Guillemot
Maxi Sound Fortissimo review
Posted by Julio
Franco on June 26, 2000
Company: Guillemot
Product: Maxi
Sound Fortissimo
 You
might have heard of Guillemot before because of their gaming
videocards (which now also include those ones behind the
Hercules brand name) based on NVIDIA chips or maybe because of
their Nascar licensed products for racing game fans.
Guillemot
is a well-known PC and console peripheral manufacturer based
on Montreal, Canada. However, in the last couple of years we
have seen how this company has expanded as the market for
gaming peripherals has grown as well. This time they are
bringing us the Maxi Sound Fortissimo, a full-featured
soundcard targeted to the budget conscious gamer.
The
concept behind the Fortissimo is offering 4-Channel Digital
output at a lower price than the rest of cards available. A
year ago Guillemot released a similar product but
unfortunately they made a big mistake using the ISA bus, which
is a major bottleneck for doing good 3D sound, this time
however they have corrected that and they are using the PCI
bus.
The Card
Unlike
most of the “gaming” soundcards available in the market,
the Maxi Sound Fortissimo isn’t based on any of the Aureal
or ESS chipsets; instead they are using the Yamaha
YMF744 chip combined with Sensaura 3D Positional sound
algorithms.
Pretty
much like the Diamond MonsterSound MX400 that we reviewed a
few weeks ago, the Fortissimo supports all major 3D APIs, that
includes Creative’s EAX, A3D (only 1.0) and MS DirectSound
3D, as well as Sensaura’s specific additional features such
as ZoomFX and MacroFX.
Although
we are talking of a low-end priced card, Guillemot includes
all the features you would expect to see in higher priced
products, the digital output that we have already mentioned,
as well as independent jacks for front and rear speakers. I
consider those very important points to consider on a card
that will be used for gaming.
Go
to next page !
|
