 |
The week in
review: March 27 - April 2
Last week's features at
3DsoundSurge
Live!Platinum Giveaway!!
Creative Labs is sponsoring a contest where (if you live in North America) you can win a
Sound Blaster Live Platinum. Even if you already have another good sound card you might
want to enter the Live contest as you can either run two sound card (e.g. Vortex 2 and
Live) or take the excellent game bundle and give the card to a friend! Here is the direct
link to the Platinum contest page.
ProMedia vs Sirocco Crossfire
In this in-depth article we will attempt to answer all of the questions we have been
hearing about comparisons between two of the best 4.1 multimedia systems in the world.
Specifically, we mean the THX certified Klipsch ProMedia v.2-400 and the Videologic
Sirocco Crossfire, which uses drivers from Audax, a company world renowned for their hi-fi
speaker components. We dissect these two systems at a great level of detail in order to
determine if the Videologic Sirocco Crossfire is actually worth the 200 dollars more (in
North America) that it will cost over and above the cost of the Klipsch ProMedia v2-400. Read
on for all the details.
Last week's sound news
Drivers and bugs
- New Encore Dxr3 drivers
Creative has released new Windows 95/98/NT4 drivers for the Dxr3. They will not work on
Windows 2000. Here's what's new
- Esprit Navigator program for Windows 95/98 and Windows NT4.0
- Improved TV-Out quality for PAL systems (Europe)
- Improve TV-Out quality for PAL-TV in Europe
- Better support for MPEG-2 files playback
I've no idea what the difference is between 2 and 3 but I guess
improved PAL support includes improved play back of NTSC DVDs on PAL TVs that doesn't
support PAL-60. According to newsgroups posts it now works about the same as Hollywood+,
which means acceptable but not perfect. You can download
the drivers from Creative's site
- Don't want to download 35mb worth of drivers?
That's beta Vortex Win2K drivers to be specific. The unofficial A3Dfan site has posted
some cut down versions of the drivers for Vortex1, Vortex 2 and Vortex Advantage based
products. Any feedback on these drivers can go to this
thread in our forum.
New games, demos, patches and bugs
- Test Drive Le Mans is shipping
Avault
reports that the A3D 2.0 supporting Test Drive Le Mans is now shipping.
- Force Commander demo
A 79 MB demo of the recently released Force Commander is now available. You can download it from
3dfiles. The game was said to support A3D and DS3D with EAX sometime ago but not sure
if it ended up supporting it or not. It's not mentioned on Lucas Arts pages or Creative's
list anyway and while it's on Aureal's list it says just "early 2000" and not
"available". Possible they are just slow on updating their pages. If you like the game you can get a copy from Gamestop.
- Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed Demo
A demo of Need for Speed: Porsche Unleashed has been released. Unlike the 2 previous Need
for Speed this one isn't on Creative's EAX list. If you download it let me know if it
features 3D sound and EAX or not. You can get
your demo copy from 3dfiles.
- Max Payne Music
The music composed by Tero "Teque" Kostermaa for the last year's Max Payne demo
video is available as an MP3 at Trax In Space website where you can also find many other
songs in MP3 and other formats. You can check
out many other Teque songs or go directly
to the Max Payne song. If you want to check out the video you can find it on the official Max Payne
site's download page
- Final Fantasy VIII patch
A patch for the EAX 2.0 supporting Final Fantasy VIII has been released. Nothing sound
related in this patch. You can download it
from 3dfiles where you can also see the list of fixes. If you haven't already bought
the game you can buy it from Gamestop where you can find some info about the game as
well.
- Unreal Tournament 4.13 Patch
The version 413 patch for the A3D 2.0 and DS3D with EAX supporting Unreal Tournament is
now released and is completely network compatible with all previous public releases of UT
(versions 400, 402, and 405b). A full list of changes is on the 3Dfiles download page
where you can also grab the 5.3 MB patch. No mention of any A3D fixes so I would guess
that your own weapons sounds still don't get reflected.
- Unreal Tournament D3D Driver
The new Unreal Tournament 413 patch that was released earlier this week has really hurt
the Direct3D performance on some machines. If you have this problem you can download the version 405 D3D dll
(200 kb) from Epic. If you use this .DLL, make sure to rename the file to d3ddrv.dll.
- Soldier of fortune and A3D
Just got the following e-mail from Jeff Atwood
SOF ships with an outdated a3dapi.dll file. Until you delete
this file from
the SoF install folder, you CANNOT select A3D in the sound select screen. Also, while not
sound related, I find that disabling detail textures increases framerate dramatically--
similar to that same setting in Unreal Tournament!
He also mentioned that he got a lot of issues with crashes in SoF
when A3D is enabled. Anyone that has a better experience?
Soldier of Fortune supports A3D 3.0 featuring wavetracing and
geometry reverb. It also supports DS3D with EAX 2.0. You can buy Soldier of Fortune from Gamestop where you can also gather some
additional info about the game including download links for the demo.
- SoundFX 2000 2.00 Released
A new version (2.0) of SoundFX 2000 has been released. SoundFX allows you to play DOS
games under Windows 2000 and NT4. You can find more info from the official site where you
can also download a trial version or buy it.
- Fly3D 0.88
Fly3D 0.88 has just been released. It's a game engine written in C++ that supports DS3D,
OpenGL 1.1, DirectInput and DirectPlay. You can download it from 3dfiles
- Team Sound 4.1 Released
Version 4 and 4.1 of Team Sound was released last week. In case you don't know Team Sound
is voice communication program for gaming. You can download the new version
from Team Sound's site
- Music 2000 available for download
Codemasters has released Music 2000 which you can grab from
3dfiles. If you have no idea what this program does the following bit should clue you
in
The Whether you're beginner or beatmaster, MUSIC 2000™ puts
you in control. The best selling title has been massively upgraded for the PC - no other
music maker can match MUSIC 2000™ for the scale and depth of its easy to use musical
and video features.
And with creative tools like the unique Music Jam mode, MUSIC 2000™ is quite simply a
cut above.
- OtherWorld A3D Screen Saver Released
M.A.N. Graphics has
released the full version of their A3D 2.0 (or 3.0?) supporting screen saver entitled
Other World is now released. Here is a bit from their description
The OtherWorld ® screen saver it's a powerful and fine 3D
graphics with realistic sound, based on Aureal A3D technology and our fantasy. The
OtherWorld ® screen saver includes six maps: Castle, Sands, Agora, Cave, Sea and Village.
Also all maps exclude Cave and Agora separated between day and night time. You can select
day or night manually or set random or auto switch mode. The screen saver work on wide
range of 3D accelerated videocards, start from Nvidia Riva128 and 3dfx Voodoo Graphics to
Nvidia GeForce256 and other latest videocards
I believe that the 3d sound works fine on non A3D sound cards if you
use the A2D drivers available at Aureal. You can get more info and screen shots of the
screen saver from the main M.A.N. Graphics page. Speaking of Aureal, we have not heard anything
else today but if you already have a Vortex 2 board you can still look for some new A3D
supporting software to be released over the next few months regardless of what the final
outcome is.
Reviews of soundcards, speakers, headphones and MP3 players.
- Game PC Sound Card Round-Up
Game PC has posted a soundcard round-up featuring cards from Aureal (SQ2500 and
SQ1500), Diamond (MX400), Turtle Beach (Montego II Plus) and Guillemot (Fortissimo). The
mentioned bundled software doesn't seem to be entirely accurate, the SQ2500 and SQ1500
includes Futurebeat and Fortissimo should now include PowerDVD something this review
doesn't mention. When it comes to the benchmarks the major reason the SQ1500 is faster is
that it's a significant overhead for each 3D channel with A3D2 in Quake3 (just like in
Half-Life) which is the reason it's clearly faster than all the other cards. The tradeoff
is of course that many of the sound effects will never be positioned and in the end that
makes it a rather poor choice IMO even if you consider the price. Comparing EAX with the
positioning of A3D is comparing oranges and apples. You should compare EAX with
wavetracing aspect of A3D2.
- Theatrix Dolby 5.1
3D Alpha has posted a review of Theatrix 5.1 soundcard. I've quite different
impression of the card. For starters I think the Yamaha software midi synthesizer is a lot
better than the FM synthesizer, not just slightly better. I think the cards basic stereo
quality is about the same as other soundcards but then I used the DIN connections and not
the headphone jack on the bracket. When it comes to DVD he didn't use the 6-speaker out
but instead used the headphone out on the bracket board and later the SPDIF out with a
Dolby Digital system. It's unclear if he got DD 5.1 working using the SPDIF out or if it's
just Dolby Prologic, if he got DD 5.1 stream out of the SPDIF he managed to get something
working that I haven't been able to. Should have a review of the card up next week.
- SQ2500
GameWire has posted
their impressions of what may be Aureal's last soundcard, the SQ2500. The review
doesn't mention anything about Aureal latest troubles but I wouldn't suggest you buy the
SQ2500 until we get a better picture of Aureal's future, especially not if you intend to
run Windows 2000. Back to the review. Gamewire really liked the SQ2500 produced but found
the performance hit to be a major concern. Not sure what version of Quake3 they used but
at least for me A3D isn't working properly with the latest patches. One other important
thing to be aware of is that there is a significant risk you mess up your 3D sound and
sound quality if you play around with AU30HRTF.EXE and AutoCalibrate.exe since neither of
these are fully functional. There is a reason why they are not documented, not really sure
why Aureal even shipped them with the drivers. You can check out our SQ2500 review
for a second opinion
- BW2000
GuruTech has posted
a review of Benwin's flat panel system the BW2000. As many other reviews they complain
about the sub par subwoofer but find the sound quality quite good otherwise considering
the price.
- FPS2000
3D Accelerated has posted a very positive review of the FPS2000. I don't think the system
is quite as good as this reviewer and I don't think they are very loud either. Also worth
pointing out that using a digital connection doesn't mean you don't get distortion and
Live is the only card that offers the DIN connection.
- Klipsch ProMedia v.2-400
Sharky Extreme has posted a nice review of the Klipsch ProMedia v.2-400 system. A couple of points
worth noting. They describe what they call a minor problem with stronger sound from one
front and one rear driver. This is not something I have ever experienced, despite extended
use. I also attribute more of the hiss that some people complain about to the ProMedias
and not the sound card, but like this reviewer, I feel that it was never a big deal. Its
also worth noting that the ProMedia now ships with a lower gain preamp so the hiss is
reduced along with the maximum sound level output making for a quieter but still excellent
system. For more on the ProMedia you can check out our own
review.
- BA4800 Reader Review
If you are looking for another view of Boston Acoustics' excellent BA-4800 system, check
out this short
review posted in our forum Chase.L. I plan to have my early impressions of this system
done over the weekend and if you do a search on 4800 in the forum you will find quite a
few other opinions, mostly very positive.
- FPS2000 vs DTT2500
The Stratos Group has posted head-to-head review of Cambridge Soundworks' FPS2000 and the
DTT2500 systems. Both setups received the Stratospheric Award of Excellence, becoming
the only second and third products to do so. Obviously they found the FPS2000 to be the
best choice if you don't want to watch movies. I agree that
both systems are great systems for the money you pay but wouldn't call them excellent, the
DTT2500 after all is a low-end DD 5.1 system and the FPS200 can be considered midrange
4-speaker system. One other bit this review as many other complains about is the speaker
stands and while they certainly isn't high quality speaker stands Cambridge SoundWorks
still deserves credit for actually including them something most other companies don't.
The ones included with the DTT2500 are also very useful even though it's not something you
want to put in your living room unless you lack taste :-).
- MidiLand S4-8200
Gamer’s Depot has posted a very positive review of MidiLand’s new S4-8200 system which appears to offer
many compelling features, not the least of which is their ADA-2000 Dolby Digital decoder
which will also be sold separately for somewhere between $100 and $150. A general comment
about the review is the way its written you might think that MidiLand is the only one that
puts out quality products which is of course far from the truth. I also found some of
their descriptions of Dolby Digital vs ProLogic rather confusing (and I know what the
differences are). Its also worth noting that the ADA-2000 is not the first standalone
decoder targeted at the PC. That honor would go to VideoLogic’s DigiTheatre decoder.
Look for lots more on the MidiLand ADA-2000 when we do our full review of it. Last comment
that I will make is I disagree with the reviewer that we are hoping to see satellites with
5 ¼" drivers for the PC. If that’s what you want, buy a home stereo system. PC
systems have to be compact. Getting back to the review, the S4-8200 looks like a very
competitive entry into the PC home theatre market and well worth a look so check out their
review for more of what they think. Before we get to the S4-8200, we will be doing a
review of MidiLand’s 5.1 ready S4-7100 system as well as a separate ADA-2000 review
as noted. Thanks to Ronin and GTAudiophile for the pointer.
- Philips DSS330 Speaker
3DHardware has posted a review of the Philips DSS330 USB/Analog 2.1 speaker system. Overall
they were not too impressed with the system which lists for $130. However, given that many
of the speaker controls were only accessible software in USB and the reviewer never got
the software to work you might want to look for a second opinion if you plan to run the
system in USB mode as its quite possible it might sound better with the proper tweaks
applied. This seems all the more likely when you consider the tonal differences they
experienced switching between analog and digital modes has to be the result of some
digital equalization when in USB mode and nothing to do with the fact thats its a digital
signal. Having said that, as an analog system it really does not sound too attractive
based on the review and USB mode is useless for gaming when it comes to 3D audio so not
really a gamers system. USB speakers are targeted at people who don't care about having a
sound card. Its worth noting that headphone jacks and microphones jack are not a common
feature on any system and would be totally useless in USB mode.
- Gallant Computer Speaker line
PC Insight have posted an
overview of Gallant Computer speaker line, which includes AudioStorm PST, OdysseySound
5.1, OdysseySound 4, OdysseySound 2 and their AudioStorm FS2. They haven't actually tried
the speakers so not sure how much more it gives compared to reading the specs from Gallant Computers
website.
- AudioStorm PST
Not sure why people are so interested in some speaker system designed for the still many
months away Playstation 2 but Hardware Pros has posted a "preview" of Gallant Computer's
upcoming AudioStorm PST. I get the impression he hasn't listened to the speakers so
it's just gathering of some info and pictures of the system.
- MidiLand ADS-2000
The Techzone has posted a review
of MidiLand's ADS-2000 which is a stand alone Dolby Digital decoder targeted at the PC
market. This is the same decoder that MidiLand ships with their S4-8200 system and is very
similar (if not identical) to the decoder that Videologic uses with their DigiTheatre
system. Just a couple of comments. Techzone notes that there are no sound cards on the
market to take advantage of the 5.1 ready S4-7100s. There are actually a number of cards
based on the Fortemedia FM801 that has 5.1 output, two of which being the Best Data
Theatrix and the Skywell Magic Sound Live. These cards don't actually do the Dolby Digital
in hardware, they instead rely on software decoders like WinDVD and PowerDVD. A minor
quibble in the installation is the outputs are actually 1/8" and not 1/4" jacks.
The other key point is that the unit on top of Dolby ProLogic is of course a Dolby Digital
unit so on page four of the review substitute Dolby Digital and Dolby Prologic everywhere
you see just Dolby Prologic. Overall this is a great decoder for $99. Look for our own
full review of the system and you can get Mikael's impressions of the as noted very
similar DigiTheatre Decoder by reading part of our VideoLogic
DigiTheatre review. Speaking of which, not sure if this is old news but I just saw
that Videologic is offering the entire DigiTheatre system in the US at Digitheatre.com for a special price
of $319.00 (list is $400).
- Pioneer 10x 104S Slot Load DVD
PC Extremes have posted a review of Pioneer's 10x 104S Slot Load DVD drive. The review
mentions that the drive is region locked and you cannot unlock it with firmware. I'm sure
it's correct that it's region locked (well change up to 5 times probably) but you can get
region free firmware from The
Firmware page for the Pioneer 10x drive. Important to note that it's hacked firmware
but plenty of people says it works just fine. Here's the direct link
- DVD: Hard or Soft?
That's the question Mark Garofalo from Hardware Central answers
in a 6 page article. When it comes to audio I would say that if you bought a retail
soundcard SPDIF out is pretty much standard now and so is 4-speaker output. When the
review talks about a card supports EAX they just means 4-speaker on a Live card since
there is certainly no reverb effects the software DVD players apply. Can also be worth to
know that the Dxr3 supports 4-speaker down-mix if you use a Live. Finally I don't agree
that Dolby Digital would be of any less importance just because you watch the movie on a
17" monitor. When it comes to video they think hardware
solutions is superior but you won't really notice that on a 17" monitor, well I
disagree it's superior but then I have only watched it on a 17" monitor :-). I agree
that the hardware solutions are superior if you connect to TV but I think the limitation
there as the article not is the poor TV-Out of most graphics cards.
- Playstation 2
We usually doesn't cover console hardware but Playstation 2 is also a DVD player. Anyway
Digital-Clips has posted a review of the Playstation 2 that you may want to check out. Not that
detailed on the DVD aspect but it does cover it. Can be worth knowing that Sony has fixed
the DVD region aspect so it now works just like Hollywood wants it to work.
Other sound news
For more news from last week check out our news archive.
Upcoming features at 3DsoundSurge
- Best Data's Theatrix (Sunday or next week)
- Best Data's Cabo (Sunday or next week)
- Sirocco Pro (Thursday or Sunday)
- A review of PowerDVD 2.55 and WinDVD 2k
- ADA880
- Optical Digital in/out 2 card
- Sirocco Spirit
As always if you have any ideas for products we should review or
features we should do, please let us know.
Previous
"The week in review".
Subscribe to our 3D
Audio Week in Review Newsletter
|
|
All
content, design and work is © 1999 - 3D Sound Surge . Design and Layout by Spyre of Future Games Network.