Cheaper than a night at the Opera. Review

Cheaper than a night at the Opera.

Take a look at the current market of sound cards and you’ll notice that most

of them have gone zany for a feature that many PC gamers never use: DVD decoding.

Soundblaster Live 5.1, Phillips Acoustic Edge, TurtleBeach

SantaCruz – all are cards that put a great deal of stock in their ability

to decode Dolby Digital audio for use with a 5.1 sound system. The problem is

that 5.1 systems aren’t great for gaming, since 3D sound works best with a 4.1

speaker system. While all those other cards can certainty handle 4.1, many gamers

aren’t too thrilled about shelling out extra dollars for expensive features

they’ll almost never use.

But remember that many of these popular cards, such as the SantaCruz

and Hercules Game Theater XP, are based on

the popular Cirrus Logic Sensaura 3D sound chipset. As far as 4 speaker 3D sound

goes, there is little difference between cards that use this chipset.

Enter into this fray a mid-range solution for the budget gamer, the Hercules

Gamesurround Fortissimo II, a straightforward, 4 speaker compatible gaming

solution that won’t bust your wallet.

Fortisssimo II Card

At the competitive price of $59.99, the Fortissimo II delivers almost

everything that an average gamer needs for 3D sound. Sensaura 3D sound actually

can produce all three of the most popular 3D sound algorithms, those being DirectSound

3D, Creative’s EAX 1.0 and 2.0, and A3D 1.0. This makes for a card that can

handle virtually any game on the market (save for those few games that worked

best with A3D 2.0 or 3.0, which only the now-defunct Aureal Vortex 2 chipset

could handle). The sound quality is clear and strong, easily the equal of the

more expensive cards mentioned, even matching the venerable Aureal

SQ2500, one of the main standards for gaming sound.

Despite the good quality, the Fortissimo II doesn’t come with any games

in its software bundle. Usually, soundcards come with a few games that show

off the power of the card to great effect. In the case of the SQ2500,

there were enough games included to more than justify the price tag even without

the excellent card.

The Fortissimo II bundle includes Game Commander 2 SE, Storm Hercules SE v.1.5,

MUSICMATCH Jukebox, Sonic Foundry Acid Xpress, SIREN Jukebox Xpress, Yamaha

S-YXG50 v3.1 with Yamaha XG Player 4.0, Eatsleepmusic.com Koolkaraoke Lite,

Hercules Media Station and Cyberlink PowerDVD 3.0.

That might sound like a lot, but most of the software is only mildly useful

if you like to tinker with or play sounds. Most can be replaced with a free

download of Winamp. Power DVD is a nice addition, though, as it’s one of the

better software DVD players around with good video quality and very good audio.

Power DVD can decode and downmix a 5.1 track to 4.1, assuming you have a fast

enough CPU.

Power DVD can also export a straight AC3 or DTS signal from the Fortissimo

II‘s included Optical SP/DIF port. Here we find a little can of worms, though.

Forgetting the 4.1 downmix (which is good, but not spectacular), the choice

to include Optical output on the Fortissimo II flies in the face of its

budget orientation. In order to use AC3 or DTs, you have to have an expensive

external decoder (which is sold separately) and a 5.1 or 6.1 speaker system.

However, the included Optical input port is useful for people with mini-disc

players looking to port music into their computer at optimum quality.

To make things a little worse, consider that if you have a 5.1 system on your

computer, then with the exception of the Cambridge Soundworks DTT2500

or DTT3500, you can’t get 4 speaker gaming. At least with the other cards

that handle DVD decoding on board and therefore don’t need an external decoder,

you can use the card to switch between true 5.1 and 4 speaker gaming. There

is no such option for the Fortissimo II.

So what we have is a strange conundrum. The Fortissimo II is meant

as a low cost alternative. Unfortunately, it seems one of the cost cuts was

any type of decent software bundle. And the savings are slightly negated by

the Optical cable requirement, but only if watching DVDs with true 5.1 is your

thing. Honestly the Fortissimo II is an easy recommendation for anyone

looking for a 4 speaker sound card with good quality and nothing else. For anyone

looking for more oomph, purchasing a Fortissimo II just doesn’t make

much sense.