Introduction
The world of sound cards took a big hit last year when Aureal Semiconductor, Inc. went into Bankruptcy Court in April. Aureal, who had been in litigation with Creative Labs over alleged patent infringement, obtained a favorable ruling in December 1999, which vindicated Aureal from patent infringement claims. However, even this favorable ruling did not save Aureal from assimilation by what they could only consider at the time to be “The Borg.”
Aureal was Creative Lab’s main competitor in the sound card market. After Creative Labs purchased Aureal’s assets from the Bankruptcy Trustee, one of the main sources for OEM sound card chipsets dried up. Subsequent to its purchase of Aureal, Creative has said that it does not plan any additional drivers or support for Aureal owners. Aureal produced several great chipsets, but they always seemed to have problems with drivers that were never quite resolved. Many people still feel that Aureal’s 3D positional audio A3D technology was far ahead of anything else that has been developed so far. Microsoft has developed new Aureal drivers that will be included with Windows XP. However, Microsoft only included basic functionality at best, which will not compare to the drivers and control panels that have been developed for the majority of sound cards today.
With Aureal gone, several sound card manufacturers have had to look elsewhere for chipsets. With the introduction of new products from Creative Labs that build upon their success in the sound card market, anyone considering products other than a Sound Blaster sound card will not have many options. Most dealers devote the vast majority of their shelf space to the Creative Labs products.
Many people have asked me, “Why would I use anything other than a Sound Blaster?” People continue to tell me, “The Creative Lab’s Sound Blaster is the standard in sound cards, and if all you need is basic audio functions, just save a few bucks by buying a motherboard that has integrated audio.” It is true that most new motherboards do offer basic integrated audio (as an option in many cases), and that for many users this is more than enough. Another solution that is becoming more prevalent due to the inclusion of CNR and AMR slots in current motherboard technology is to use one of these slots to host a sound card, but this opens an entirely new can of worms. However, if you still want audio performance and features, then you must look beyond integrated audio or CNR/AMR technology.
CNR/AMR Audio Issues
The introduction of CNR and AMR slots on the motherboard were supposed to help vendors lower costs and develop sound cards to use these slots, but so far very little has happened with regard to these slots. Battles among system makers and developers have not yielded a clear standard between the CNR and AMR technologies. Some motherboards have the CNR slot, while other motherboards continue to use the AMR slot, and still other motherboards do not offer either of these technologies. If this is confusing to you, you are not alone. If you need only basic sound, are not overly concerned about performance, and your motherboard happens to have one of these slots, this is an option, but finding a compatible card for your CNR/AMR slot could present a challenge.
One of the sound cards that use the CNR slot is Analog Devices’ SoundMAX card, using Analog Devices’ AD1885 coder/decoder (CODEC). The specifications for the SoundMAX using the CNR are: 1024-voice wave table, environmental reverb and multi-channel extensions supporting up to 6 channels of playback for 5.1 Dolby Digital, EAX and A3D. Recently, Guillemot announced a new collaboration with Analog Devices on the development and marketing of new CNR audio cards based on the SoundMAX technology. We will have to wait to see what this collaboration yields. But prior to moving to a sound card that supports the CNR or AMR technology, I think the first question to be considered is the following: “Will this move create another WinModem type CPU performance hit that I can afford?” Since CNR and AMR technology are not the focus of this article, we will save this discussion for another time. However, I wanted to include in this discussion what other sound card technology is currently available for CNR/AMR.
Cirrus Logic SoundFusion DSP
Sound card vendors got a big boost late last year when Cirrus Logic introduced the new CS4630 SoundFusion DSP. Turtle Beach chose the CS4630 DSP for use in its new Santa Cruz sound card. Guillemot, through their Hercules line, is using the CS4630 in the Game Theater XP. Guillemot is also using the Cirrus Logic CS4624 DSP in the Hercules branded Gamesurround Fortissimo II. Some motherboard vendors are using the SoundFusion DSPs for integrated audio on several motherboards.
The Cirrus Logic CS4630 SoundFusion DSP is an upgrade to the CS4624 PCI audio accelerator. With support for legacy compatibility modes, the CS4630 enables real mode DOS compatibility within PCI-only audio subsystems. This device, combined with application and driver software, provides a complete system solution for hardware acceleration of Microsoft’s DirectSound, DirectSound3D, DirectInput, and Wavetable Synthesis. The CS4630 is based on the Cirrus Logic CrystalClear Stream Processor (SP) DSP core. The SP core is optimized for digital audio processing, and is powerful enough to handle complex signal processing tasks such as Sensaura 3D, 4-channel output, and hardware wavetable synthesis. The SP core, is supported by a bus mastering PCI 2.1 interface and a built-in dedicated DMA engine, with hardware scatter-gather support. These support functions ensure transfer of audio data streams to and from host-based memory buffers, providing maximum performance and minimal host CPU loading.
Most of the major features of the CS4630 are also found in the CS4624. The biggest difference between the CS4630 and the CS4624, from what I can understand, is that the CS4630 uses a 128-stream DMA interface and has 420 MIPs SLIMD DSP architecture with increased internal memory. The CS4624, on the other hand, uses a 96-stream DMA interface and has 300 MIPS SLIMD DSP architecture.
Fortemedia FM801-AU
Another chipset that OEMs are now using for sound cards is based on the Fortemedia FM801-AU chipset. Long time motherboard manufacturer Abit chose the FM801-AU for use on its new AU10 sound card to make its entrance into the sound card market. You can also find the FM801-AU chipset in the Jaton SonicWave SR4 and SR6.
The FM801-AU uses an HSP (host-based signal processing) hardware/software architecture. The FM801-AU offers support for Direct Sound, WaveTable, and Direct 3D positional audio. Because the FM801-AU is an HSP solution, like a WinModem it requires the CPU to do part of the processing. The FM801-AU offers PCI 2.2 interface with bus master including scatter-and-gathering capabilities, Real Mode DOS Sound Blaster support, built in music synthesis for Adlib compatibility, built in sample rate converter with digital mixer, multiple speaker support, S/PDIFF digital output, Direct Input support, MPU-401 port, 64 voice software wavetable, and HSP synamic 3-D positional audio support.
Although we intended to review at least one card based on the Fortemedia FM801-AU chipset, we were unable to obtain a card for review before this article ran. I felt that it was important to include some background on the FM801-AU, but I can’t offer any comment as to its performance on our benchmarks. We hope to receive a card based on the FM801-AU in a future article.
Philips ThunderBird Avenger
Philips has introduced the ThunderBird Avenger DSP and has released three sound cards using this DSP. The Acoustic Edge, Seismic Edge, and Rhythmic Edge round out the three offerings from Philips. From my understanding, the ThunderBird Avenger DSP, which is also known as the SAA7785, is available for OEMs to build sound cards upon, but to the best of our knowledge, none have materialized to date. This leaves Philips as the only one building sound cards around this chipset.
The SAA7785 ThunderBird Avenger, armed with QSound’s advanced QMSS, transforms ordinary stereo games, movies and music to 5.1 speaker output. An integrated S/PDIF OUT connects to audio equipment and S/PDIF IN support provides digital connection from a CD player or other digital audio equipment. The ThunderBird Avenger supports redirection of up to 5.1 streams from PCI to USB or IEEE 1394 devices, full hardware acceleration of DirectSound, 3D audio, music synthesis and gameport functions. Philips also claims to have an industry-leading low CPU consumption using the ThunderBird Avenger. The ThunderBird Avenger offers second generation ActiMedia programmable DSP architecture. The ThunderBird Avenger supports the following standards: 2/4/5.1 speaker/headphone 3D algorithms, Qsound3Dinteractive positional 3D, QsoundMulti-Speaker System, Qsound Environment Modeling, I3D Level 2.0, EAX 1.0/2.0 Compatible and Qxpander stereo-to-3D remapping. The ThunderBird Avenger offers processing up to 512 simultaneous inputs, including 356 DirectSound streams and up to 96 concurrent CD quality 3D streams. It also offers 64 voice hardware wavetable.
Creative’s Sound Blaster Dominance
Creative Labs has been making sound cards in their Sound Blaster product line for a long time. If you visit the sound card section at your local retailer, you will note that Creative Labs Sound Blaster products dominate most of the shelf space. This is due, in part, to the fact that Creative offers a complete line of sound card solutions for nearly every application and budget. The down side of this near monopoly of retail shelf space by Creative is that other sound card companies find it difficult to compete with Creative.
Creative currently claims a 70% market share in the sound card market, with a claimed installed user base of over 120 million Sound Blaster users. With this kind of dominant market share it is easy to understand why most people choose Creative for their sound card. Creative also owns Digicom Systems, Inc., E-mu Systems, Inc., Ensoniq, Cambridge SoundWorks, and the assets of Aureal.
Creative’s Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 is powered by the EMU10K1 DSP that was developed by E-mu Systems. The EMU10K1 is unique in the fact that the firmware on board the DSP can be updated. This allows Creative to re-program or upgrade the DSP if and when new features become available. Creative has announced a new DSP called the Audigy. It is still a little early to know much about the Audigy beyond what has been posted on Creative’s web site. What we do know about it is that it utilizes 32-bit Multi-Effects DSP that will use Creative’s EAX Advanced HD, and Creative claims that it has four times the processing power of the EMU10K1. Due to the limited amount of information available, at this time I do not recommend that you put off the purchase of a new sound card based on the initial reports on the Audigy DSP.
Creative’s EMU10K1
Creative’s EMU10K1 has a 64-voice hardware polyphony with E-mu’s patented 8-point interpolation technology. The EMU10K1 will support up to 1024 voices polyphony with multi-timbre capability. The EMU10K1 includes real-time digital effects support for effects like reverb, chorus, flanger, pitch shifter, and distortion across any audio source. It uses Dolby Digital 5.1 decoding to 5.1 speaker channels in both analog and digital modes and supports Creative’s Multi Speaker Surround, which allows any mono or stereo source to be placed in 360 audio space. It employs hardware based EAX effects using user selectable DSP modes that can simulate acoustic environments.
One other issue important to consider with the purchase of any sound card is how many IRQs the card will use and whether the card use can use any IRQ. The general rule of thumb is that a sound card that offers DOS Mode Sound Blaster Emulation is going to require two IRQs: one IRQ for the card itself, and a virtual IRQ that is devoted to the Sound Blaster emulation mode. On my PC, I don’t run any DOS based software that requires a sound card and I don’t use the DOS Mode Sound Blaster Emulation, because it steals an IRQ that I could devote to something else. Some sound cards make this process easier than others; some cards will refuse to run without the DOS Sound Blaster Mode Emulation being active. Generally, the process of disabling the DOS Mode Sound Blaster Emulation isn’t very well documented. While I have always felt that if you are not playing games under DOS, the card makers should make it easy to get rid of the DOS mode support, I am sorry to report that this isn’t always the case.
Windows XP and Microsoft’s Audio Support
With so many companies exiting the computer business, we attempted to get a clear direction from each company on the status of Windows XP driver support. In some cases, this was very easy because these companies already have beta Windows XP drivers posted on their web sites. In other instances, Windows XP has a basic function driver that is included with Windows XP itself. The majority of the time, a Windows XP basic function driver isn’t going to provide all of the features that were included with the sound card’s control panel application. Future driver support is important as well, so we did our best to answer that question. One other issue to consider is that, in some cases, the manufacturers only provide a basic functionality in the driver. This was the case in Windows NT Workstation 4.0 with the cards that supported that OS. No card in this review claimed to offer direct Linux support. Although it is possible to use some of these cards with Linux, we didn’t really examine which ones will run under Linux.
With so many sound standards to support, it seems amazing that all of these cards support most of the popular standards. But do they? Microsoft developed Direct Sound 3D (or DS3D) to provide simple positional audio. DS3D does allow the use of extensions, unlike Direct3D. If your sound card doesn’t have direct support DS3D, Microsoft has provided a simple software 3D sound engine, but it is very CPU intensive. This software 3D sound engine really isn’t that good at placing sound, in my opinion, and it is for this reason that most software publishers choose to use 3D sound engines such as A3D or EAX. It is very important to note that just because a sound card claims to support DS3D, this does not mean that the sound card will not bog down your CPU for 3D sound processing. With DS3D, sound streams are converted into algorithms that the sound card manufacturer or chipset developer has licensed or developed. These algorithms are often better at placing the 3D sound and most often use less CPU.
What complicates the issue even more is that most sound cards can’t accelerate more than a fixed number of 3D sound streams, and once these streams are exhausted the sound card reverts to using the MS engine with non-3D sound. Many cards support other sound formats by way of conversion. Support of A3D 1.x is done by converting the A3D 1.X calls to DS3D. This will work in most, but not all, A3D 1.X games. With Aureal no longer around to offer developer support for the A3D API, it will most likely die, so this will not be a major issue in the future.
Now that we have presented a general overview of all of these DSP technologies and a basic understanding of how Direct Sound 3D processes sound, let’s look at a few cards and see if it really is worth considering anything other than a Sound Blaster sound card.
Creative Labs – Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1
The Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1, or the SBLP, as I like to call it, is fast becoming one of the most popular sound cards of all time. The Sound Blaster Live! Platinum is available in a variety of configurations and packages to suit almost any consumer taste.
Although we only look at the SBLP in this review, it should be noted that all of the “Live!” Sound Blaster series cards are based on this board. The major differences are with the software bundle and the included extra features such as the Live! Drive with IR support. It is possible to purchase a Sound Blaster Live! and upgrade it with the Live! Drive. However, here is a point I can’t stress enough: make sure that you get a card that is upgradeable, because from what I am told, while some of the OEM or white box cards have the Live! Drive IR connector on the card, the Live! Drive connector is disabled.
Purchasing just an upgradeable Sound Blaster Live! and upgrading it later will not save you any money; in fact it might cost you more in the end when shipping is added in to the cost. This option does lessen the initial cost of the Sound Blaster Live! and does provide future expandability that many sound cards lack. As far as performance, we didn’t see any performance difference between Sound Blaster Live! cards with the Live! Drive and cards without the Live! Drive. So, this is something to take into consideration before you make your purchase.
Data Transfer Specification | PCI 2.1 Bus Mastering |
Audio Processor (DSP) | EMU10K1 DSP |
Audio Standards Compatibility | Microsoft DirectSound, Microsoft DirectSound 3D, EAX 1.0, EAX 2.0, and A3D 1.0 |
Legacy DOS Support | Yes, Legacy DOS/Sound Blaster Support |
Wavetable Synthesizer | 64-voice hardware polyphony – 64 hardware and 1024 PCI wave-table synthesis – Uses SoundFont technology for user-definable wave-table sample sets; includes 2MB, 4MB and 8MB sets. |
External Connector Configuration | On the card bracket: Analog/Digital Output , Analog Line In, Mic, Speaker/Headphones Output, Rear Output, Joystick/Midi – On Live! Drive 5 1/4 bay device: Optical TOSLINK S/PDIF In & Out, RCA S/PDIF In & Out, 1/4″ Headphones Jack, Headphone Volume Control, 1/4″ Line In/Mic In Jack, RCA Auxiliary In, Infrared Receiver, Midi In/Out, and Line In/Mic In Switch/with Mic Gain Control. |
Operating Systems Supported | Windows 95/98/ME/NT 4/2000, DOS |
Status Of Windows XP Drivers | Native Basic Live! Support – Advanced Driver Support for XP in development. |
Special Features | Live! Drive IR and Infrared Remote Control, Real Time Digital Effects |
Software Included With The Card | Audio HQ, MiniDisc Center, Launcher with Live! Task, Keytar, Mixer/Surround Mixer, Rythmania, Creative PlayCenter 2, Creative WaveStudio, Creative MediaRing Talk, Creative Recorder, Sound Blaster Live! Tour, Live! Ware Demonstration, SoundFont Sample Banks, MV3 Sample Clip, Steinberg’s Cubasis VST, WaveLab Lite, ReCycle Lite, Mixman Studio, PixMaker, PixScreen, Kool Karaoke, Parody Parrot, Game Commander SE, MDK2, Deus Ex, Thief II: The Metal Age, and Unreal Tournament. |
Suggested Retail Price – US | $199 US |
Creative Labs – Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1, Continued
After opening the box containing the SBLP, you will notice that unlike many retail box items that contain mostly box, the SBLP packaging is loaded with all kinds of goodies. The software bundle alone might be worth the cost of the card (which, incidentally, isn’t cheap). The Sound Blaster is the most expensive card in this review, but it also enjoys the status of having the most inclusive software bundle in the review. The retail cost of the four included games almost covers half the cost of the card alone.
The biggest feature of the SBLP is the included Live! Drive IR. This is a break-out device that gives you additional input and output, and places them in the front of the computer so that they are easy to get to. Also included with the Live! Drive IR is the Infrared Remote Control, which allows you to control your computer from a distance. Using the included remote and Creative’s software bundle, you can handle such tasks as changing MP3 tracks or advancing your DVD, all from the remote. Only Creative offers the remote control option on its Live! Drive, so if this is something you must have, Creative is your only source for this feature.
The Live! Drive IR mounts in any 5 1/4 drive bay and will accept rails if necessary. Because it mounts into the front of the computer, the position of the Live! Drive IR is very important. Mounted too high in the bay, you can be faced with cables that are plugged into the unit hanging in front of your CD-ROM or DVD-ROM units, which can cause a real mess if you open the tray. Also, mounting the unit in a full tower case can present problems because the specialized ribbon cable that is used to connect the Live! Drive IR to the Sound Blaster Live! might not be long enough to reach the card if it is in one of your far PCI slots. If you plan to use the Live! Drive IR frequently and you work with a lot of 5 1/4 devices that have removable media, you will need to take this into consideration when installing the Live! Drive.
Use of the Live! Drive IR is a logical choice for the budding musician. Its front inputs for line, mic, and midi make it a logical choice. Be aware that the midi jacks on the front of the Live Drive are the smaller din jacks and may require a converter if your midi device doesn’t offer direct support. Plugging a guitar into the Live! Drive IR enables the Sound Blaster Live! to apply real time effects processing to any input device, which can replace the pedal boards for some musicians who are just starting out.
I found the manual included to be basic, but better in some ways than manuals included with other products in our review. It was good in some areas, and average in others. However, the bottom line with the manual is that it is still going to take some time for you to install and hook up your system. This should be expected, and depending on the user level, this might present a big problem, or no problem, depending on the installer’s level of expertise and patience.
Installing the included software and drivers can also take some time. Because of the vast amount of software included with the bundle, it can take as long as fifteen minutes just to install the drivers and the suggested included software. I have never been one to complain about getting something for free, but in this case, Creative supplies so much software that can do so many things, it could take weeks (and yes, I do mean weeks) to explore all of the included Creative applications. One positive aspect is that Creative uses a fairly common interface between the applications, which may help lessen the learning curve.
Creative Labs – Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1, Continued
Including a large software bundle isn’t without its problems. During the first testing process, we found a few situations where the PlayCenter application, as well as the Launcher, randomly crashed for no apparent reason. Although they seemed to operate fine after a reboot, it was disconcerting that they crashed. Installing all of these applications will also take a toll on your system resources, and it was for this reason that we installed a driver-only configuration to run our benchmark tests.
Another issue to be aware of is that the SBLP does require the use of two IRQs in the configuration. You may or may not have to reserve an IRQ in the BIOS for use by the SBLP. This, of course, will depend on your motherboard and configuration. As we discussed earlier in this article, the SBLP uses one IRQ for the PCI card itself and one for the Sound Blaster DOS mode emulation. It is possible to disable the DOS mode emulation, but this can create more than a few problems, so I don’t suggest it.
One of the best features of the SBLP is native EAX support. Like many other users, when comparing the EAX technology to the A3D technology, I still prefer the richer and more full A3D technology. I feel, in most cases, that EAX lacks the 3D sound positional depth that A3D provides. Because the SBLP does have native EAX support, you will notice that it does very well on the UTBENCH 3D audio test, which is to be expected. I look for the new EAX HD standard to be included with the Audigy to improve upon the original EAX technology and should provide better sound and performance. Overall, I would rate the EAX technology to be good, but not as good as A3D.
When playing DVDs, the SBLP really indicated why so many people choose this card. Using the included DVD application and the IR remote, I was able to pause and play the DVD without using the mouse or the keyboard. This is a very nice feature. The DVD pass through worked well and I found no issues when plugged into my home receiver in both the Dolby Digital and DTS sound modes. When using speakers connected to the PC, it is possible to reconfigure the digital jack on the bracket of the card to output the center channel as well as the subwoofer if you are not using a digital connection.
When playing games with the SBLP, I found no compatibility issues and found the sound to be very smooth. Overall, it sounded very good. When playing MP3 files, or any audio for that matter, it had a very powerful low end. This is always a favorable sign for me, as I like any sound card that is really able to put the “boom” into the low end.
Overall, I think the SBLP card is an excellent choice and lives up to Creative’s reputation. It includes a great software bundle and supports almost everything you could want in a sound card. Many of the issues about this card focus on the price of the card itself. It was the most expensive card in this review, but with the release of the Audigy you can expect the price of the card to drop. With the massive included software bundle it will continue to be a good card to purchase with a new machine, as you get so many applications for the new or first time user. However, some users may prefer to look at other options, as cost might continue to be a factor.
Hercules – Gamesurround Fortissimo II
Guillemot, owner of the Hercules brand name, has been in the sound card business for some time now. Guillemot has wanted to expand further into the sound card market, and Guillemot placed several bids in an attempt to purchase the assets of Aureal. Guillemot has, in the past, released such cards as the Maxi Sound Muse, Maxi Studio Isis XL, and the original Maxi Sound Fortissimo. While these cards were popular in some circles, with the introduction of the new Hercules branded cards, Guillemot looks to make a big splash in the sound card market.
When announced a few months ago, it appeared that the Gamesurround Fortissimo II was going to be the “hands down” sound card of choice for many people. The Gamesurround Fortissimo II does offer an impressive array of features at a price that could make it a future market leader. What I think Guillemot has done particularly well is that it has combined many of the best features of the Sound Blaster Live with the Live Drive, and they have marketed the product in a more affordable package. (The biggest complaint that I continue to hear about the Sound Blaster Live and the Live Drive is that it costs too much.)
Data Transfer Specification | PCI 2.1 Bus Mastering |
Audio Processor (DSP) | Cirrus Logic SoundFusion CS4624 |
Audio Standards Compatibility | Sensaura based 3D positional Audio with support for Microsoft DirectSound 3D, EAX 1.0, EAX 2.0 , A3D 1.0, I3DL2, MacroFX, MultiDrive, ZoomFX, EnvironmentFX, Compatible with Dolby Surround |
Legacy DOS Support | Yes, Legacy DOS/Sound Blaster Support |
Wavetable Synthesizer | DSP accelerated engine for unlimited number of voices (64-voice hardware) 8MB General MIDI/GS sample set GM (General Midi) and Yamaha XG compatible |
External Connector Configuration | Analog din with: mic in, headphones, front and rear speakers – Line in, and S/PDIF In & Out using TOSLINK connectors. |
Operating Systems Supported | Windows 95/98/ME/2000 |
Status Of Windows XP Drivers | Windows XP Driver In Development |
Special Features | Uses unique single din cable configuration for connecting the analog inputs |
Software Included With The Card | Gamesurround Fortissimo II control panel, Game Commander 2 Special Edition, Storm, Acid Xpress, MusicMatch Jukebox, Siren Jukebox Xpress, Media Station, Yamaha XG Player, Kool karaoke Lite, Power DVD 3.0 (4 channels) |
Suggested Retail Price – US | $60 US |
Hercules – Gamesurround Fortissimo II, Continued
I think everyone would agree that the most important feature of the Sound Blaster Live was the introduction of the Live Drive. Guillemot attempted to address the shortcoming of many sound cards with the introduction of its unique single cable solution that plugs into a din connector on the back of the card, and then splits out into four 1/8″ input jacks. This provides a place to plug in a microphone, headphones, and front and rear speakers. The card’s bracket includes a line in connector and S/PDIF TOSLINK input and S/PDIF TOSLINK output connectors.
Adding the S/PDIF TOSLINK connectors also allows output to a 5.1 channel receiver or speaker device accepting S/PDIF TOSLINK connections. The TOSLINK connections can also be used to connect to digital devices, such as a Mini Disc player. This allows digital output of MP3s directly to Mini Disc. I am told this is a very popular option in Japan and the UK. The TOSLINK output can be used to connect directly to your home theater receiver to output DVDs to your home theater digital surround sound system.
The manual included with the Gamesurround Fortissimo II is translated into four languages: English, French, Spanish and Portuguese. The manual contains about fourteen pages in each language and covers the General Specifications of the sound card itself, physical hardware installation, driver installation for 95/98/98SE/ME/2000, Software Installation, and Sound Board Configuration. I found the manual to be very basic, at best. The pictures and screen shots in the manual are small and hard to read. In fact, some of the screen shots are so small that if you are looking at them for guidance to help you, you will literally need a magnifying glass. The Software Installation section of the manual does not really provide much information about the installation of the applications, instead it suggests that you refer to the online HTML documentation included with the CD.
I would have preferred that Guillemot included a more complete description of the included applications, so the user could more intelligently choose which applications to install. In the Soundboard Configuration section, Guillemot only devotes one short page on the configuration of the sound card and doesn’t review all of the settings included with the Gamesurround Fortissimo II control panel. If you are having a configuration issue with the Gamesurround Fortissimo II, don’t look for the manual to offer for much support in resolving your configuration problem.
The installation of the sound card and software under both Windows 98SE and Windows 2000 occurred without problems. It is important to note that the Gamesurround Fortissimo II does not include drivers for Windows NT Workstation 4.0. The Gamesurround Fortissimo II offers an impressive control panel that allows user control over all aspects of the card. It was also easy to use the control panel to disable the real mode DOS compatibility mode support under Windows 98. Once completed, the card only uses one IRQ, and with the DOS compatibility mode enabled, it reserves a second IRQ for this mode, which in most cases will set itself to share on a Serial COM port. This is a very nice feature. The Gamesurround Fortissimo II card was flexible in IRQ assignment and even ran well on IRQ 12. Since I was using a USB mouse, this IRQ 12 was free.
Hercules – Gamesurround Fortissimo II, Continued
The sound quality of the Gamesurround Fortissimo II sound card was exceptional. I found the card’s 3D audio support to work well. I had no compatibility issues with the 3D audio in Quake III and Unreal, which are two games that I think make some of the best use of the 3D positional audio. Also, the separation of the audio between channels was good.
The software bundled with the card seemed to be to be more “shovel ware” than anything else. Most of the programs that were included with the card I had already purchased, or had little or no use for.
As part of our testing I played more than a few MP3s using Music Match Jukebox with the Gamesurround Fortissimo II, and the card seems to decode well and provide a rich and full sound. I also tested the card’s ability to pass through Dolby Digital information from DVD, and found no problems with this. This sound card seemed to work well with a variety of test DVDs. Of course, this card doesn’t replace all of the functions of the Sound Blaster with Live Drive sound card, but Guillemot includes a good level of features for the cost of its card.
In the four tests I ran using both Quake III and Unreal Tournament/UTBENCH the Gamesurround Fortissimo II was able to best the other cards tests in three out of the four tests. This was simply amazing considering the cost of the card, but one must not loose sight of the fact that this card does offer a little less audio processing power and audio resolution that some of the cards we are comparing it with. It is important to note that this card only has 32 hardware voices and 64 voice wavetable.
Guillemot does offer a more complete answer to the Live Drive with the external rack design in the Hercules Game Theater XP, which we look at later in this review. One thing to remember about this card is that if you take your computer to a LAN party and want to play it through headphones, you must take the din cable with you. I don’t think that this is a big deal, but, if you lose the din cable, you will be forced to get another one, since the card is basically worthless without it. Guillemot told us that you can purchase a replacement din cable by calling the Customer Service number in the manual. Still, I think that they could have added a second headphone jack to the bracket of the card to allow you to leave your DIN cable at home. The Gamesurround Fortissimo II card has excellent performance, great sound, rock solid drivers, and a wide range of compatibility. If you are looking for a full featured card at an attractive price, it doesn’t get much better than this.
Hercules – Game Theater XP
The Hercules Game Theater XP sound card by Guillemot takes aim squarely at the Sound Blaster Live with Live Drive sound card. The design of the Game Theater XP is unique in the fact that Guillemot used an external breakout box. This external breakout box is an interesting way of adding all of the additional inputs and outputs that are provided by competitor Creative’s Live Drive.
The external breakout box that Hercules calls the “External Rack” adds both new function and features when compared to the Creative Live Drive.
Data Transfer Specification | PCI 2.1 Bus Mastering |
Audio Processor (DSP) | Cirrus Logic SoundFusion CS4630 |
Audio Standards Compatibility | Sensaura based 3D positional Audio with support for Microsoft DirectSound 3D, EAX 1.0, EAX 2.0 , A3D 1.0, I3DL2, MacroFX, MultiDrive, ZoomFX, EnvironmentFX, Compatible with Dolby Surround |
Legacy DOS Support | Yes, Legacy DOS/Sound Blaster Support |
Wavetable Synthesizer | DSP accelerated engine for unlimited number of voices (64-voice hardware) 8MB General MIDI/GS sample set GM (General Midi) and Yamaha XG compatible |
External Connector Configuration | DB44 connector on the back of the sound card to connect to external rack. Connectors on the external rack include: head phones w/volume control, mic input, joystick port, 4 USB ports, RCA line inputs, 5.1 RCA speaker outputs with separate sub and center channel outputs, 2 front/rear combined mini jack speaker outputs, RCA and Toslink digital input/output, midi din in/out, and DB44 connector to connect to sound card. |
Operating Systems Supported | Windows 95/98/ME/2000 |
Status Of Windows XP Drivers | Windows XP Driver In Development |
Special Features | Unique External Rack to handle just about ever input and output on the planet! |
Software Included With The Card | Game Theater XP control panel, Sensaura Virtual Ear, Gameloft package (includes several game demos), PowerDVD 2/4/6 channel version, MusicMatch Jukebox, Yamaha Soft Synthesizer S-YXG50, Sonic Foundry ACID Xpress and SIREN, Koolkaraoke Lite, Magix playR Jukebox. |
Suggested Retail Price – US | $150 US |
Hercules – Game Theater XP, Continued
When you first pick up the Game Theater XP, the first thing that you will notice is that the box is heavy. Weighing in at more than five pounds, this is no light weight product. Most of the weight comes from the well constructed External Rack which is in fact made of metal, something that is becoming more rare in the plastic world of today. Some of the weight also can be attributed to the large shielded DB-44 cable that connects the External Rack to the Game Theater XP card itself.
The manual included with the Game Theater XP is translated into three languages: English, French, and Spanish. It contains about fourteen pages in each language and covers the General Specifications of the sound card itself, physical hardware installation, driver installation for 95/98/98SE/ME/2000, Software Installation, and Sound Board Configuration. As with the manual that was included with the Gamesurround Fortissimo II, I found the manual to be very basic at best, which is unfortunate, because this is a more complex product than the Gamesurround Fortissimo II, and I really felt that the manual should have gone into more depth. Like the Gamesurround Fortissimo II manual, the pictures and screen shots in the manual are small and hard to read. In fact, some of the screen shots are so small that if you are looking at them for guidance to help you, you will also, literally, need a magnifying glass. The Software Installation section of the manual does not really provide much information about the installation of the applications; instead, it refers you to the online HTML documentation included with the CD.
The bracket of the card itself only has a DB-44 connector that runs between the External Rack and the card. This means that if you want to output any kind of sound at all out of your PC, you must have the External Rack connected to the card. I guess this works in most situations, but I really think that Guillemot missed the mark here. I would have really liked for them to include perhaps a second headphone output, or even a second standard speaker output on the bracket of the card. If you take your computer to a LAN party or anywhere, for that matter, the External Rack and cable is just one more thing to have to carry, so the convenience of the External Rack does come at a small cost.
Something that Guillemot did get right was to include a four port un-powered USB hub into the External Rack. Once you run the included USB cable from the External Rack to your PC, you now have the use of four USB ports for any un-powered USB device that you wish to plug into these ports. Creative should take a lesson here and try to incorporate this into a future design of the Live! Drive. If you are a big USB user with limited ports, this can save you the $20 cost of a four port USB hub.
When you see the staggering array of connectors on the Game Theater XP, you will notice that Guillemot didn’t leave anything out. The External Rack features input and output connectors on both the back and front of the External Rack, which allows you to hide some of those cables. This is, of course, in stark contrast to the Live! Drive, which almost forces you to have some cables running out of the front of your PC. In normal situations, as we stated in the Live! Review, this isn’t an issue because the cables might not be in long-term use, but if they are, they can get in the way of other 3 1/2 and 5 1/4 devices in the other bays. This can also be a pain with 3 1/2 and 5 1/4 devices that have removable media. With the design of the Game Theater XP’s External Rack, you can keep those devices connected to your PC long term and not have to worry about a mess of cables spewing from the front of your PC.
Hercules – Game Theater XP, Continued
The Game Theater XP control panel is, in many ways, very much like both the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz and Gamesurround Fortissimo II. This should not surprise anyone, because it also features a Crystal Audio DSP. I found the control panel to be complete and easy to use. It worked very well and it was easy to understand.
During the MP3 tests of this card, I was very surprised by the amount of peak CPU usage that the Game Theater XP showed during the tests. While playing our test tracks, the CPU would continue to stay around 10% to 12% and then shoot up to a high of 21%. We searched through the system for extra programs running and looked for possible reasons that the card did this, but found nothing to indicate a reason for this. It should be noted that we used the updated drivers from the web site and perhaps this driver has some sort of a bug that is causing this problem. We didn’t have this issue when re-testing the card with the enclosed “older” drivers, but keeping with our testing methodology, we only used the newest drivers, so the score will have to stand. (Using the older driver the MP3 playback CPU utilization was between 11% to 15% which I consider to be about right for this card.)
The overall sound of the card was excellent! The card had a wide sound field with nice, crisp high end. The card has a good low end range, and I found the performance to be excellent with just about everything that I listened to. The only problem with all of this was that the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, which is based on the same 4630 DSP, sounded the same to me. When playing DVDs, I experienced no problems and everything worked well and caused no issues. The DVD pass through was fine and worked as advertised.
When comparing the Game Theater XP to the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1, they are both very close, and yet very different. I found that I liked the external rack of the Game Theater XP better than the Live! Drive IR, but I did miss the remote provided by the Live! Drive IR. If cost is a major factor in your choice, then the Game Theater XP will be the ultimate winner with a price that is some $50 lower that the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1, but the Game Theater XP doesn’t have the amount of bundled applications that the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 has. If you look at the overall performance of the card, as well as the included input/output options, this makes the Game Theater XP an attractive choice.
Philips – Acoustic Edge
I really didn’t know what to expect when I opened the box containing the Philips Acoustic Edge. From the look of the specifications on the box, it might be one of the best secrets in sound card technology. (Of course, what manufacturers don’t make these kind of claims on the box?) As explained earlier in the review, only Philips is currently producing cards based on the Philips SAA7785 ThunderBird Avenger DSP. Philips does offer two additional cards based on the ThunderBird Avenger DSP, which are the Seismic Edge and the Rhythmic Edge. We did not look at the Seismic Edge and the Rhythmic Edge in this article. Both of these cards offer different feature sets from the Acoustic Edge, which is the top sound card in this product line.
After opening the Philips Acoustic Edge box, I found a very nice package containing a quick start guide, user’s manual, driver CD, Power DVD, two din connector cables, and of course, the sound card itself. Philips deserves a lot of credit for providing an easy to use Quick Start Guide that was placed right on top of the card itself, designed to get you up and running quickly, while at the same time acknowledging that most users don’t read the manual. Good packing design often tends to be overlooked in reviews, but I feel it is worth mentioning here. I really like the way that the Philips organized and packaged the Acoustic Edge.
Data Transfer Specification | PCI 2.1 Bus Mastering |
Audio Processor (DSP) | Thunderbird AvengerTM DSP – SAA7785 |
Audio Standards Compatibility | QMSS: Surround processing, Qsurround: virtual 5.1 playback, Qsound 3Dinteractive, EAX 1.0, EAX 2.0, A3D 1.0, DirectSound 3D, DirectSound |
Legacy DOS Support | Yes, Legacy DOS/Sound Blaster Support |
Wavetable Synthesizer | 576 Voice Software WaveTable Synthesizer Support (5.9MB sample set) |
External Connector Configuration | Uses dual din cables providing analog outputs on the first cable in a mini jack format for center/sub, front, and rear. Second din cable provides S/PDIF digital in and out on coax RCA connectors. Mic In, Line In, and Midi/Game Port are located on the card bracket. |
Operating Systems Supported | Windows 95/98/ME/NT 4/2000, DOS |
Status Of Windows XP Drivers | XP Driver In Development |
Special Features | Qsound Support |
Software Included With The Card | Philips Acoustic Edge Control Panel, Siren Xpress, AudioPix, Acid Xpress, PowerDVD 3.0, Yamaha XG50 |
Suggested Retail Price – US | $100 |
Philips also went “outside the box” with its design of the Acoustic Edge, in that they use a dual din cable design on this sound card to provide all of the connectors needed. Although it is similar in some respects to the din cable that Guillemot uses on the Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo II, it is quite different in its dual cable design. Basically, Philips elected to use one din cable for the analog line outs and the other din cable for S/PDIF RCA style in and out. On the card bracket itself there are 3.5mm jacks for the line in and mic. The bracket also includes a standard game/midi port, which can be configured for an analog or digital joystick/game pad. It is important to note that the Acoustic Edge does not have any TOSLINK connectors, so if you want to connect a TOSLINK only device to the Acoustic Edge, you will have to do it via the S/PDIF RCA connectors using a converter of some sort.
Previously, I mentioned the superior packaging that Philips uses on the Acoustic Edge. This great organization design carries over to the user’s manual as well. The manual that is included with the Acoustic Edge is, by far, the best user’s manual of all of the sound cards tested. The manual is easy to read and understand, and is well laid out for both expert and novice. It answers a comprehensive list of questions, as well as provides clear diagrams and screen shots to walk you through almost any process required. Another special feature of the Acoustic Edge sound card packaging is the three-part installation video guide on the included Acoustic Edge CD. Of course, most users will not have to look at this to install the sound card, but the videos and the excellent Quick Start Guide do make this a sound card that you could give to even a novice to install. Philips earns very high marks for the excellent documentation included with the Acoustic Edge.
Philips – Acoustic Edge, Continued
The Acoustic Edge Control Panel is split into seven tabs that run along the top of the Panel. These tabs are labeled: Utilities, Settings, S/PDIF, Effects, MIDI, Speaker Test, and Information. Each panel is well laid out and didn’t seem to be missing anything that was obvious to me. One option that was of particular interest to me was located on the MIDI tab described as “H/W Wavetabe Voices” – it has two options – “Better Gaming” and “Better Polyphony.” The default of “Better Gaming” is the option that we used to test with. I did find that, as you would guess, with the “Better Polyphony” option enabled, we did take a small performance hit, but I honestly didn’t notice much a of difference between the two. The Acoustic Edge Control Panel was easy to use, and very visual in nature, which in my book is a good thing. I also liked the way Philips included several “DEFAULT” buttons on many of the pages, which helps you return that tab to its default settings with the click of a button. If you are new to tweaking a sound card, you will find this helpful, as you can do a lot of “before and after” testing very quickly.
Once you install the included software, you will appreciate the fact that Philips spent a lot of time creating customized Philips “skins” for much of the included applications and software. This customized Philips look is different from any other sound card in this review, except for the Creative Sound Blaster. In doing this, Philips attempts to achieve a look and feel that is very much the same between applications. It is different, and whether you like it or not is really up to you, but I found that it the more I used and tested this card it kind of grew on me. After the card was installed, I found the sound to be very rich and full. At times, I even found the sound to be overly clear, but I didn’t consider this lack of distortion to be a bad thing. In positional audio modes, I found the separation to be excellent and the sound to be very good.
During my testing of the Acoustic Edge sound card, I discovered a problem with Windows 98SE, which would not allow AC3/DTS DVD pass through feature of the Acoustic Edge to operate. On their web site, Philips provides a link to a Microsoft Quick Engineering Fix that will apply a patch to resolve this issue as follows: QFE269601 applies a fix that permits operation of the Philips DVD AC3/DTS Passthrough feature when using Win98SE and Philips Sound Card WDM drivers. However, without this patch, this AC3/DTS DVD Passthrough feature is grayed out and is inoperable.
During the benchmark testing of the card using the newest drivers, we found some cause for concern. In both of the Quake III and UTBENCH tests, the Philips finished dead last. (So much for the Philips claim of the lowest CPU utilization.) Not so fast, though, because the Philips finished first on the MP3 test with lowest score of only 7%, which was very impressive. It seems as if the card does very well in non-gaming situations, but doesn’t do well in gaming situations with the current driver set.
It was very hard not to like this card due to the impressive array of features included with the card. Other sound card makers could learn a few things from Philips in the packaging and bundling of the card. I found the sound to be down right incredible, but issues with the driver performance in gaming situations gives me cause for concern. The SAA7785 ThunderBird Avenger DSP does appear to be quite powerful and has a bounty of potential, but Philips really needs to allocate resources to improve the drivers, as I feel right now the performance hit is just too great for such an otherwise impressive sounding card.
Turtle Beach – Santa Cruz
Turtle Beach has been in the sound card business for many years. In some ways, Turtle Beach has been known as more of a software company due to their relationship with Voyetra, which acquired Turtle Beach in 1996, and became the company we know today, as Voyetra Turtle Beach.
Over the years, they have offered a variety of sound cards. Most of the more recent cards were based on the Aureal Vortex 1 and Vortex 2 chipsets. The Santa Cruz sound card represents the first new design from Turtle Beach that is not based on an Aureal chipset.
I consider the Santa Cruz sound card to be a more conservative approach to sound card design when compared with some of the competition. Santa Cruz has stayed away from break out boxes and Live Drives, and has produced a solid sound card targeted at the game markets, as well as audiophile PC sound enthusiasts.
It is important to note that through a co-marketing agreement the Santa Cruz is also re-branded as the VideoLogic Sonic Fury. Through this arrangement, Turtle Beach markets the VideoLogic line of speakers, while VideoLogic markets the re-branded Santa Cruz.
Data Transfer Specification | PCI 2.1 Bus Mastering |
Audio Processor (DSP) | Cirrus Logic SoundFusion CS4630 |
Audio Standards Compatibility | Sensaura based 3D positional Audio with support for Microsoft DirectSound 3D, EAX 1.0, EAX 2.0 , A3D(tm) 1.0, I3DL2, MacroFX, MultiDrive, ZoomFX, EnvironmentFX, Compatible with Dolby Surround. |
Legacy DOS Support | Yes, Legacy DOS/Sound Blaster Support |
Wavetable Synthesizer | 64-voice hardware polyphony with up to 1024 software voices. 8MB DLS synthesizer sample set. |
External Connector Configuration | Mic In, Line In, Front Speaker Output, Rear Output, Game Port/Midi Connector. Versa Jack. |
Operating Systems Supported | Windows 95/98/ME/NT 4/2000, DOS |
Status Of Windows XP Drivers | XP Driver Posted On Web Site |
Special Features | 1/8″ stereo mini-phone jack that can be used as analog line output, headphones output, digital output or analog line input. Can be reconfigured from the Santa Cruz control panel. Wave Table header and Upgrade header for future expansion. |
Software Included With The Card | Santa Cruz Control Panel, Audio Station 4.0, Voyetra’s Digital Orchestrator, MIDI Orchestrator 32, Sound Check For Santa Cruz, Audio View 32, Sensaura Player Demo, and Voyetra Product Demos. |
Suggested Retail Price – US | $80 |
Turtle Beach – Santa Cruz, Continued
The Santa Cruz sound card offers three important features that I think are lacking in other sound cards reviewed in this article: the interesting Versa Jack, the wave table header, and the Santa Cruz upgrade header allowing for future expansion.
The Versa Jack is a 1/8″ stereo mini-phone jack that can be use in any of the following configurations: analog line input, analog line output, headphones output, and digital output. This is controlled in the Santa Cruz Control Panel. It is easy to control: reconfigure the Versa Jack for the new mode, plug in the new device in, and it’s ready to go.
While wave tables are not as popular as they once were, the Santa Cruz sound card allows you to plug in a wave table upgrade card into the wave table header. This provides the ability to add more sound sample sets to your Santa Cruz card. This used to be almost a standard feature, but many companies apparently felt that not enough people were using this option to justify continuing this option on their sound cards. Many people still have old wave table upgrades that they would like to use, and this is especially true for those people using their sound cards with their music gear. Turtle Beach offers the Cancun FX wavetable daughter board that is Roland GS compatible with 4MB of wavetable samples. (We did not use the Cancun FX in our testing of the Santa Cruz sound card.)
The Santa Cruz Upgrade Header is a mystery at the moment. We do not have any clue what plans Turtle Beach may have to make use of this option. However, I like to have the ability to upgrade a sound card. We have seen a connector like this before, enabled to provide additional output configurations as well as to add more jacks. It isn’t likely that the Upgrade Header will upgrade the card to the next generation, but it might provide a solid upgrade to additional features. The Santa Cruz is the only sound card we seen which provides any kind of an upgrade path. (If Turtle Beach reads this, it would be nice to consider offering some sort of external or internal input/output rack that could be connected using this connector.)
The manual included with the Santa Cruz, entitled “Getting Started Guide,” is just what the title implies, nothing more. The twenty-five page manual provides a very brief overview of the Specifications of the Santa Cruz, Installation, Using The Santa Cruz Control Panel, and External Connections. I found the installation section to be informative for installing the card, but I didn’t like the fact that there were no screen shots of the driver install process. I think users have far more problems with the driver install process than anything else. The manual does mention the Santa Cruz Sound Check Utility that is included with the card, and provides an example of its use. This utility is one of the best sound card troubleshooting utilities that I have seen. It can test with the hardware and software configuration of the sound card to ensure that all is installed correctly. Turtle Beach should focus more attention on this utility, as it can be a real time saver.
Turtle Beach does not do an adequate job in the Control Panel section of the manual explaining the specific functions in the Turtle Beach control panel, but instead refers you to the online help function in the Control Panel application. The External Connections section of the manual is well presented, using a grid format for the use and potential uses for each jack. I found this information very helpful. Overall, I would rate the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz user’s manual as average. The addition of a few screen shots to help you along would improve this manual considerably.
Turtle Beach – Santa Cruz, Continued
The installation of the software from the enclosed driver CD requires the use of the serial number that is on the jacket of the disc. I am not a fan of this requirement at all. If you lose the serial number, you are hosed, and out of luck. For anyone purchasing the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card, I highly recommend writing the serial number on the inside of the user’s manual. (When I downloaded the new updated drivers from the web, and ran the install package, I was not prompted for a serial number, so I felt this was a nice improvement.)
The Santa Cruz control panel is split into six tabs that run across the top of it. They are Main, Mixer, EQ, Effects, Synth, and Other. I found the control panel for the Santa Cruz easy to use, and very similar in both features and options to the Game Theater XP control panel. As far as providing more help on the use of the Santa Cruz Control Panel, Turtle Beach only included a Windows help file, full of questions and answers more than anything else. I found when I asked the help file for more information on the Versa Jack, it was more than happy to bring up some additional info that told me what I needed to know about using the jack. I don’t have a problem with this approach, but this function covers what used to be the purpose for the manual.
As for the performance of the Santa Cruz, it was near the middle of the pack in most all of our tests, but it was a consistent performer with good scores and good sound. As said in the Game Theater XP review, I could not really tell the difference between the two cards. If I had been subjected to one of those blind listening tests, I would have not known which card was which. I am not saying that this is a bad thing, I just want to let you know how closely alike the cards sound. Like the Game Theater XP, the Santa Cruz’s overall sound was excellent! The card had a wide sound field with nice, crisp high end. The card has a good low end range, and I found the performance to be excellent with just about everything that I listened to.
The Santa Cruz is a nice card with great performance. It provides a good level of performance and value for the price. I like the idea of the Versa Jack and found it to work well in every situation, although you might need a specific cable to interface to your setup, but even that should not be too much of a problem. I thought that including both the upgrade header and the wave table header provided that extra something new that was lacking in other cards. If you don’t need the function and features of an internal or external rack, then this is a great card to consider with stable drivers and good performance.
Test Setup
Hardware | |
CPU | Pentium III 1Ghz Coppermine Socket 370 |
Motherboard | Asus CUSL2-C-BP Black Pearl Special Edition BIOS 1007 |
Memory | 256MB Micron PC133 RAM CL2 (OEM) |
Graphics Card | Gainward GeForce2 Pro/450 64MB DDR – CARDEXpert |
Hard Disk | IBM 40GXP – IC35L040AVER07 41.17GB 7200 RPM ATA-100 |
CD-ROM | Sony 52X CD-ROM Drive CDU5211 (Replaced With Asus 12X DVD Rom For DVD tests) |
CD-RW | Asus CDW-1210R – 12X/10X/32X CDRW |
Network Card | 3C905C-TX Network Interface Card |
Add On | Asus iPannel Basic (Removed From Our Final Testing Configuration – Read on to find out why.) |
Case | Antec SX1030 Mid Tower Case With Antec PP-352X 350 watt Power Supply |
Speakers | Altec Lansing ADA880W Dolby Digital Speaker System |
Drivers | |
Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1 | Version SBL5-WEB-W1-US |
Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo II | Version 1.0 (From Enclosed CD) |
Hercules Game Theater XP | Version 2.02 |
Philips Acoustic Edge | Version 2.59 |
Turtle Beach Santa Cruz | Version 4081 |
Aureal SQ2500 | Version 2048 |
So, How Did We Benchmark These Cards?
When testing the sound cards, we tried to test them in three ways that we felt would yield the best gauge of the card’s true “real world” performance. For the first test, we used Quake III and UTBench with and without the 3D audio option turned on; for the second test, we look at the CPU utilization while decoding MP3 files. After running the gaming tests, many felt that due to lack of 3D audio support in the newest point releases of the game, that another test was in order. Read on to find out why.
We thought about including Audio WinBench 99, but decided against it because it didn’t give us as clear a picture of real world performance as the Quake III and UTBench results. ZD Lab’s Audio WinBench 99 really only focuses on two aspects of the testing, which are described below:
Audio WinBench 99 uses eight automated tests in the Audio CPU Utilization Tests. Four of the tests use Direct Sound, while the other four tests use Direct Sound 3D. Each test measures the amount of CPU that the sound subsystem uses for common operations, such as playing sounds at 22 kHz and 44.1 kHz, 8 bit and 16 bit from both static buffer and streaming buffer.
The Audio CPU Utilization Tests allow us to determine how much work the sound card is offloading from the processor, so that you know how much CPU is available for other tasks. If the card you have is truly a hardware accelerated sound card, the card does most of the mixing. If you have a sound card that doesn’t support hardware mixing, the processor will do most of the mixing, which means the percentage of processor usage will be much higher. With almost all Audio WinBench tests the data on CPU use was inconsequential, never rising above 4% for the worst case scenario. As a result, we ditched our Audio WinBench 99 results and decided to focus on some real world performance data.
After loading the test system with our base line Windows 98SE Ghost Image without any sound card or sound card drivers loaded, we proceeded to install the sound card for this test. We used the most current drivers provided on each manufacturer’s web site, if they were different from the ones provided on the driver CD that is shipped with each card. (We note the driver revisions for each card below.) Once the card was installed, we rebooted the PC and installed DirectX Version 8.0a. Once the DirectX 8.0a install was complete, we rebooted the PC again.
Quake 3
In our Quake III performance tests, we looked at what kind of performance each sound card had with the sound turned on. We looked at both the impact of just adding sound to the system when running Quake III, as well as the impact of turning on the 3D sound. To establish a base line to work from, we imaged our test system without a sound card installed and ran the standard demo001 tests using the 1.16 release of Quake III. As many of you know from Tom’s past review of the Gainward GeForce2, this card is quite able to be over clocked, but for this test, we left the Gainward GeForce2 Pro/450 64MB DDR at its default setting of 200mhz core and 400mhz memory. We used the Nvidia Detonator 3 reference drivers for Windows 98 for our testing.
The demos were run in using the standard Quake III settings in the 1024×768 resolution using the 32bit color setting. For reference purposes, when running the benchmark with no sound card installed, the system ran at 135.7 frames per second. With the sound card installed, no sound card was able to beat our base line score of 135.7 frames per second. When the 3D sound mode was engaged, the frames per second took another performance hit, but on some cards, not as much as one might expect. When looking at the performance graphs, scores closest to our base line score of 135.7 are better.
I realized after running these demos and collecting this testing data that in later patch point releases of Quake III, that id Software, the publisher of Quake III, has removed the 3D audio support. Although I never experienced any problems during my testing, from what I have been told, previous problems with the 3D audio support caused id Software to remove it. Since we didn’t experience any problems, I felt it was important to include the testing data because it offers a good look at performance with a solid frame of reference from other tests we have done in the past. However, I still was not satisfied with the results – so enter UTBench.
UT Bench
After looking at the Quake III performance graphs, I felt we needed to make sure that our 3D audio performance numbers were good. I chose to use UTBench to verify this. Unreal Tournament Benchmark Utility is able to give us some additional insight to the 3D performance of each card.
The demos were run using the standard Unreal Tournament settings in the 1024×768 resolution using the 32bit color mode. For reference purposes, when running the benchmark with no sound card installed, the system ran at 45.07 average frames per second. With the sound card installed, no sound card was able to beat our UTBench base line score of 45.07 average frames per second. When the 3D sound mode was engaged the frames per second took another performance hit, but on some cards, not as much as might be expected. When looking at the performance graphs, scores closest to our base line score of 45.07 are better.
MP3 Encoding
In our MP3 decoding test, we attempt to find out if cards that claim to have acceleration during MP3 decoding live up to their claims, or if they are just marketing hype. I am not going to examine which cards or companies are claiming or suggesting this on their packaging and marketing materials, but we all felt that it was something that we should consider. To be fair, to the best of my knowledge no one has ever spelled out these claims.
The first problem that we found during our testing was a puzzling one. The Asus iPanel that was installed in our test system was causing all MP3 playback to stutter. Once the iPanel was removed, this problem would disappear. Of course, this was quite interesting, and has been documented on other sites. We found that simply removing the iPanel fixed the issue, but still made me unhappy. By using a new Beta version of the BIOS we were able to resolve the issue, but the iPanel would only then update once the mode button was pressed. I felt that this defeated the purpose of the iPanel, so we didn’t use the Beta BIOS or the iPanel. This was an issue that really didn’t have anything to do with our testing, but it was something that I thought I should mention.
To test the MP3 decoding, we used MusicMatch Jukebox Version 6.10.0178 and we encoded the entire “Human Clay” audio CD by the rock band, Creed. The Human Clay audio CD has eleven tracks with a total run time of 56:22. Once the audio CD was encoded at 128kbps and the MP3 files were stored on the hard disk, we tracked the CPU utilization while playing three of the MP3 files.
To give you some idea of this system’s performance on MP3 encoding, as well as the CD-ROM drive’s DAE capabilities, the system was able to encode the entire audio CD in a time of 6 minutes and 41 seconds. As the sound card really has no impact on the MP3 encoding process, I just wanted to report this to give you an idea of the system’s performance level.
We used
It should, however, be noted that the Philips sound seemed a little more full than the other cards did. I did notice a difference and I liked that difference. The Sound Blaster Live also sounded very good and was very strong on the low end. The Game Theater XP and the Santa Cruz sounded very much the same to me, and Gamesurround Fortissimo II seemed to have a slightly tighter high end sound than the Game Theater XP and the Santa Cruz did.
What I Should Look For When Buying A Sound Card?
When considering the purchase of a sound card, there are a few questions that you might want to ask yourself to help you choose the right sound card. As was made clear by the review, not all cards are the same, and the features differ widely between cards.
- Do I have a need for connectivity that an External Rack or the Live! Drive IR provide?
- Can I make do with a card that supports a little bit less connectivity than an External Rack or a Live Drive would provide?
- Are optical inputs and outputs a big feature in my choice of a sound card and do they have to be of a specific type?
- Is cost a major factor in my choice of sound card?
- Will the quality of the audio performance play a big choice in my purchase?
- Does the software bundled in any of the sound cards appeal to me more than another without the extensive bundle of software?
Conclusion
As you have seen, sound cards were not a “one size fits all” solution. Therefore, what we chose to do was name an editor’s choice in several different areas, so that you could choose what option works best for you.
If you need the flexibility of additional connections and are willing to live with the down side of having to take the External Rack with you if you move the system, the Hercules the Game Theater XP is the card for you. I felt that, for the money, it presented a little bit better sound and a little more flexibility feature wise than the Sound Blaster Live Platinum 5.1 with Live! Drive IR. I still wish that Hercules could have included the IR Remote feature as well as adding a headphone jack on the bracket of the card, the Game Theater XP did get a lot of things right with this card. The Sound Blaster Live Platinum 5.1 does finish a very close second, and does offer some unique features not found in other cards.
In what I would like to call the “mid range” category, the selection is pretty close. I think overall, the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz gets the nod over Philips and Creative. The Santa Cruz was not fancy, but it was stable performer, providing great audio quality and excellent performance for the price. The Creative Soundblaster Live without the Live! Drive IR also makes a fine choice in this price range, but the Santa Cruz just seems to have a little more oomph than the Creative did. As for Philips, I felt the Acoustic Edge was a fine effort, but they do need to work on tweaking the drivers in order to improve performance.
In the budget category, or what I like to call “the best bang for the buck”, without question, the Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo II hits the mark. It provides an excellent mix of features and performance for the money. The performance of the card was steady and was a true value, considering the fact that these cards are now showing up at local computer shows for as little as $43. Philips should not be overlooked, either, and although we didn’t look at the Seismic Edge or the Rhythmic Edge, they feature the same DSP as the Acoustic Edge and can provide quite a deal for the money. The Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo II was able to turn in the best score in both our Quake III and one of our UTBench tests. This only further proves that the Hercules is a very good performer for the money.
Well, there you have it: our first look at sound cards and sound card technology. Of course, this is by no means our last look at sound cards. We will look at the new Creative Audigy Platinum EX soon. Audigy is generating a lot of positive buzz. Also of note is that Guillemot is working on a new sound card for release. We don’t know anything beyond the fact that it is in development. We have been told by Guillemot that they will submit it to us for testing as soon as it is finished. (Will the new Guillemot sound card be based on a new Crystal Audio chipset??) As always, we will also continue to refine and develop our sound card testing process and present another sound card round up soon.