Aureal Vortex 2 and A3D users please help

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Wedge

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Nov 28, 1999
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I'm struggling with what to do about my Diamond MX300 sound card. It's a fact that the card was based on an early "Rev A" version of the Aureal Vortex 2 chip set and the MX300 tends to use a lot more CPU time than other 3D sound cards. For me the CPU hit is like 20% in UT and it makes the game unbearable. But without the 3D sound the sounds are not as good. (The underwater effect on the 3D sounds is mindblowing!). The latest review (Gamespot) of Aureal's own Vortex 2 sound card is very positive and the review states that the new "Rev B" of the chip set dramatically reduces the CPU usage to be on-par with the SB Live cards.

My question to anyone who owns the Aureal card is do you see dramatic performance degredation with the 3D sound enabled? I'm afraid that the problem I'm having may be partially due to the A3D programing in UT. The MX300 should only hit the CPU for 5-7% but as I noted I'm seeing 20%.

To test it I played a demo with the timedemo on and compared my average FPS with 3D sound on and off. (Note that you must restart the game before the changes take place). If anyone else has or can do a similar test with the Aureal card. Please let me know. If you are getting better results I might trade in my MX300 for the Aureal card.

Thanks a bunch!
 

BadAss

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Nov 10, 1999
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Yeah, I can help. I looks like you are still using the Diamond drivers. That are *old*. Diamond hasn't updated for a long long time.

Go here instead:
http://www.a3d.com/newa3d/index.asp?changenav=support&change2=support/index.html

With these reference a3d drivers, 3d sounds get me about 2-5 fps (i.e. 40 fps instead of 45 fps average on most maps on a c433, voodoo2-SLI @ 1024 resolution).

Try them, and if you need further help, just ask.

BadAss
 

Wingznut PEZ

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Nov 30, 1999
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Badass is so right. I recently formatted my HD, and was running the Diamond drivers. Diamond hasn't updated their MX300 drivers in years (well, maybe not years, but you get my point.) I then installed the latest A3D and Vortex drivers. Made all the difference in the world.

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Wingznut [PEZ]
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Wedge

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Nov 28, 1999
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Thanks Guys, but I already tried the Aureal Drivers and found no improvements. You see I was already running the lastest A3D drivers (2.25) and updating with the Aureal drivers only updated my general sound settings.

What I really wanted to know was what kind of improvements I can expect to see with Aureals card vs. Diamonds.

BTW, I also tried disabling the "Direct Sound Hardware Acceleration" in the Aureal control utility and found I got a slight (1 fps) improvement but the overall sound quality wasn't as good. Not sure what that means but....

Oh well, for now I'll just play without 3D sound. Damn it disappoints me when I can't even use the hardware I got for the purpose I got it.
 
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