Search Results For: soundblaster
When DOOM came out in 1993, Id Software had all kinds of companies coming around asking to license the engine to use it in various types of software for which it was completely unsuited. John Carmack said that vendors of CAD programs and home designers wanted to make use of his amazingly-performant 3D engine, but...
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Most of your writers up here at HotHardware are old farts, so we can scarcely imagine a Steam account without the original Half-Life. Back in the day, most of us owned boxed copies of the game, and you could put your CD-key into Steam to register it to your profile. If your existence on Steam is newer than that, don't...
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Last week at its Snapdragon Summit, Qualcomm revealed two new mobile platforms, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 and Snapdragon X Elite, amidst a myriad of additional XR and Audio related announcements. Like its namesake, the Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 is designed for smartphones and tablets (that typically run Android), and this...
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To appreciate the subject of this post, you're going to have to take a trip back to 1993 with us. The gaming scene on the IBM PC had been growing rapidly for a few years, championed by graphics-heavy games taking advantage of the explosion of clones of the expensive Video Graphics Array (VGA) adapter. Gorgeous titles...
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These days, video game audio is so complex that it's actually simple. Computer processors and audio hardware are advanced to the point that everything can simply be multi-channel digital audio. Game sound effects and music tracks are just digital samples; digitized recordings of real-world sounds. Digitized audio has...
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Microsoft has admitted that there was a problem with the KB4535996 update that it released in late February. Microsoft admitted the issue in the update only a couple of days ago, several days after users first began complaining about problems after installing the update. Microsoft said that it is "aware of issues"...
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For many Windows 10 users, the point was reached long ago where there is little trust that the updates and hotfixes that the software giant puts out aren't going to cause new problems. With that in mind, it will be no surprise to many that the KB4535996 update that was released late last month is causing issues for...
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in this episode of HotHardware's 2.5 Geeks Marco and Dave chat about AMD's HOT new Ryzen 3000 series processors and Radeon RX 5700 series graphics cards. We also dive into the performance of NVIDIA's new GeForce RTX 2070 and 2060 Super cards and check out a great, new high-end SoundBlaster card from Creative...
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Microsoft is rolling out two new Windows 10 preview builds to members of Windows Insider program. One is a test build for next major update to Windows 10, codenamed 19H1, and the other is a very early build of what comes after that, codenamed 20H1. it is the first time this year that Microsoft has released two Windows...
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Not long ago, we kicked the tires on Motorolas well-received Moto X Pure Edition. The smartphone impressed us with its Quad HD display and overall build quality, as well as its $399 price tag, which places it more reasonably below the lofty prices of the Samsung Galaxy S6 and Apple iPhone 6S lines. Today, were taking...
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In late August, Dell Alienware took the wraps off of a radically new Area 51-branded desktop system featuring an angular case designed for maximum thermal efficiency and ergonomics. We first gave you a glimpse of that system right here, and have a full review of Haswell-E and Tri-SLI powered version of the Area 51 in...
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So far, the tiny and inexpensive Raspberry Pi computer has been about as successful as anyone could have hoped for. More than a million units have been sold so far, there’s a dedicated app store, and hobbyists and developers have been making and porting games and the like. The latest fun consists of a DOS emulator for the Raspberry Pi...
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Samsung continues to unload with both barrels on the tablet market, releasing one product after another. Consumers can choose from 7-inch, 8.9-inch, and 10.1-inch sizes; WiFi-only or carrier-specific versions, including models for Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile, and Sprint; and a couple of different storage options too. (Who knows, by the time...
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This Holiday Gift Guide is sponsored by Epson—makers of the World’s Fastest 2-sided inkjet printer, the Epson WorkForce Pro. Run your business at full speed with Epson. Notebooks, Ultrabooks and netbooks, oh my! Road warriors never had it so good, and though the holiday shopping season is in full swing, don't worry yourself...
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Just in time for the holiday buying season, NVIDIA is at the ready with a brand new graphics card. Sort of. Today, NVIDIA is announcing the GeForce GTX 560 Ti with 448 cores. Some of you may be thinking, “Hey! GeForce GTX 560 Ti cards use the GF114 GPU which offers a maximum of 384 cores!” And you’d be right. This new...
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Although we’re still a while away from the official launch of Intel’s X79 Express chipset and next-gen Sandy Bridge-E processors, Gigabyte has decided to show off their latest G1-Killer motherboard, the GIGABYTE G1.Assassin 2. “Today we have a special treat for those of you who are eagerly...
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Turtle Beach, Razer and a few others may be jockeying for position in the crowded gaming headset game, but Creative -- a company best known for their Sound Blaster heyday -- is giving them some real competition. The company just revealed a new range of Sound Blaster gaming headsets at the IFA 2011 conference in...
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Creative really hasn't had a huge splash in the audio business (at least in relation to the PC audio business) since the early days of the Sound Blaster audio cards, but with such great audio cards being integrated into motherboards now, that business seems to be on the decline. But the company is still kicking, and...
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Creative used to be a huge, huge name in the audio world. If we're being generous, it still has a rather large presence in the audio landscape, but it's not nearly the beast it once was. By and large, integrated audio solutions have grown sophisticated enough to be satisfactory for most, and few are springing for...
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One short week ago, NVIDIA unveiled the GeForce GTX 295, and with it reclaimed the overall 3D performance crown from a resurgent AMD. As you may know by now, the dual-GPU powered GeForce GTX 295 features a pair of re-worked GT200 GPUs, manufactured using a more advanced 55nm fabrication process than its 65nm predecessor. Looking at the specifications...
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NGOHQ is reporting that Creative Labs is blaming NVIDIA for cracking and other sound quality issues when an X-Fi sound card is installed in an nForce 4 motherboard. This reminds me of the good ol' days of installing the PCI Latency patch on VIA chipset-based motherboards when using a Creative Labs sound card....
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With Shuttle announcements and news seemingly all over the news this week, it should be no surprise to hear that the company has yet another new model on the horizon. As a direct replacement for Shuttle's original M1000 HTPC, a new and updated M2000 model is set to make its debut. The latest iteration of the full-size HTPC will incorporate...
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