The week in review: May 24-30

Last week's features at 3DsoundSurge

• UltraQ Review

  We have posted our very own review of the UltraQ device by QSound. It received a 80/100 with the "Surge Of Approval" Award.
  The UltraQ is compatible with just about anything you want it to be. All you really need is an average pair of speakers. The UltraQ can plug into virtually any audio component in your home, but you might need to purchase a jack converter for certain speaker sets. All the UltraQ requires is a Stereo or Mono audio device that can accept a 3.5-mm RCA or phono plug.

• Benwin BW200 Review

We just posted our review of Benwin's BW2000 flat panel speaker system. It received a 70/100. This business targeted speaker set is built around technology licenced from the British firm NXT. NXT is one of the leading developers of flat panel speaker technology. Conventional speakers use a pair of magnetic fields to make a membrane, or diaphragm, vibrate as a whole, creating sound vibrations. NXT's technology operates on a principle of complex vibrations in panels rather than pistonic motion of a diaphragm.

 

Last week's sound news

Drivers

• Live!Ware 2.0: Creative updated their FAQ with the following Q&A this week:

  I get slower frame rates playing Half-Life in EAX mode after the update. Help ! Does the frame rate issue affects all EAX games?

  This issue is unique to Half-Life as the new EAX 2.0 engine has not been fully optimized with the way in which EAX is coded for Half-Life. We are looking into this problem currently.

  You can find read the full FAQ at the SBLive site.

  Mark hasn't finished the Live!Ware 2.0 review yet but it should be done on Monday or Tuesday. Ok we said that last week too but this time it will really happen.

New games, demo and patches

• Half-Life patch v1.0.1.0 has been released. Mostly better server code resulting in latency values for clients will go down. You can get your copy from 3Dfiles.
• Thief: The Dark Project mission builder, Dromed, has been released to the public after 6 months of waiting, and a petition will well over 1,000 signatures. For all the details head on over to our FGN affiliate Thief-Darkproject.com.
• The Drakan Demo is out. Based on the audio configuration screen of the demo it supports EAX and A3D and autodetects the number of 3D sound buffers that your sound card can support. There is an option to enable or disable EAX, A3D or 3d sound buffers. There are options to select between 11, 22 and 44 kHz mixing but its grayed out in the demo (prob. because they saved space for a web demo and only shipped with 11 kHz). You can get the demo from 3DFiles
  For lots more on the audio in Drakan check out our interview with Stuart Denman and Tim Ebling of Surreal.
• Submarine Titans technology demo has been released. The  upcoming real-time strategy title is developed by Megamedia Australia. At the moment the technology demo does not have 3D audio. 3D Audio will be implemented in later builds. Currently programmers are looking at DirectSound 3D, EAX, A3D, etc.. They told us that they will go with whatever takes the least CPU overhead.For more information on the title, and to download the 62.5 MB demo visit www.subtitans.com
• Unreal: Well there have been a few weeks since they said within 2 weeks for the patch. Now they at least released the 225 for servers and made an update to the Unreal Tech Page with some information on the 225. They say that the 225 release for the rest of us is just a few days away. If all goes according to plan, 225 is supposed to add back in DS3D and EAX support, both of which were broken in the 224 patch. 225 is also supposed to implement A3D 2.0 support. 224 broke A3D 1.x support as a result of working on 2.0 support. Lets keep our fingers crossed that 225 gets DS3D, EAX and A3D 2.0 working. The chance of this actually happening the next few days are probably as slim as we keep our review schedule :-)

Reviews of soundcards and speakers

• Labtec's LCS-2632 speaker system spend a few days in the 3DGaming test lab.
• Creative's FPS 2000 speakers system got a favorable review by 3DRant.
• Polk Audio's AMR5 3 piece Speaker System review posted on AGNHardware.
• Canyon3D preview was posted by the Firingsquad. This new ESS chipset used Sensaura's 3D technology including MultiDrive and MacroFX. We expect boards from TerraTec featuring this chip very soon. For more on the 3D Audio technology behind the Canyon3D check out our article on Sensaura's DS3D based 3D Audio Technology and our report on a visit to their London office. 
• Live review at Absolute PC using LiveWare 2.0
• Boston Acoustics' MicroMedia speaker system has been reviewed by SystemLogic.

Other sound news

• Quadzilla: Voyetra Turtle Beach announced that its much-anticipated Turtle Beach Montego II Quadzilla audio accelerator will begin shipping June 1, and will include a bundled version of LucasArts' Star Wars: X-Wing Alliance (Imperial Entanglements). The company is now accepting pre-orders ($99.95) on its Web site (http://www.tbeach.com) or via its sales line (1-800-233-9377 or 914-966-0600).
• A3D2 titles: Activision/Pandemic's Battle Zone II and Dark Reign 2 include support for A3D 2.0.
• Gaming Chair! GameTime has a RealPlayer (A/V) interview with Jeff deGracia from Imeron, Inc. to talk all about the latest and greatest version of the Intensor Gaming Chair! That's referring to the Intensor LX and it has a headphone jack to optimize 3D audio when using the chair. Look for a review of this new model to show up on 3DsoundSurge in the coming weeks.
• Aureal Interview: There is a replay of this week's Wall Street Interviews discussion. The discussion addressed the history, market space opportunity, and strategic initiatives of a number of high tech companies including Aureal. Aureal is represented by CEO Kip Kokinakis. Go ahead and check it out.
• Sound Blaster 512:
  A number of readers have been asking for information of the Sound Blaster 512 and thanks to Creative's Brand Manager for Audio, Micah Stroud we can offer you the following information:

  The Sound Blaster PCI 512 is both a retail and a System Integration (SI) product. The main differences between the Sound Blaster Live! Value and the PCI 512 are as follows:

  1. They both support headphones, two or four speakers in analog mode. The Live! Value can be upgraded to a digital output via our Optical I/O card (http://www.creaf.com/sound/i-o-card/). The PCI 512 is not upgradable to any digital cards.
  2. They both support DirectSound, DS3D, EAX in hardware. They both do 32 voices of DS3D in hardware, 64 voices of DS in hardware and 64 hardware MIDI voices. Software MIDI channels are now 1024 for Live! Value and 512 for the SB PCI 512.
  3. The SB Live! Value supports digital input via the CD SPDIF in. The PCI 512 cannot, as it has no such connector.
  4. The SB Live! Value has a full suite of utilities for audio playback, mixing and effects creation.
  5. The SB PCI 512 has a greatly simplified interface for doing the same, thus not offering nearly as many options for tinkering.
  6. The SB Live! ships with Unreal: Special Edition. The PCI 512 ships with Unreal SE and Half-Life: Day one. Other software packages (like Cakewalk, etc.) are not present in the PCI 512.

  So basically, you have a simplified, analog only, gamers edition of the SB Live! Value.

  Micah also let us know that web pages for the new products are coming soon.

• New USB Speakers from Yamaha: Yamaha announced the launch of the YST-MS55D USB three-piece powered multimedia speaker system. This high-output speaker system is the first Yamaha powered speaker product to support the Universal Serial Bus (USB). The MS55D's dedicated subwoofer features a 6.5-inch driver powered by a 40-watt amplifier, going down to a low frequency of 32 Hz. The subwoofer is matched with a pair of two-way satellite speakers, each of which features a 3/4-inch dome-style tweeter mounted above a 3-inch spruce cone mid-range driver. According to Yamaha, this arrangement delivers a smooth frequency response coupled with an extremely rich and well-defined stereo image, enhanced by an elegant slant-baffle design. In addition, the MS55D supports audio connections via both USB and analog inputs and includes the power switch and a standard headphone jack on one of the satellite speakers.
• Speaker market share: Creative  announced that it has captured the leadership position in U.S. retail and U.S. distribution channels for the PC speaker category. In both March and April, Creative was the leading speaker company in revenue share in the U.S. retail market with nearly 23 percent share over both months. According to PC Data, Creative has been the leader in U.S. distribution of PC speaker systems since August of 1998, maintaining a unit market share of over 40 percent during that time.
• WaveSurround for Winamp: Wave Arts, a developer of high end 3D audio and acoustic environment modeling technologies, announced the release of WaveSurround, a powerful virtual surround plugin for the popular MP3 player, Winamp.
  
  Wave WaveSurround was developed in conjunction with Human Machine Interfaces, Inc., a developer of high performance audio API’s and applications including the InMotion 3D Audio Producer (88.5 K PDF File). Human Machines also sent us a 3D Audio White Paper (78.8 K PDF File) by Dr. Bill Gardner, Ph.D., describing the 3D Audio Techniques used in the InMotion 3D Audio Producer and WaveSurround Plugins.
• MechWarrior III interview: Bad Karma Mecha News posted an interview with Bosler and Brian Soderberg who are the CEO and Tech. Director of Zipper Interactive respectively. Zipper Interactive are the developers of Mechwarrior III. The following Q & A is included in the interview:

  Bad Karma: There have been a number of significant leaps in mainstream PC add-ons since MW3 began development at Zipper Interactive. Have they been incorporated in the game? Which elements? (ie Voodoo2, 3, EAX sound etc)
  
  A: The game uses the Direct3D API to provide the broadest range of support over the many hardware graphics cards available on the market. MW3 supports A3D's new Vortex2 API and drivers.

  This seems to indicate wavetracing support in Mechwarrior III but no guarantee as its possible to support A3D 2.0 without utilizing the wavetracing engine (e.g. Recoil).

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

Upcoming features at 3DsoundSurge

Reviews that we are currently working on and when we expected to finish them

• Expendable : Probably this week
• Alien vs Predator: Probably next week
• Creative's Desktop Theater 5.1: Done and will be posted this week
• Creative's Encore 6X kit: Done and will be posted this week
• Aztech's 368DSP soundcard: Probably next week
• Videologic's Vortex2 soundcard
• Yamaha192 Digital: Next week
• Blood2
• Sin
• FPS 2000:
• Xitel's Vortex2 card
• Xitel's force feedback headphones
• Tribes
• Starsiege
• Thief
• Heretic II
• Trident's 4DWave-DX chips:

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 will probably be available mid June.

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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