VideoLogic SonicFury Review - By Mark "Frugal" Bush Page 1 of 2
In the past sound was often the last consideration when building or buying a PC. This is no longer the case now that game developers and sound card manufacturers have realised how powerful sound can be in enhancing immersion in games. Many games now support 3D positional audio, some even support Dolby Pro logic and Dolby 5.1. Also today’s PC’s tend to be used more as a home entertainment system rather than just a gaming rig. Many now use their PC’s to watch DvD’s and listen to mp3’s when they are not shooting down Migs. A fully featured sound card is now a very important part of the home PC. The SonicFury definitely qualifies as fully featured, in fact it has the following impressive list of features:
MIDI Wavetable Synthesizer: 8MB DLS synthesizer with scalable DSP/Host load sharing. Up to 64-voice hardware with up to 1024 software voice.
Effects processor: Two independent effects channels allowing individual control of effect emphasis, position (pan and fade), and input channels. Select from Reverb, Small room, Bathroom, Auditorium, Big hall, Arena, Hallway, Sewer pipe, Warble, Chorus (Heavy), Vibrato, Chorus, Flange, Spatial, Slap back echo, Medium delay, Long delay, Repeat delay and Nervous.
Audio Converters: Dual AC-97 2.1 audio codecs with hardware full-duplex for simultaneous record and playback and up to 48 kHz sample rates. 18-bit A/D converters for high-resolution recording. 20-bit D/A converters for high-resolution playback of up to 6 independent streams.
External connectors: 2 stereo headphone/line out jacks. Software switchable VersaJack for one of the following: PCM (48 kHz) or DVD 5.1 digital stream; line output for centre/sub 5.1 playback or additional headphones; secondary stereo line input (for quad recording). Stereo line in jack. Microphone in jack.15 pin game/midi port.
Internal connectors: CD in (for analog CD audio input)–MPC3 (Molex). Aux in –MPC3 (Molex). TAD in –MPC3 (Molex). Digital in (32,44.1 or 48 kHz) for CD audio input.
Bus architecture: 32-bit PCI 2.1 local bus. Plug and Play compliant. High performance drivers: Microsoft Windows 95/98, DirectSound3D, A3D™1.0, EAX™ 1.0/2.0, I3DL2, Sensaura MacroFX™, MultiDrive™and Virtual Ear™.
Games compatibility: Supports most DOS games in Windows 95/98 (DOS box and Real Mode).
Approvals: PC 99 compliant. FCC Class B certified for home or office use. Compliant with EMC directive (CE).
Technical support: Technical hotline and online support at www.videologic.com.
Warranty: Five years.
Vidiologic have also provided the following impressive software bundle to take advantage of those features:
MusicMatch™ Jukebox all-in-one digital music encoder, player and database, integrated CD player, audio and data CD creator, and Internet radio tuner
Making Waves Lite™ 128-track digital audio music sequencer and sampler
VideoLogic Internet Telephone for Internet phone calls. Save up to 75% on international call rates and browse the web while you're talking
FutureBeat 3D™ for 3D audio composition and mixing
JetAudio™ award-winning media-player for music CDs, MP3, WAV, RA, MIDI files and digital video Yamaha® Softsynthesizer XG™ and XG Studio™ emulators of the powerful Yamaha XG hardware
Yamaha® Softsynthesizer XG™ and XG Studio™ emulators of the powerful Yamaha XG hardware
Voyetra AudioStation™ 4, MIDI Orchestrator™ 32 and AudioView™ 32 for playing, recording and editing WAV files
Voyetra Digital Orchestrator™ desktop recording studio and Music Write™ 2000 (demo version) notation software for composing and printing music
Sonic Foundry's ACID Xpress™ song creation and SIREN Jukebox Xpress™ music management and playback software for MP3, WMA and WAV files
PCDJ Phat™ MP3 cross-mixing software for DJs
d-lusion MJ Studio mixing console, DrumStation Roland TR-909-based drum machine and RubberDuck acid and techno-synthesizer (trial versions)
Dancer DNA generates 3D shapes and sets them dancing to your favourite music
Soft Karaoke™ fun karaoke program
Drivers & Installation
Installation was fairly straight forward, just uninstall the drivers for the old card, then shut down and install the new card. Once Windows booted up it was simply a matter of cancelling the "New Hardware Found” dialog box, and running the driver install program on the cd. Drivers are provided for 98, ME, NT & 2000 and both the Me, and 2000 drivers installed without a hitch on my dual boot system. One thing that impressed me is that Videologic provide a web download utility that connects to their web site and checks your drivers are up to date. If they are not up to date it will download and install the latest drivers for you. This means that it is easy to ensure that your drivers are up to date.
