The week in review: July 12-18

Last week's features at 3DsoundSurge

• Alien versus Predator
  We have now finished our review testing it with several soundcards including the Live, Trident's 4DWave-NX, Aztech's 368DSP, Diamond's Monster Sound, Yamaha's WaveForce, Terratec's DMX and a Vortex2 board. Unfortunately the game only produce 3D sound on some of these cards. Check out the review to find out how this game sounds on each card.

Last week's sound news

Drivers and bugs

• New Vortex 1 Drivers
  New Vortex 1 drivers are up on Aureal's FTP (ftp.aureal.com) and web sites (version 4.06.1187). Some minor fixes (Digital Orchestrator Pro crashes, etc.), improved SoundFont compatibility, and support for the Intel 810 chipset are included in these new drivers. Head over to Aureal's non-flash or flash download page.
• Sound Blaster PCI64 Win95/98 Drivers Update
  This update includes:

  * Latest drivers (v4.05)
  * Sound Blaster PCI64 Mixer
  * Creative Configuration

  This release also:
  * Improves 8-Bit recording quality
  * Improves DirectSound Capture support
  * Fixes audio problems in popular games such as FIFA99, Red Line Racer, Half Life

• New PC-DVD Encore Dxr2 Win 95/98/NT 4.0 Drivers
  Creative has released new DXr2 drivers. Here is the basic info on what you get:

  This is a stand-alone upgrade package for the PC-DVD Encore Dxr2 for Windows 95/98 and Windows NT 4.0 (English Language), which also includes WDM (Windows Driver Model) drivers for Windows 98 SE only.
  Note: The Windows 98 WDM driver only works with Windows 98 SE. You will only need to use the Windows 98 WDM driver if you intend to use Microsoft DVDPlayer or need DirectShow support.
  Aside from the WDM drivers, there are no major changes or updates on the applications and drivers from the previous version (DVDE-WEB-4-US) to the current version (DVDE-WEB-5-US). The previous version (DVDE-WEB-4-US) added SMP support for Windows NT 4.0.
  Please refer to the README.1ST file for further information. This package MUST be extracted with either WinZip or from a command prompt with the -d option for the package to install correctly!
  Note: This package works ONLY with the PC-DVD Encore and PC-DVD Encore 5x kits with a Dxr2 Decoder, and the PC-DVD RAM drive with a Dxr2 Decoder card. This file does not support the Dxr3 Decoder.

New games, demos, patches and bugs

• MX300 Recoil Full/Multiplayer CD
  If you bought an MX300 in North America you can do one of two things to get the Recoil Full/Multiplayer CD:

  1) Fax your original receipt of the MX300 to Diamond at 541-967-2401. Make sure that somewhere noticeable, you write ATTN: Gregg Hart

  -or-

  2) Mail your Recoil game CD that came with your MX300 to:
  Diamond Multimedia Systems
  ATTN: Gregg Hart
  7101 Supra DR SW
  Albany, OR 97321

  Make sure that you include a note with your name and mailing address. Also, be aware that the CD you will receive will be a CDR burn of the original CD. This is what was supplied to us. It will not include the retail label of the game, but rather a hand written label. The game, however, will be the full retail/multiplayer enabled game that you would buy from the store.

  Note that this only applies to North America and it could be 3-4 weeks for delivery as Diamond has to burn each of these CD's manually as they do not have a mass duplication system in tech support.

• Myth II: Soulblighter Patch released last week adds a new multiplayer game type: deathmatch, reduced chat lag, fixed a bug that would cause crashes when switching Bungie.net rooms and about another dozen fixes, none of which involve sound. You can grab it from 3Dfiles. The game supports A3D 1.X, DS3D and EAX
• New Sound Utility - KCplus v0.40 (BETA): The feature of KCPlus are:

  • Increase and decrease sound volume using hot keys;
  • Control Winamp's Next, Previous and Pause buttons via a series of hot keys;
  • Easily adjust the master volume if you have no corresponding control on your front/rear amplifier;
  • Easily adjust your volume settings if you have your amplifier in a difficult to reach position;
  • Context sensitive help;
  • No run-time files needed;
  • KCplus is free to use subject to conditions given in the license.

  You can download it from http://www.softwareengineer.demon.co.uk/kcplus/requirements.htm

• Sinister Unleashed demo available. The full version of the game will support A3D and DS3D with EAX but I have not had a chance to check out the demo. If anyone finds out you can let us know what you think in the forum. The demo can be downloaded from 3dfiles

Reviews of soundcards and speakers

• Quadzilla reviews last week: BXBoards and RivaRave. If you haven't already done so you could check out our Quadzilla review.
• BW2000 Reviews last week: Voodoo3.net and Glide Underground
  Nothing against Benwin or the BW2000s but these are simply not gaming speakers and yet reviews continue to frame them in that manner. If you are looking for a nice portable set of speakers to carry with your laptop then the BW2000s come into their own but even at $89 you can get better desktop performance from a number of other speakers. For more on what I think about the BW2000s please check out our own BW2000 review before you plunk down your hard earned money.
• Golden Harmony Hi-Five Review posted on 3D Gaming, or maybe I should say preview since they (3Dgaming) refuse to post benchmarks because the drivers are too early. This Canyon3D based board with a list price of around $85 is targeted below the more upscale Terratec DMX board that we are currently reviewing. We will try to get one of these boards to put through our own testing but right now you can head over to 3D Gaming and check out what they think. 
• Advent AV390PL speaker system review at 3Dhardware and they really like them, stating that they give you more than any other speaker system below $200! There are some pretty good sounding speakers at under $200 so that's a pretty strong statement.
• Logitech's SoundMan X2 speaker setup posted on Planethardware. This is Logitech's second generation speaker line, and sports an updated look, and nice price tag but according to Planethardware, quality doesn't seem to be up to par with other Logitech-based products.
• 4DWave-NX based Hoontech ST Digital board. 3DAI took a quick look at these. This is a cheap 4 speaker board that uses QSound's Q3D sound engine that supports DS3D and EAX. It also supports most A3D 1.X games by, just like the Live, convert A3D calls to DS3D calls. We will have a review up later this month with 4DWave-NX reference design but I can say already now that reverb with the drivers we have is quite good.

Other sound news

• Klipsch ProMedia V.2-400 THX Certified
  This system was designed with 4 speaker sound cards in mind offering front and rear channel inputs and was designed by Klipsch and Compaq in accordance with Lucasfilm for THX® Certification with the goal of delivering state-of-the-art audio performance at a $249 MSRP.
  You can read more about the ProMediaTM V.2-400 in Klipsch's recent press pressrelease. You can also preorder these from their site.
• In the Mind of A Game Musician
  GameDev.net is all set to tell you exactly what goes into the mind of a musician when creating game music.
• Gateway Offers Cambridge Soundworks Speakers
  Creative and Cambridge SoundWorks announced that the GCS200 speakers will be included on Gateway Select, Gateway Essential, and GP-Series PC systems.
• Creative Supports SDMI Open Standard
  Creative announced last week its intention to support the Secure Digital Music Initiative (SDMI) open standard in future versions of its Creative NOMAD line of portable digital audio players. The specification, adopted in draft by SDMI at its June 23 - 25 meeting, underwent a final editorial review and was adopted at a meeting in Los Angeles on July 7-8. SDMI's members include more than 110 representatives of the music, consumer electronics and information technology industries.
  You can get more details about the specification from SDMI's press release.
• Spectrum Research uses SRS Surround Technology
  SRS Labs announced last week that it has licensed its patented virtual surround technology, TruSurround(R), to Spectrum Research, an engineering and development firm specializing in advanced commercial and consumer electronics. With Spectrum Research's Theater 2000(TM), consumers worldwide can now enjoy a sensational, completely immersive virtual surround sound experience from their existing stereo or home theater system, including any television, VCR, CD player, DVD player or DSS satellite system. The Theater 2000 packages SRS Labs' patented TruSurround and SRS technologies in an easy-to-install product with simple plug and play operation. and is available through Spectrum Research at an MSRP of $169.95.
• 3D Audio Primer
  3dimensional 128 has posted a 3D Audio Primer that offers a brief overview of what sound technologies are available for the consumer as well as a look at how we humans hear and interpret the sound around us.
• RioPort Partners with QDesign for MP3
  QDesign Corporation, a leading developer of digital audio compression technologies for on-line music and new media announced last week that RioPort Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Diamond Multimedia, has selected the Company's implementation of MP3 technology for integration into its portfolio of future RioPort software products.

For more news from last week check out our news archive.

Upcoming features at 3DsoundSurge

Reviews that we are currently working on.

• Expendable : Not certain it will ever happen, depends on Ragesoftware.
• Aztech's 368DSP soundcard: This month
• Videologic's Vortex2 soundcard
• BSG's Intensor LX
• Terratec XLerate Pro
• Xitel's Vortex2 card
• Xitel's force feedback headphones
• Trident's 4DWave-NX chip: This month
• Terratec's DMX soundcard: It should have been up last week but because of several issues with the current drivers we ended up doing a lot more testing than we thought and we also want to give ESS and Terratec the opportunity to comment on the issues we found. The board definitely have some potential but I don't think it's a good buy with the current drivers. When we post the full review you can make up your mind about whether you can live with the issues until new drivers are released.

Other features we are working on:

• An improved gamelist that will replace our soundwaves.
• An brief overview how the A3D2 SDK works
• An article about EAX 2, 3 and the new I3DL2

As always if you have any ideas for products we should review or features we should do, please let us know.

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