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In the Forums... |
Posted: April 5, 2000 Written by: David "Spunk" Grampa Estimated retail price: $2,399.99 + S&H Sound Card (EAX vs. A3D) Great sound is usually the most overlooked feature while shopping for a 'gaming' computer. Many of us just don't realize and appreciate the advantages that 3D Positional Audio offers. Years ago, Creative had been the authority in 3D Sound. Dominating the market, they had no need to speed up the evolution of their products. Shaking off worthless attempts at their thrown by "SoundBlaster Compatibles", Creative remained in the lime light. But when Aureal arrived on the scene, competition began, and both companies fought for title of 3D Audio King. Today, Aureal offers the most complete and affordable solution for 3D Audio, making the Vortex II SuperQuad prime choice in the Aurora. The battle lies clearly in each company's respective API- Environmental Audio Extensions (EAX) and Aureal3D (A3D). EAX is famous for adding AC-3-style four speaker support and reverberation to Microsoft's DirectSound3D. Reverberation is basically an echo effect produced by sound bouncing off of walls. It helps to distinguish between gaming environments, usually embellishing a scene rather than adding noticeable realism. EAX 2.0 supports 26 reverb presets along with obstruction and occlusion effecting (e.g. distortion of sound when projected through a wall). Again, most say that obstruction and occlusion exaggerates the particular "obstructed" sound. With EAX you will also need a 4+ speaker setup with front and rear channels to perform at par with A3D on only two speakers. Because the Aurora comes packed with a 5.1 speaker system, this poses no threat to quality of either API, but should still be taken into consideration if you sometimes wear headphones. The next, and best option in our opinion is sticking with A3D. In a world of virtuality, computers will evolve to be the least physical as possible, to the point in which they merely simulate the brain's neurological impulses (The Matrix) =) Reason being: reduced price in hardware costs. Applying this concept, you'll see that A3D is ahead of the game by offering mathematical algorithms that geometrically calculate reflections and occlusions in real-time... offering extremely realistic, yet virtual 3D sound. Knowing this will lead many of us to believe that A3D hogs the processor's vital CPU cycles to perform such numerous operations. Not necessarily true, packing over three million transistors into the Vortex II chip, Aureal easily combats this issue. Offering 60 reverb presets dynamically increases sound environment realism, without the "over-done" effect experienced with EAX. To top it off, the SuperQuad offers front and rear channel support along with S/PDIF optical out. On top of that, you save $100 dollars over the SoundBlaster Live! Platinum, once again, making the Aureal Vortex II SuperQuad prime choice in the Alienware Aurora. Sound Card (Performance) Up until the introduction of Aureal's PCI SuperQuad sound cards (SQ1500 and SQ2500 following...), Aureal did not manufacturer sound cards with even their own chip. In the beginning, Aureal's financial strategy was to sell their AU8830 Vortex II chip and technology to third-party manufacturers leading to more diverse breeds of Vortex/Vortex II enabled sound cards. Amazingly, the company took off eventually leading to Aureal's own line of sound cards... One of the most reliable, best performing, and best implementations of the Vortex II comes, unsurprisingly, from Aureal themselves. The Alienware Aurora sports Aureal's SQ2500 sound card, yet replaces the retail version's co-axial S/PDIF out with an optical S/PDIF output.   The beautiful Vortex II and desktop sound controls... We tested Aureal's performance in Unreal Tournament and Quake 3: Arena. Unreal Tournament is naturally one of the best sounding games and offers great A3D support. Upon entering a game of UT, rippers bounced off the walls sonorously- the energy bursts perfectly mapped. I could sit in a room for hours listening to those damn things whiz by! In Quake 3, rocket blasts and bullet ricochets were rich and deep. A few times I caught myself knowing exactly where an enemy was firing at behind me... not only adding realism but advantageous in gameplay. Understandably, the Aurora's awesome sound quality is due not only to the Vortex II, but also speaker setup...  
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