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Posted by Thomas
McGuire on August 30, 2001
Manufacturer: Hercules Product:
Game
Theater XP
Find prices
for the Game Theater XP here.
API
Support
The
Game Theater XP supports EAX 1/2, A3D 1, I3DL2,
Sensaura's MacroFX, MultiDrive, ZoomFX & EnvironmentFX.
While you are probably familiar with the first 3 the other 4
may not be so familiar to you. As per usual with most modern
Soundcards, A3D 1.x support is provided by conversion to
DirectSound3D.
MultiDrive
is Sensaura’s own 3D positional audio multi-speaker
technology. Currently MultiDrive supports up to 4 Speakers
& provides better-integrated front/rear hemispheres.
Supposedly Sensaura is working on a 6 Speaker MultiDrive as
well, although whether or not the Game Theater XP (Or other
CS4630 Soundcards) will support this is unknown at the
moment.
MacroFX
allows for greater positioning of near-field
proximity effects (1 meter or less from your virtual self),
which gives the perception of sound sources being very close
to you, a common example being that of bullets whizzing past
your head or perhaps wind blowing in your face/ears in some
sports games. For greater positioning accuracy MacroFX uses
several zones depending on where the source is located.
ZoomFX
is a DirectSound3D extension that simulates the acoustic
energy from large sound emitting objects. Essentially this
provides a way to realise that a (large) object will most
likely consist of multiple sound emitting sources, e.g. from
a train there will be noise from the engine, wheels, etc. It
also realises that as such objects get closer that their
volume can increase rather significantly, e.g. a train
passing beside you is far louder than one some distance
away.
EnvironmentFX
is Sensaura’s own 3D Audio Environment modelling
technology. Much like EAX, EnvironmentFX provides a variety
(26) of environment presets to use & supports EAX 1.0,
EAX 2.0 & I3DL2.
Later
on I’ll go into whether or not all these actually provide
any benefits over other Soundcards at my disposal, i.e.
Philips Acoustic Edge, SoundBlaster Live! Platinum,
Videologic SonicFury, Videologic SonicVortex & Hercules
Fortissimo 2. Although for the most part you can ignore the
SonicFury & Fortissimo 2 as both these Soundcards use
Sensaura technology (& hence support everything the Game
Theater XP does).
The
Game Theater XP also provides support for Microsoft’s
(under-utilized) DirectMusic format. This was tested using
the dxdiag utility.
As you can see, all
tests for DirectMusic support were successful. The benefit
of Hardware DirectMusic support, as you can probably guess,
is that it offers lower CPU usage than were the Microsoft
Software Synthesizer to be used instead. I’d test out the
benefit of this in a Game, but I’m not actually aware of
buying any DirectMusic supporting titles.
Much like the
SoundBlaster Live! Series, the CS4630 DSP is also software
upgradeable, so it may in the future support newer APIs,
e.g. EAX 3, something that I questioned during the
Videologic SonicFury review. The response being that:
It's technically
entirely possible, but there are no firm plans to implement
it yet. We're going to hold back for a while to see how EAX3
goes before committing to it.
Course,
only time will tell whether or not anything will come from
this. But overall the Game Theater XP supports a fairly
versatile range of APIs, with Sensaura’s own DirectSound
3D extensions offering something extra over the Live!
Series.
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