Specifications

Chipset

The original Yamaha YMF724 was released in the era of the original Diamond Monster Sound (MX100) before the Vortex 1 and Sound Blaster Live! At the time it offered better audio acceleration than Diamond's product, but was never popular with the gamers due to lack of 4-speaker support. The YMF744 is Yamaha's newly released 4-speaker version of the YMF724.

Technical Specifications

Yamaha YMF744B Audio Chip
SigmaTel STAC9708 CODEC
- 18-bit full-duplex DAC / ADC
- Analog Line Out SNR: 98 dB
- Digital DAC SNR: 96 dB
- Digital ADC SNR: 87dB
- Total Harmonic Distortion: - 0.02%
- Crosstalk (Input Channels): - 70 dB
- Spurious Tone Rejection: 100dB
4-speaker HRTF positional audio
64 voices hardware-assisted Sondius-XG wave table synthesizer
Hardware accelerated Joystick Port

Input/Output connectors

Digital output (optical, coaxial, and AES/EBU) at 48 kHz only
Digital input (optical, coaxial, and AES/EBU) at 32, 44.1 and 48 kHz
2 x Stereo Line Out (front/rear)
Line-In
MIC-In
MIDI/Joystick Interface (IBM 15 pin Sub-D)

Internal Inputs

Connector for digital interface (XG DB I)
CD Audio (4-pin Creative)
Video-In (4-pin Creative)
AUX (4-pin Creative)
TAD (modem)
Digital CD-in (2 pin, cable included)

Compatibility

DirectSound/DirectSound3D acceleration
A3D 1.0 Emulation
Sensaura MacroFX and MultiDrive
Environmental Audio extension support (EAX)
Windows 9x, NT, and 2000 support

As you can see, the technical specifications look pretty impressive. The chip supports all of Sensaura's current technology for excellent HRTF positional audio, sports a nice 18-bit SigmaTel DAC (the original Yamaha YMF724 design had a 16-bit Yamaha DAC), and offers complete digital I/O including the internal 2-pin Digital CD connector. There are four different drivers available with the Digital XG: Win95/98, Windows NT, WHQL, and yes, Windows 2000 WDM drivers are available out-of-the-box! The YMF744 only outputs digitally at 48 kHz, whereas other solutions allow you select between 22 kHz and 44 kHz as well.