AZTECH PCI 368-DSP Sound Card Review

Date: 29th March 1999 by Matthew Fam Kai Liang

The Good The Bad Test System Configuration Conclusion Rating

AZTECH Systems (Singapore) have been very busy this year with the introductions and launches of several of its products ranging from the new USB based modem to the upcoming 5.1 channel 700watt Speakers system and also the AZTECH RIVA TNT graphics card.1998 was a rather bad year for AZTECH as they suffered losses in the IT industry. Therefore after some re-planning. They are back with a vengeance. In this review, we bring you their first 1999 offering, the AZTECH PCI 368-DSP PCI Sound Card that came as quite a suprise. In short,the PCI 368-DSP is the first budget priced card that offer you many of the features previously available only in higher-priced cards. Nothing unusual stands out from the packaging.However, the installation of the card was a breeze. No special precautions were needed. Installation is similar to any other sound card. Driver installation was very user friendly too; you cannot go wrong with the Plug N Play function.  Just plug the card into an available PCI slot and boot up the system, and it should work as easy as ABC.

Guess the whole computer sound industry heated up late last year with the introduction of CREATIVE Live! sound card as well as the new Aureal based A3D 2.0 soundcards like the DIAMOND MX300. Both with competing technologies like the EAX(Environmental Audio Extension) and A3D 2.0 which offer realtime 3D positioning sound for the first time into the industry and also the first ever dual output source for both front and rear line-outs. This enables you to plug in 2 sets of speakers to fully enjoy front and rear channel surround sound. With new games titles supporting both EAXŽ and A3DŽ ,gamers like us are wondering which card to purchase to enhance the gaming experience. Throughout the whole world , entire websites are full of comparsion reviews. Including the one done by me last year in which I compared 5 soundcards.

  VLSI, a relatively unknown company based in US team up with QSound Lab to engineered the 'ThunderBird 128' chipset. The chip that powered this little boy packs a mighty punch. It occupies a imposing amount of space due to its older micron design as compared to the slimmer Aureal chipset. Neverthless you should not underestimate the processing power of this new kid on the block as this is the first card that has the Qsound Lab Q3D 2.0 surround sound built-in. Do you remember seeing that logo in your neighbourhood gaming arcade? All the games powered by QSound chipset makes arcade gaming more realistic, AZTECH's PCI 64-Q3D and some others card also have Q3D 1.0 positional surround effect built-in. This 'Thunderbird 128' chipset has several enhancing features including

• QSoundŽ Q3D™ 2.0 Environmental Modeling™
• QSurroundŽ Speaker Virtualization of DVD Multi-channel Audio
• QSoundŽ QI3D™ Positional Sound Effects
• QSoundŽ Multi-Speaker System™ (QMSS™) and QSoundŽ QXpander™
• Supports Industry's Latest Sound Standards for Interactive Gaming Experience
• Professional 320-Voice Wavetable Synthesis
• Brings Cinematic Excellence to the PC

Breakthrough 3D Audio Technology
The Aztech PCI 368DSP attains a new high in entertainment for gamers and superior music reproduction for PC audiophiles with its advanced features. By incorporating the advanced QSoundŽ Qinteractive3D™ (QI3D™) Sound technology, the Aztech PCI 368DSP interactively positions each synthesis or DirectSound™ stream in the three-dimensional space around the listener. Users can now experience true 3D positional audio with two or four speakers or a pair of headphones and play back 2D audio applications in full positional 3D. Using QSoundŽ Multi-Speaker System™ (QMSS™) and QXpander™, the Aztech PCI 368DSP can reproduce any ordinary stereo sources into four-channel audio output with dramatically widen stereo imaging and enhanced realism.

Supports Industry's Latest Sound Standards for Interactive Gaming Experience
The Aztech PCI 368DSP also supports the latest Environmental Audio Extensions™ (EAX™) with Q3D™ 2.0 QSound Environmental Modelling Technology. EAX™ is the API that enables game and application developers to develop its software with truly interactive audio effects. With this enhanced feature, PC games come to life with multi-dimensional and environmental effects from above, behind, left and right of the gamer. As the Aztech PCI 368DSP is also A3D compliant, it supports a wide variety of games, including Unreal from Epic Megagames/GT Interactive and Forsaken from Acclaim

Brings Cinematic Excellence to the PC
Aztech's latest sound card includes Dolby™ certified QSurroundŽ for 2-/4-speaker virtualization of DVD multi-channel audio. By creating virtual speakers, the Aztech PCI 368DSP recreates the full surround sound effect of multi-channel audio. One can now enjoy surround sound encoded movies and music with only two speakers, bringing lifelike, vivid entertainment to the PC.

Professional 320-Voice Wavetable Synthesis
For crystal clear playback of MIDI audio files, Aztech PCI 368DSP features a professional 320-voice wavetable synthesis compliant with DLS1.0 (Downloadable Sound) to allow exchange of sample sets and the use of application-specific or user generated samples. Each individual voice is positioned 360 degrees around the listener using MIDI commands with individually controlled reverberations, chorus and filtering.

 

The Good

PCI 368-DSP came without any suprises to me. It worked prefectly under my Windows 98 system. Features such as 3D Positional Audio, QSurround™ Speaker Virtualization are all done through the DSP core of the PCI 368DSP. CPU utilization is tremendously reduced. You'll get to enjoy improved game performance and faster graphics frame rate which sum up to superior system performance. DSP-Based Architecture for Optimal CPU Performance The Aztech PCI 368DSP comes with true DSP power to simultaneously perform wavetable synthesis, 3D positioning and special effects on 64 channels with independent sample rates. It is also capable of concurrently processing 128 audio streams and 3D positioning of 64 DirectSound™ streams. By running features such as 3D positional audio directly from the hardware, the Aztech PCI 368DSP frees the CPU resources for superior system performance. You can see the proof in the benchmark section where the XITEL Storm Platinum(Aureal AU8830 chipset) and AZTECH PCI 338-A3D(Aureal AU8820 chipset) soundcards were pit against each other in the ZDbop's Audio Winbench 99. 

Feature wise, this card bags all that a Sound Blaster LIVE! has except for the Optical S/PDIF function which seperate the difference between the high-end cards and this value card. Running on both INTEL Pentium II 400MHz(clocked @ 532MHz) Celeron 300A(clocked@ 464MHz) resulted in very good sound quality.I uses a AZTECH PCI 338A3D,the first generation A3D 1.0 compliant card utilizing Aureal's AU8820 chipset for comparsion. Pluging in the 2 sets of speakers.Both of AIWA SC-CD40(2x 190w PMPO) and also another sets of 2x Altec Lansing ACS45.Sound reproduction were well beyond what first generation AU8820 chipset can offer.I'm extremely impressed with the number of APIs it supports. From the widely popular A3D 1.0 to the advance EAX 1.0 and also QSound Lab unique Q3D 1.0 and 2.0 which supports EAX directly in its API. PCi 368-DSP even supports the Dolby Digital™ through Qsurround^Ž multi-channel speaker virtualization. Overall, the Q3D 2.0 technology is definitely a notch better than the older 1.0 version used in the AZTECH PCI 64-Q3D or the S3 Sonic Vibes based soundcards.

And very similar to the SB Live! or the Aureal A3D 2.0 based cards, you also get to select a few option under output,including 2-speakers output(which utilized QExpander allowing stereo-to-3D conversion), 4-speakers output(Qsound Multi-Speaker System(QMSS) expands normal stereo to 4-channels and stereo headphone. The SB link connector is also built onboard for you to connect to newer generation 440BX based mainboards to enhance Sound Blaster compability under DOS environment. Testing the sound quality using the 4-channel output resulted in  rather fascinating results as compared to a single line-out soundcard. Compared to the high-end cards,it loses out as I personally feel that the 3D effect out of the rear speakers were not realisitic as compared to the "XITEL Storm Platinum" which I am currently reviewing. Both cards are comparable when using 2 speakers, simply because the maximum surround effect on 2 speakers were already at its prime. The joystick port and mic port were also tested as I tried to record CD songs into MP3 tracks. Running Need For Speed III using the joystick was also smooth as no glitch were found.

It would not be a review if I do not run this card with the industry's latest gaming softwares. Including EPIC's Unreal, Need For Speed III, FIFA 99 and many more. All ran flawlessly and without a single glitch, at the same time offering fairly good audio playback. Driver updates can be obtained from the AZTECH Singapore website. As long as you are not too demanding of the card, It truely offer the best sound of its class and definately well worth the price. For normal users whom never utilize the S/PDIF feature on the SB Live! or MX300 cards, the AZTECH PCI 368-DSP will indeed offer a sound fedelity which almost matches high-end cards. This card also supports 320-voices wavetable synthsiser similar to Aureal based cards.  Aureal's cards are run synthesis through hardware but there were no mention if this Aztech's 320-voices were generated on hardware or software. The card also employs YAMAHA's softsynthesizer S-YXG 50 V3.0 which immediately improve the MIDI quality of the soundcard when setup. Giving it a solid performance rivals even YAMAHA own WaveForce XG which runs this program on hardware.

If you are still not satisfied with the MIDI quality by software. Why not consider adding a wavetable daughter board to it? The other reason for such good buy is the ability to support wavetable daughter board throught the wavetable connector lacking in CREATIVE's Sound Blaster LIVE! card.

Looking abroad, Planet Hardware's website also has a similar soundcard review which pointed out a flaw in the API application. I've already went into lab testing the mentioned games but could not find any major fault with the card and did not experience any crash. Below is a extract from their website.......                  
                                                                                                                            
While withholding a boatload of tests we threw at it, including tests of all available API's, the board stayed steady and cool. Dolby Digital 5.1 support worked beautifully, and EAX support (through a Q3D 2.0 wrapper of sorts) worked fine without any end work by us. Both of these sounded crisp and clear, and were definitely working properly to my surprise. A3D was a different story though, while being one of the officially supported API's (A3D 1.0 at least), programs using it were hit and miss. For example, Unreal would load up properly using A3D, but other games like Half-Life and Quake II (with the EAR patch) would crash on startup or fail to load the API. The percentage of games that actually loaded and correctly utilized A3D was about 50%, which leads me to believe that their implementation isn't all up to par.

Reading from all sources around I found (and confirmed while testing) several minor problems with the A3D. It does have a little bit of a problem running Half-Life. It has been reported months ago regarding the incompatibility problem. Patches are already available but it seem like the driver of the PCI368-DSP might be the real problem. Bear in mind that the driver is almost identical to the one which originated from Qsound lab as AZTECH have done very few modification on the driver. I've contact AZTECH regarding this matter and a explaination should arrive very soon. But bear in mind that this might be an isolated case as I personally did not experience any major crash even as I reinstall older A3D 1.0 compliant games like the 'STAR WARS Jedi Knight Dark Forces II, 'FIFA 97/98' or 'NBA Live 97'. But neverthless if any reader whom uses this card at home and find any bugs can email me for more information.                                   

Benchmark

Using the latest ZD's Audio WinBench 99 software.

• Audio WinBench 99 is a new ZD benchmark that focuses on audio subsystem of a PC. It's tests give you both an overall comparative measure and a subjective measure of a PC's audio subsystem's performance. As a result, Audio WinBench 99 contains a mix of automated tests and interactive tests.
• Audio WinBench 99 includes eight automated tests in the Audio CPU Utilization Tests suite. Four use Direct Sound, while the other four use Direct Sound 3D. All these tests measure the amount of CPU that the sound subsystem uses for common operations, such as playing sounds at 22 kHz and 44.1 kHz, 8 bit and 16 bit from both static buffer and steaming buffer.

The benchmark results of this card are listed below. Running Windows 98 Environment and with the installed DirectX Version 6.1 to allow viewers a peek at the performance of this card using future operation standards. So here they are:

ZD Inc. Audio Winbench 99 (ver1.0) Benchmark
Soundcard Make :	Aztech PCI 368-DSP	Aztech PCI 338-A3D	XITEL Storm Platinum
Chipset :	Thunderbird 128	Aureal AU8820	Aureal AU8830
DirectSound CPU Util,22KHz,8 bit,Static : Hardware Voices	32	13	32
D-S CPU Util,22KHz,8 bit,Static : Voice 16 (% used)	2.92	4.85	2
D-S CPU Util,22KHz,8 bit,Static : Voice 32 (% used)	5.92	5.06	3.71
D-S CPU Util,22KHz,8 bit,Streaming : Hardware Voices	32	13	32
D-S CPU Util,22KHz,8 bit,Streaming : Voice 16 (% used)	2.86	4.2	2.07
D-S CPU Util,22KHz,8 bit,Streaming : Voice 32 (% used)	5.09	5.01	3.84
D-S CPU Util,44.1KHz,16 bit,Static : Hardware Voices	32	13	32
D-S CPU Util,44.1KHz,16 bit,Static : Voice 16 (% used)	2.55	4.88	2.45
D-S CPU Util,44.1KHz,16 bit,Static : Voice 32 (% used)	4.32	6.25	5.56
D-S CPU Util,44.1KHz,16 bit,Streaming : Hardware Voices	32	13	32
D-S CPU Util,44.1KHz,16 bit,Streaming : Voice 16 (% used)	2.49	12.8	2.35
D-S CPU Util,44.1KHz,16 bit,Streaming : Voice 32 (% used)	4.15	6.17	5.51
DirectSound Play Verification (% Correct)	100%	100%	100%
DirectSound3D CPU Util,22KHz,8-bit Static,HW	32	8	16
DS3D CPU Util,22KHz,8-bit Static,Voice 16 (% used)	9.01	26.8	3.67
DS3D CPU Util,22KHz,8-bit Static,Voice 32 (% used)	12.2	41.3	15.7
DirectSound3D CPU Util,22KHz,8-bit Streaming,HW Voice	32	8	16
DS3D CPU Util,22KHz,8-bit Streaming,Voice 16 (% used)	9.14	26.8	3.72
DS3D CPU Util,22KHz,8-bit Streaming,Voice 32 (% used)	11.8	41.9	16
DirectSound3D CPU Util,44.1KHz,16-bit Static, HW	32	8	16
DirectSound3D CPU Util,44.1KHz,16-bit Static, Voice 16	8.76	31.9	5.17
DirectSound3D CPU Util,44.1KHz,16-bit Static, Voice 32	10.8	55.1	25.8
DS3D CPU Util,44.1KHz,16-bit Streaming, Hardware Voice	32	8	16
DS3D CPU Util,44.1KHz,16-bit Streaming, Voice 16   (%)	8.23	32.5	4.95
DS3D CPU Util,44.1KHz,16-bit Streaming, Voice 32   (%)	10.6	57.2	27

*Benchmark results are copyright of Singapore Hardware Zone. Software/s are copyright of their respective owners.

The Bad

PCI 368-DSP is a little weak on the included software. It is a pity that this card does not come bundled with a single useful program, which are very common in AZTECH soundcards. Though they send me a copy of 'NEED FOR SPEED III'   to test out the EAX compability. This 'L' package which includes the game might not reach most consumer as the distributor might want to forgo the game for a even more affordable pack. What a pity. The lack of digital S/PIDF connector are is sorely missed as it will bring this card in the league with Aureal and Creative if it were to be built in.

AZTECH also did not provide the necessary audio cable for connecting to the CD-ROM drive. Imagine buying the card and midway through installation you realise that the cable is not included. Audio quality wise it is still inferior to the very much superior 4 speakers surround of Aureal A3D 2.0 wavetracing technology. 

You can find the latest drivers at AZTECH Lab FTP Site.Look for the number 368 to download th latest driver for this card.