quote]<strong>On your post, The Surround sound frame work is probably for developers like game makers to call. This also means that unless someone write an audio program, that can call those then convert a data file(say Mp3) to properly use surround sound. It's pointless.

Apple would be going much above and beyond to attempt to try this and also take a good amount of CPU.</strong><hr></blockquote>

So your saying Apple's trying to do surround sound through software right?

The logical option here is hardware, i.e SBL. SBL doesn't need to call the framework to my guess since all it needs is drivers to catch the audio, and then do what it has to in hardware, and output.

Games are slightly different in that, it can probably use the framework to manually direct audio. i.e. on a home entertainment set, do footsteps to the forward left, gun fire on the back right, and alternate music with the base others.

[quote]<strong>USB and higher speakers are digital(I think) so there is no real reason to not be able to do anything you want(Surroundsound) as it's just another device. Not at all like a compress audio jack, which is limited technogy.

Just making some guesses here, but it's probably somewhat logical. After all most surround sound are REALLY just EFFECTS(Like adding echo to a song). True surround sound has to directed.
]</strong><hr></blockquote>

USB is digital (just confirming). I think you misunderstood me a bit. I'm talking about real (directional, 5.1 Surround sound, ie. 4 speakers + subwoofer) surround sound, not simulated (ie. 2 speakers). This is why I was asking if USB could handle it because of all the extra bandwidth it'd need to supply 4 speakers with 5.1 Surround Sound.

The 5.1 Surround Sound Framework is also what I was eluding to regarding OS 10.1 (not the stereo/simulated surround sound that we've had since OS 8 or so, rather the real thing). Understand :confused: . Hopefully you can provide a little more info.