Great taste, more filling
Written: Apr 15 '02
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Product Rating:
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Pros: Awesome card in just about every way
Cons: Only Line In on the card itself, cable is very large
The Bottom Line: I have looked for quite a while to find a sound card that satisfied my tastes, and the GTXP exceeded my expectations.
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| fattyburger's Full Review: Guillemot Maxi Sound Game Theater XP |
When I first saw the Hercules Game Theatre XP, I was impressed by the multitude of features. I was unsure of the sound chip, but from reports, it was quite good. I thought it over, looked at my options and ordered one from Newegg on a Thursday afternoon for the sum of $125 and $8 for FedEx Express Saver shipping. I received the card on Monday, and eagerly opened it.
The Package:
Inside was a receipt, some packing peanuts and the retail box with my card inside. Guillemont/Hercules is known for great looking packages, and this is no exception. I paused briefly to admire it, and then opened the box. Inside was one of those smaller cardboard boxes that fits snugly inside, making it harder to open. Once I got it out, I could get a look at what I had actually purchased. The package consists of the PCI card, the external rack, the 6' cable to connect the two, and another bag of goodies. All were in plastic bags except for the PCI card, which was in a static bag. All of this was sandwiched in foam, making a nice cosy package. The bag of goodies consisted of two CDs, a ¼" to ½" gold-plated adapter, the manual, and a certificate of authenticity for some included software (Yamaha Soft Synthesizer™ S-YXG50™ and Power DVD).
When I opened the external rack, I noticed two small scratches on the top. Although small, silver scratches on a black top are very noticeable. There was also a small black blemish on the microphone volume knob, although that is not very obvious. I contacted Newegg, and in less than two hours, I got an email back saying that they would refund me $20. I thought this was exceptional customer service, and can highly recommend them for it, especially since this was a retail version, and it would have been damaged by Hercules, not Newegg. A black Sharpie helped, although I will probably have to put some black shoe polish on it to completely cover the scratches.
Free bundled software:
Gameloft package: utilities to play online games and demos including Rogue Spear, Midtown Madness, and others
Sensaura Virtual Ear™ (3D sound positioning configuration utility)
PowerDVD™ DVD player - Certified Dolby Digital™ decoder with 2/4/6 channels - Dolby® Headphone Technology.
MusicMatch™ Jukebox complete digital audio solution - unlimited MP3 encoding
Yamaha Soft Synthesizer™ S-YXG50™
Sonic Foundry® ACID™ Xpress and SIREN™ Jukebox press
Koolkaraoké Lite™ software
Magix® playR™ jukebox
Installation:
Hardware:
Installing the card itself was like installing any other PCI card. Remove the bracket over the hole, put the card in the slot, and screw it in. The 6' cable connects to the card and a USB port on the computer side, and then to the external rack. Because of the 4-port unpowered USB hub on the external rack, it is necessary to use one of your existing USB ports. I now have 7 USB ports on my computer, 7 of which are unused. The cable included is a bit stiff, and I could not place my external rack as close to the wall as I would've liked (since the cable went behind my desk along the wall, down to the computer on the floor). I still had enough room, but that may cause a problem for some people.
Software:
The drivers included on the CD are version 2.01. When I first booted up with the card in my system (I actually kept my old card, a Philips Seismic Edge, in the computer), it detected new hardware and installed it as a "Crystal Sound Device". The chip on the card is made by Cirrus Logic with the Crystal name, so Windows 2000 Professional correctly detected the chip. I installed the drivers on the CD, and rebooted. On reboot, it went through the hardware detection/installation process another time, now identifying it as the Hercules Game Theatre XP. I opened the Sunsura Virtual Ear software to configure the card (using my headphones), and received a message that my system "does not support this software". I opened the GTXP configuration utility, only to have it crash after a few seconds. It did that repeatedly, no matter what part of the program I went to. I decided to download newer drivers, and found v2.02 on Hercules' site. After a 5 meg download while I ate dinner (I was on 56k at home at the time), I installed the drivers and had no more problems with either piece of software. Another problem was that Windows 2000 Professional would not shut down properly. It hung at the shutdown screen until I held down the power button. The newer drivers fixed this. The only problem that was not fixed by newer drivers has only surfaced in Tribes 2. When the game loads, it automatically changes to the "2 speakers" setting. In order to get sound from the headphones, they must be unplugged and plugged back in. A later driver update fixed this, I believe it was the first of the v3 drivers.
The external rack:
I know I will be made fun of for saying this, but the only word that I can use to describe the way the external rack looks is: sexy. It looks great, and functions just as well. It has more connectors than you could ever use, but is very well designed. I had high hopes for it, and was not disappointed. The front has two USB ports, headphone and microphone (both with volume knobs), game port and two RCA line inputs (left & right). One connector in specific is very useful, and that is the MIDI connector. I do not use MIDI, but many people do, and do not want to pay $300 or more for a card that doesn't need lots of features, but needs a MIDI port.
The card:
The card is typical green PCB, with a CD in and an AUX in on the upper edge, and two connectors on the bracket (44-pin to the rack, and one 1/8" line in). I didn't at first realize what the use of this Line In was, but then I got a TV tuner. I ran a 1/8" cable from the TV Tuner to the card, and it was a blessing in disguise, since the 1/8" cable included with my TV tuner would not have been long enough to reach from my case on the floor to the external rack. One thing of note is that the Line In on the card itself is known as the first Aux in the control panel. It took me a while to figure this out.
Insights and oversights:
There are several things that deserve mention here, both good and bad. First, the volume knob for the microphone gives a reassuring click when turned off. The knob for the headphones does not. I'm not sure why it was done this way, but it is not a big oversight. As mentioned before, the only connectors on the card itself are the 44-pin connector to the rack, and a Line-in 1/8" connector. It would be nice to have a headphone/speaker jack, so that when transporting your computer (to a LAN party, for instance), you do not have to take the external rack with you. Also, it would be nice to have it fit into a 5.25" drive bay, although that probably wouldn't be possible, with the multitude of connectors. However, the way the rack looks outweighs the effort needed to take it with you. The card comes with one ¼" to 1/8" adapter. It would've been nice to have two, since most computer microphones are 1/8", but the connector is ¼". No big deal, I just used the one that had previously been collecting dust.
Hercules did do several things right. The packaging and external rack are very nice looking. The bundled software is a wide range, although a significant amount of it can be downloaded for free (eg MusicMatch Jukebox).
CPU Usage:
I ran CPU usage tests using WinAmp v2.74. The GTXP peaked at 8% CPU usage and hovered around 1-2% for the great majority of the time. All MP3s played were encoded at 128k/s, stereo. This is extremely low, especially compared to the ~20% peak seen by Creative's hugely popular Live! series of cards.
Main included software
Game Theater XP control panel:
The control panel houses all the major functions of the GTXP. It has separate volume controls for each speaker in surround sound, which is very helpful for speakers that are not evenly spread around the room. It also has a mixer (basically the same thing as Windows volume control), an EQ tab (10 band, with 8 decent presets), a MIDI tab, and the infamous 'Other' tab, with hardware acceleration options, display options, etc. Included is a shot of the EQ settings. I found this was the best for my headphones and speakers both, and was tested with different styles of music. No doubt there is a better optimum setting for you, but this might provide a good guideline if you don't know where to start.
Sensaura Virtual Ear:
This is a very handy program to correctly calibrate your sound card, especially when using headphones. Many people have commented about very good virtual surround from headphones, and the GTXP is one of the cards that has used this well. Virtual Ear will configure the sound for your specific headphones and ears, including headphone size, head size, ear shape, etc. This is to ensure that the simulated surround sound is accurate, and they have succeeded. I may never know exactly how they managed to make my opponent's gunfire actually sound like it is coming from behind me (and not in front of me or from both sides), but somehow they did. I could swear that it even does vertical positioning, helping when people are directly above me, but that's probably just my imagination.
Recommended:
Yes
Amount Paid (US$): 120
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Epinions.com ID:
fattyburger
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Location: Portland, OR, USA
Reviews written: 5
Trusted by: 0 members
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