Hercules has emerged in the sound card market as a viable, high quality option to the Sound Blaster dominance.  We’ve reviewed two of their high-end cards, the Game Theater XP and the DigiFire 7.1, with both cards offering excellent performance and stability across all of our test platforms.  The Fortissimo III 7.1 extends the Hecules line, bringing quality multi-channel sound cards into the lucrative mid-range marketplace.  Face it, not everyone is willing to spend upwards of $100 on a sound card, with the exception of course being the true geeks among us.  For most people, a simple card will do, with price being the driving force behind most purchases.

The Fortissimo III 7.1 brings a host of new features to the Fortissimo line, with the most notable being the new 8-channel 7.1 audio support.  Most people, even non-audio types, know the idea behind 5.1 surround sound.  The standard setup includes a center channel, front right, front left, surround left, surround right, and a subwoofer, giving us 5.1 channels of audio happiness.  As you might guess, 7.1 ups the speaker count to 8, with the inclusion of two additional speakers designated as rear surround.  The specifications of this card are nearly identical to the DigiFire 7.1 we reviewed here, as both cards are essentially the same with the exception of the added Firewire support found on the high-end DigiFire 7.1.  As more and more people move the PC from the bedroom or office, and into the living room as an entertainment system component, audio performance has become an important factor.  Even the casual user will find the expanded audio capabilities of these cards useful, with the populatity of DVD-ROM drives in the modern PC.

Our review sample is a retail package Fortissimo III 7.1, and includes the PCI sound card, a MIDI/Joystick bracket, and driver/software disk.  Like other Hercules prodcuts, the PCB of the card is done in blue, which is a nice touch for the guys with window cases.  Before we explore the performance and features of this card, let’s take a quick look at the specs from the official Hercules web site, with a little cut and paste action:

Data transfer	PCI 2.1 bus
DSP	Cirrus Logic SoundFusion CS4624
Audio quality	- CD and Pro Audio quality - 20-bit quad output and 18-bit dual stereo input codec - up to 48kHz sampling rate
Game compatibility	- Sensaura based 3D positional Audio with support for Microsoft DirectSound™ 3D, EAX 1.0, EAX™ 2.0, A3D™ 1.0, I3DL2™ , MacroFX™ , MultiDrive™ , ZoomFX™ , EnvironmentFX™ - Sound Blaster®
Audio compatibility	- Microsoft® DirectSound™& DirectMusic™ - Dolby Surround™ - Dolby Digital™ & Dolby Digital™ EX™
Software wavetable synthesizer	- DSP accelerated engine for unlimited number of voices (64-voice hardware) - 8MB General MIDI/GS® sample set - DLS 1.0 compatible· GM™ (General Midi) and Yamaha XG™ compatible - Yamaha S-YXG50: 676 instrument sounds and 21 drum kits Effects: reverb, chorus, variation …
External Connectors	- Analog output connectors : Front speakers out; Rear speakers out; Center / LFE out; Back Surround left and right out / Headphones out; - Line in / Mic in - MIDI / Game port (MPU 401™ compatible) - Digital S/PDIF out (optical)
Internal connectors	CD-in; CD-in 2; Aux-in; S/PDIF in

SYSTEM REQUIREMENTS

- PCI 2.1 slot,Intel® Pentium® MMX 233 MHz/ AMD-K6® & higher or compatible, - 64MB RAM - 10MB hard disk space (more to install games) - CD-ROM or DVD-ROM drive - Win 2000,Win ME,Win XP,Win 98SE,

You may notice that this card is also powered by the Cirrus Logic Sound Fusion CS4624, which is only a four-channel audio chip.  Like the DigiFire 7.1, the Fortissimo III employs not one, but two CS4624 chips, delivering the 8 channels required for 7.1 operation.  Close inspection of the PCB reveals the two chips, side by side in the image below.

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo III 7.1

PC audio performance has truly come of age in the past two years.  What was once a simple system speaker beeping, is now a full-featured surround sound system with input and outputs to satisfy even the most tech savy gamer.  The emergence of high end sound has taken the PC from simple toy to a viable home theater system.  One of the major players in this market is Hercules, who made waves in the community with the excellent Game Theater XP.  The GTXP was one of the first real threats to the Sound Blaster dominance in the sound market, and won droves of fans with it’s all around good sound and compatability.

The new Hercules DigiFire 7.1 advances the sound card market with new 7.1 audio performance and a host of high-end features, while costing far less than many comparable cards on the market.  The features read like a must-have list for the audio enthusiast, for a MSRP of around $79:

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Hercules DigiFire 7.1 Sound Card

Philips is a company almost everyone has heard of. They now make just about every type of consumer electronic device out there.  PC sound cards are probably the last thing most people would associate with the Philips name. To those of us in the PC hardware field, this has changed to a marked degree with their entrance into the PC sound market with three lines of products:  Rhythmic Edge (stereo output), Seismic Edge (quad output) and Acoustic Edge (up to 6 channel output).  These cards are all powered by the Thunderbird 128 -  a chip gained by Philips when they took over VLSI.  Their high-end card in this range is the Acoustic Edge. This sound card is quite impressive for the $99 price tag. I\’d venture to say Philips has entered this market with authority. Read on to find out why.

The Specs

Music:

• Creates 5.1 distinct surround sound channels
  
• Revolutionizes the music listening experience

Movies

• 5.1 channel surround from any A/V source
  
• Dolby Digital, QMSS and QSurround DVD playback to 2, 4, or 5.1 speakers*
  *Requires compatible soft-DVD player

Games

• 2, 4, and 5.1 speaker 3D for every game
  
• Transforms game play into a home theater experience! 

Technical Specifications

Audio Accelerator/Digital Signal Processor

• PHILIPS ThunderBird Avenger ™ DSP for extreme hardware acceleration Codec
  
• AC97 CODEC

Bus Interface:

• PCI 2.1 bus master

Industry Specifications:

• Exceeds PC98 & PC99 audio requirements
  
• SNR  92dB typical

Digital Acceleration:

• 96 streams of 3D audio acceleration including position reverb
  
• 256 streams of DirectSound accelerations and digital mixing
  
• Full-duplex, 48khz digital recording and playback
  
• 64 hardware sample rate conversion channels up to 48khz
  
• Wavetable and FM Synthesis
  
• Direct Input devices

Comprehensive Connectivity

• 5.1 (6 channel) channel analog output
  
• Digital S/PDIF output (stereo, AC3 or DTS signal)
  
• Digital S/PDIF input
  
• MIDI in/Midi out/dual game port
  
• Additional external inputs: Line in, Mic in
  
• Additional internal inputs: CD in, Aux in,TAD in, S/PDIF in)
  
• Special effects can be applied to any audio input including conversion of stereo to quadraphonic or 5.1 output, QXpander, 2D-to-3D remapping and reverb

Music Synthesis

• Up to 576 total Wavetable synthesis voices
  
• Reverb and chorus
  
• 96 channel hardware CD quality (16 bit, 44.1khz) Wavetable synthesizer with5.9MB sample set
  
• Hardware FM Synthesizer (real mode DOS)
  
• 512 voice professional quality soft-synch with XG and GM compatibility

Digital Signal Processor Algorithms

• QSound3DInteractive ™ positional 3D for 2 speakers, 4 speakers or 5.1 speakers
  
• QSound Multi Speaker System ™ for quadraphonic or 5.1 channel output of stereo music, video and games
  
• QSound Environmental Modeling for EAX ™ and DirectSound3D ™ games
  
• QXpander ™ and “2D to 3D remapping” for 3D enhancement of stereo playback
  
• QSurround ™ virtual 5.1 playback of DVDs using 2 speakers** Requires compatible soft-DVD player

System Requirements:

• One available PCI 2.1-compliant slot
  
• Genuine Intel‚ Pentium class 133Mhz or faster processor
  
• Intel or 100% compatible motherboard chip set
  
• 16MB system RAM
  
• CD-ROM for driver installation

Post from: PCMech. Helping Normal People Get Their Geek On And Live The Digital Lifestyle.

Philips Acoustic Edge

Soon, Creative breathed new
life into their Sound Blaster line by releasing the AWE64. This was
the first PCI sound blaster and made use of many principles
pioneered by the recently acquired Ensoniq. The AWE64 quickly became
the gamer’s standard. It was a rather pricey card in the day, but
was never challenged as the true gamer’s choice, at least for a
while.

Other companies later began to
produce their own cards that began to rival the AWE64. Creative only

made revisions to the AWE64 while reducing its price. But, with one
release Creative out-did all the other companies once again, and
this release was the Sound Blaster Live! card.

The Card

The SB Live! is so far the
most powerful sound card I have used. It spares no features. Right
out of the static bag, it looks like any other sound card, except
that it is packaged with an additional duaghterboard. The card is
your standard half-legnth PCI card. It features four outputs, five
inputs, and a digital I/O connector.

The heart of the card is the EMU10K1
Digital Signal Processor (DSP). The EMU10K1 is the most powerful
audio processor on the market to date. Having roughly 2 million
transistors and being able to do around 1,000 million instructions
per second, the EMU10K1 is more powerful than some full desktop
machines. The processor is more than adequate for the complex audio
calculations placed upon it. All audio calculations are handled by
this processor, making sure than the main system processor is not
taxed by it. The EMU10K1 does all 32-bit, 48 KHz calculations, using
8 point interpolation to smoothen the sound and make it more
realiastic without distortions.

The card itself is rigged for
either two or four speakers. Creative recommends using a four
speaker setup. they of course recommend the Cambridge Soundworks
FourPointSurround system, but any good four-speaker arrangement will
sound pretty good. The addional daughterboard contains more
connectors: a MIDI in/out port, and SPDIF in/outport, and a
multi-channel port for digital amplifiers. Using the daugherboard,
the system can support up to 8 speakers, a feature which Creative
will support in the future.

Environmental Audio

The big talk around the SB Live! is
Environmental Audio. This is Creative’s alternative to A3D, the 3D
audio APi used by other manufacturers. Environmental Audio
Extensions, or EAX, is Creative’s own 3D audio API. Creative has
worked with Microsoft to make the EAX API a part of the
Directsound3D API. And according to software developers, the EAX
extensions are easy to incorporate, a definite plus in a world where
every bold new product suffers from lack of software support.

What does Environmental Audio mean
to you? Well, more realistic environments. Let’s say you’re playing
Unreal and you’re sitting in a room with three walls, one opening,
and you’re standing on a boardwalk, under which is water. Then you
fire your rifle. With EAX support, which Unreal uses, the sound of
the gunfire will echo appropriately for a room which has one opening
and a floor of water. It will also change depending on the material
of the walls in that room. In short, the audio you hear will depend
on the enviroment. Creative packages many demos of this in their
extensive software bundle with the card. Quite simply, the effects
of EAX are quite apparent.

Installation and Software

Installation
of the SB Live! was quite easy, but was a little daunting when it
came to the software. The card was installed the same as any other
PCI card. The half-legnth card will have no trouble fitting into
almost any system. The daughterboard is included, but optional.
Since the included ribbon cables is not quite long enough to allow
the daughterboard to go just anywhere, you might find yourself
wasting a slot. But, for the uses of most people, the daughterboard
is not necessary, and can be left out in order to spare the slot.

The driver installation was rather
easy. It was automatically detected by Windows. Just pop the CD in
and you’re on your way. Creative packs a lot of software with the SB
Live!, a lot of it quite useless, but some of it just interesting or
fun. One annoying thing about the installation process is that the
procedure is not really automated. Instead, you have a launch
screen, and you have to click on each item individually to install
it. This is fine for a minimal install, but for one who just wants
to install the whole package, it doesn’t cut it.

After a few reboots of the system,
your install will be complete. Since Creative thrusts a lot of the
Live! components into your face upon Windows startup, you may want
to customize some things. Creative incorporates their own Launcher
bar. Much like the desktop Office 97 toolbar by Microsoft, the
Creative toolbar allows access to SB Live! software directly from
the desktop. For some who don’t like clutter or are concerned with
long boot-up times and system resources, you may want to disable
this. I did. Creative also insists on auto-launching several
utilties into your taskbar, a feature you may want to do without.

My Take

I believe the SB Live! to be a
powerful product. It is by far the most powerful product available
to the mainstream consumer, although, with a MRP fo $199.99, the
price can be a little hefty. For true music professionals, the SB
Live! will fit into a tight budget. There are, though, more powerful
products dedicated to the professional.

Let’s look at some pros and cons of
the card:

SB Live! is no doubt a lot of
card. For many user’s, the card is simply overkill. If sound is not
a big deal, or you are not willing to go out and purchase four
speakers, then you’re better off getting a cheap PCI sound card.
But, if you’re primarily out for the most realistic audio
experience, then you’ll want to try the Sound Blaster Live!