Sound Blaster Live! Review Continued |
| by David Yee |
| Game Performance | ||||||
| I tested the Sound Blaster Live! against the Ensoniq AudioPCI to see if its powerful sound engine makes a difference in games. Performance in Quake II and Unreal between the two PCI cards were very similar (results not shown here), but as you can see below, the SB Live! has a slight edge when it comes to the Direct3D game Incoming. Creative Lab's Voodoo 2 was used by the way. | ||||||
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| Conclusion | ||||||
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Overall this is truly an awesome sound card. The immersing Environmental Audio effects and
the generous software bundle are the highlights of the Sound Blaster Live!. I can't
stress how much better music and games sound under EA- once you experience it you'll never
want to go back to "normal" audio. Those of you who do not need the
digital I/O daughter card and the high-end software may want to wait for the $99 Value
Edition. What's Cool Low noise, high-fidelity sound, stunning environmental audio effects, excellent MIDI quality, generous software bundle What's Not Pricey for a sound card |
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| Test System | ||||||
| Pentium II 300, Asus P2B, 96 Mbyte PC 100 SDRAM, ATI Xpert 98, Creative Labs Voodoo 2 12 Mbyte version (V Sync disabled), Diamond Fireport 40, and Quantum Viking 4.5 NSE Ultra Narrow SCSI Hard Drive. Windows 98, DirectX 6, and Incoming Lux-et-Robur (640x480) were used. All video cards had V Sync disabled when the option was available. | ||||||