Aureal
Vortex2 SuperQuad Digital review
Posted
by Adam
Klein on July 27, 1999
Features
and Specs
-
Audio
Processor
- Aureal Vortex2 AU8830
Codec
- 18-bit Quad CODEC
Bus
Interface
- PCI 2.1 bus master with 96-channel DMA interface
3D/2D Digital Audio
Digital
Audio Acceleration
- 16 streams of A3D 2.0 acceleration with 60 wall
reflections at 16-bit 48kHz
- 76 streams of A3D 1.0 and DirectSound3D
acceleration
- DirectSound acceleration (92 streams)
- Full-duplex, 48kHz digital recording and playback
- Sample rate conversion with 27-point interpolation
Synthesizer
- Professional 320-voice wavetable synthesizer
- Reverb and effects (chorus, delay, flange,
distortion, wah-wah, etc.)
- General MIDI, DLS 1.0, DirectMusic support
- 4MB of professional studio samples
Audio
specifications
- Exceeds PC98 and PC99 Audio requirements
- SNR: 95dB Typical
- Frequency Response: 20Hz–20kHz (–3dB
intercept)
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Input/Output
Connectors
Bracket connectors
- Line output
- Line input
- Microphone input
- Game/MIDI port Internal connectors (all MPC3)
- CD input
- Auxiliary input
- TAD (modem) input/output
- Wavetable upgrade connector
Compatibility
- Aureal A3D 1.0 and 2.0
- Microsoft DirectSound, DirectSound3D, DirectInput,
DirectMusic
- Exceeds PC98 and PC99 requirements
- FCC, CE certified
- Sound Blaster Pro support (Real mode and DOS box)
- MPU-401 UART MIDI Interface
Software
Support
Operating System Support
- Windows 95/98
- Windows NT 4.0
- MS-DOS (Windows DOS box)
System
Requirements
- PCI slot with 3.3V power
- Pentium 90MHz or better
- 16MB RAM
- CD-ROM drive
- 30MB of hard disk space
- Powered speakers or headphones
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Performance
and Quality
With
the use of the latest drivers, I was able to do some
comparative benchmarking between the Aureal SuperQuad and
the Sound Blaster Live! Value.
Here
are my system specs:
CeleronA 366 oc to 550MHz
224MB Siemans RAM
Two 8.45GB Maxtor HDs
TNT2 Ultra oc to 170/200
I
used Quake 2 for benchmarking since the same Direct Sound
driver was being used for both cards and can stress driver
and hardware performance. Also, since Quake 2 is has such
high frame rates on current high-end machines, you will be
able to see a clearer picture between the frame rates.
Aureal
Vortex SuperQuad
800x600x32 – 97.9
640x480x32 – 109.7
Sound
Blaster Live!
800x600x32 – 100.7
640x480x32 – 113.1
Now,
lets see if Aureal can release drivers that can produce the
high quality output it currently has, but also being able to
utilize less of the CPU than that of the Sound Blaster
Live!. While this review may not answer the age old question
that has generated over 100 posts on some message boards, it
will give you some prospective on the what card to choose,
not what card is the best. There really is no one answer to
this question. The Aureal Vortex 2 sound card produced a
much better 3D positional sound than the Sound Blaster Live!
While the Sound Blaster Live! Shines in its low CPU
utilization.
Conclusion
I
felt that the Sound Quality was excellent in 3D games, but
also felt the card was lacking in certain areas… the CPU
dependency is too much for a PCI sound card. Aureal also
promised to support the EAX API while Creative Labs has been
able to support A3Ds API. This may not seem like big news,
but Microsoft is said to support EAX though future versions
of Direct Sound. The Aureal Vortex is able to play through a
320-voice wavetable synthesizer while the Live! only produce
256 voices in hardware.
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3D
Spotlight review score:
7.5/10 |
Go
to 3D Spotlight !
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