HP Vectra VEi7 HP Vectra VEi7, VEi8 & VLi8, Technical Reference Manual (V - Page 30

Core Components and Technologies Crystal Integrated PCI Audio Crystal Integrated PCI Audio The Crystal® integrated PCI audio solution in the PC is a two-chip solution made up of the CrystalClear™ CS4280 PCI audio controller and the CrystalClear CS4297 Audio Codec '97. The audio controller interfaces with the PCI bus and performs all digital operations such as sample rate conversions and synthesis. The CS4297 chip mixes and processes all the analog signals. A typical signal-to-noise ratio is 95 dB, compared with 85 dB at best for ISA audio solutions. High fidelity audio is achieved through features such as differential CD audio input, which cancels out PC activity noise. In addition, the system's converters use a highly efficient over-sampling scheme to perform 18 bit analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog conversion. Through its use of DirectX, this Crystal audio solution offers high-end audio features such as 3-D localization, surround sound, room effects and Doppler effect. The Crystal PCI audio solution includes an integrated FM synthesizer, Plug-and-Play interface and power management features. There is an internal connection for CD-ROM and DVD drives, and external stereo in, stereo out and microphone in sockets. Crystal audio is not SoundBlaster compatible. The Crystal audio solution has been optimized for Windows-based platforms, while supporting the other major operating systems. It is therefore fully compatible with any application written for a Windows environment. Moreover, it is possible to play back virtually any PC audio format using Microsoft's Media Player 6. This player can process new formats through the use of plug-ins and can decode the following formats by default: File Formats Midi files (music synthesis) MOD tracker files (enhanced music playback) File Extension .rmi .mid .mod 30