The AD1885 works in conjunction with SoundMAX 2.0
drivers. The SoundMAX 2.0 drivers are the key difference between this product
and to other AC97 solutions currently available. The only thing that seems to be missing from the above feature list is
support for A3D 2.0. But since Aureal has ceased operation, very few games
support this API.
The Test Bench
For our
tests we used the following equipment:
| · |
Intel Celeron 566 MHz |
| · |
Intel D810E2CA3 motherboard (Cayman
3) |
| · |
128 MB SDRAM 133 MHz |
| · |
CNR SoundMAX 4 riser (2 x AD1881
CODECs) |
| · |
Labtec Xwave 6000 (Yamaha YMF744b) 4 channel
sound card |
| · |
Orchid Nusound 3D PNP (Aureal Vortrex 1)
2 channel sound card |
| · |
Western Digital WD400BB 40GB hard
drive |
| · |
NEC 5500A 8x/40x DVD ROM |
| · |
Windows 98SE, latest drivers for all
devices |
| · |
Ziff Davis Audio Winbench 99 1.0 and Quake
III v1.11 |
Our reference audio equipment consisted of:
| · |
Pioneer A 405R Direct Energy MOS
amplifier |
| · |
Pioneer CS 5030 floor speaker
set |
| · |
Phillips SBC HP 600 studio reference
headphones |
SoundMAX 2.0
Performance
The above Quake III scores indicate that in gaming conditions where the video
acceleration is the main bottleneck, the performance difference between SoundMAX
2.0 and other PCI sound cards is practically non existent. However, under
circumstances where the processor itself is the bottleneck, scores on behalf of
the SoundMAX 2.0 might be a bit lower than PCI based sound card
scores.
The following table and charts, which are the results of Ziff
Davis audio Winbench 99, clearly demonstrate that the SoundMAX 2.0 is about 1%
(average) slower compared to other PCI competitors in DirectSound. This
difference becomes even smaller with faster processors. In DirectSound3D
SoundMAX 2.0 manages to outperform both PCI sound cards by a significant
amount.
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