OK. You made it
to the section we've all been waiting for.
We've heard enough about the Game Theater XP's
features and innovations, but how does it sound? Well we ran it through a
series of tests ranging from MP3, CD Audio, and DVD Playback
quality and of course a thorough helping of some
serious gaming action. Please remember
though, when
it comes to audio quality, everyone has different
tastes. Determining sound quality is a
subjective process where each person is going to
hear the same thing differently. With a lack of
current quality audio testing programs, the best
we can do is explain what we're hearing so you can
draw your own conclusion. In the past, we
would use Audio Winbench on a sound card we were
testing. However, the advances of the PC
audio market in the last few years have progressed
at such an exponential rate yet
Audio Winbench hasn't
been updated since 1999, it hardly seems valid to
test with it anymore. Also, in a vast
majority of tests that incorporated Audio Winbench, generally CPU utilization scores hover
around 0%.
MP3, CD Audio,
and DVD
We had a MP3 catalog of
about 10 gigs to choose from, so there wasn't too
much difficulty in choosing some music samples
that would test the XP's capabilities.
For the record, all MP3's were recorded at 160Kps
which is considered CD quality.
We played several songs from Metallica - "...And
Justice For All" and Radiohead - "Kid A".
I felt that these two groups should effectively attack the full frequency range
of the Game Theater XP. The first
thing that I noticed was that it seemed as though
I could hear qualities of the music that I hadn't
heard before with my previous card. I've been listening
to this particular Metallica album for over a
decade and yet I heard more depth in the music
than I noticed earlier. Radiohead is another band that gets a lot of
airplay on my rig lately. The music was rich
and clear with no noticeable hissing heard at high
levels. As a test, with both MP3's and CD's I paused playback and
then turned the volume all the way up. To my
surprise, there was no noise heard at all, no
hiss, no hum, nothing. When I tried that
with my SB Value Live I would always hear a hiss
and a slight hum. Obviously I was hearing
more of the music with the lack of noise from
other PC components interfering with the Game Theater XP.
This is possible thanks to an extended rack
system and heavily shielded cable. Also, during
playback of both CD and MP3 audio, we performed
multiple tasks like writing this review, editing
photos in Photoshop, and surfing the net.
Never once did the Game Theater XP skip a beat.
For DVD audio quality,
we installed the full version of Power DVD that
came with the XP package. With the four speaker set
up of our test rig, we sampled three different
movies in Dolby Surround Sound. After
watching clips from The X-Men, The Fifth Element,
and Saving Private Ryan, I can surely say that the
sound quality of the XP was excellent. From
the many fight scenes in the X-Men to the heavy
battle scenes of Saving Private Ryan, the channel
separation and overall quality of the surround
sound was
superb.
Gaming
We sampled several of
today's hottest games to give an accurate
assessment
of the Game Theater
XP's gaming capabilities. After all, this is
a "Game Theater", so I was eager to hear just how
good the XP was. Unfortunately, it
was so much fun that I am a few days behind in the
release of this review.
It has been a
while since I had so much fun doing a review!
The first game we
played was Nascar 4 which supports Direct Sound, A3D, and EAX.
The positioning of the audio through our 4 speaker
setup was very good.
I found the realism of the other race cars approaching me
from behind as well as road and engine noise was
excellent. Even when I was involved in a
serious crash that sent my car spinning out of
control, the orientation of the sounds around my
vehicle remained true to life. In fact, the
quality of all three API's was so good that it is
difficult for me to say which sounded the best.
Next we tested Star
Trek Voyager - Elite Force which uses Aureal's
A3D. Running the training mission, I ran
though a Borg scenario and intentionally ticked a
bunch of them off. Before I knew it, I was
being pursued by 6 Borg drones. Running
through the corridors, it was clear to me when a
Borg drone was approaching me from behind or from
any other direction. In another
training mission, I spun in a circle while Mr. Tuvok was instructing me on the finer points of
phaser fights. The positioning of
his voice was always accurate to my orientation in the
game.
Lastly, I played
a few levels of Clive Barkers - Undying.
When it comes to playing games, I like to hack
things up just as much as the next guy (when I was
growing up, I loved the Chainsaw in DOOM).
This time, Undying has really taken it to a new
level. This is an extremely sick,
disturbing, and frightening game...it's no wonder I couldn't stop
playing it! With ghosts and spirits flying
around and Hellhounds chewing on me in a dark
hallway, the sound quality of the XP was again
excellent. As my character ran through the
haunted estate, blood curdling screams could be
heard in the distance that were very believable.
The Game Theater XP really shined with this game.
A note
from the BigWop - A few months back, I reviewed
the Abit VP6 and have been bitten by the Windows
2000 / Dual-CPU bug ever since. If you've ever
visited 2CPU.COM and perused their forum, you're
sure to be aware of the vast amount of users
experiencing problems with the Sound Blaster Live!
Series of cards and their Dual-CPU rigs. During
testing we experienced some problems ourselves and
reported initially that everything seemed all
right after some initial tweaking, but using the
system over the last few months other bugs and
incompatibles arose. Since then I've replaced the
Sound Blaster Live! that was in my Dual-CPU system
with a Hercules Game Theater XP and a Philips
Acoustic Edge (briefly). The Acoustic Edge caused
a plethora of BSODs with the drivers that were
available on their website at the time. However,
using the latest driver release for the Hercules
Game Theater, I'm happy to say there are no major
issues to report. For now, the Game Theater XP
seems to be "THE" card to have if you do any
gaming with a Dual-CPU rig.
What Hercules has done
is release an excellent sound card/rack system
that really gives the Sound Blaster Live Platinum
a run for its money. The audio quality in
music, DVD, and games is nothing short of
beautiful. Throughout our tests, the Game
Theater XP delivered superb sound. The
creation of a Rack system has provided the
opportunity to add additional features not found
on more expensive competitor products. Any
music, movie, or gaming enthusiast should be quite
pleased with the overall audio quality produced by
the XP. To sum it up, Hercules has produced
a real winner with the release of the Game Theater
XP, whose performance has easily earned it our award
for Editors Choice and a Hot Hardware Heat Meter rating of a
9.
Speak
your mind quiet boy! Get in the H.H. Conference Room
already!
.gif)
