Performance

To test the AC-1’s sound-generating capabilities, I put it through two tests where hardware issues forced me to use the Matrix (emulated surround sound) mode on the Logitech X-540 speakers I reviewed back in December: music through iTunes and audio from Battlefield 2142 and Medieval II: Total War .

Once again, I started with iTunes, playing everything from Slayer to NWA, Brahms to U2 and some Flogging Molly for good measure to get a taste of how things sounded. While I wouldn’t say the AC-1 added anything to the already high-quality sound coming out of the X-540s, it did do one thing that my old soundcard could not: it translated the stereo sound of my MP3s and AACs to beautiful 5.1 audio automatically – a huge plus.

When it came to the games, while I certainly wanted to test the ability of the card to faithfully generate sounds, I was also curious about driver compatibility – would the AC-1 work with the most advanced audio-generation capabilities of the game, or would it have to reinterpret lower-quality positioning information because of a lack of hardware support?

As it turns out, the end result leans more towards the second thing, but I’m not entirely sure you can tell. Both Battlefield 2142 and Medieval II: Total War have sworn allegiance to Creative Lab’s X-FI specification , so the AC-1 couldn’t make use of either game’s top audio setting. However, that didn’t really seem to make a difference. Setting Medieval II to use EAX 2 and playing through a battle (the only time in the game when positional audio is important), I felt like I was watching a Hollywood war epic, not a game on a computer screen. When cannon boomed out from behind me, or when groups of soldiers charged together and I put myself in the middle to watch the action, the sound fidelity and positioning was perfect and I couldn’t ask for a better experience.

For Battlefield 2142, I set the audio to Ultra-High Quality and boosted the Razer ESP setting to maximum to see how things sounded. Again, when it came to positional audio, the AC-1 had no problems delivering clear, rich sound from the appropriate speaker. It takes some practice to learn how to interpret the new audio information you’ve got coming at you as you fight, but I’d say my kill scores have gone up as a result of using this card.

Razer ESP turns out to be an interesting beast – you will hear sounds that you haven’t heard before, especially if you’re coming from a stock soundcard, but you have to adjust the level to the game you’re playing. For example, in Battlefield 2142, your heads-up display will show you where a message from one of your teammates came from if it’s within what the game considers the reach of your hearing.

Crank up Razer ESP and you’ll hear things the software thinks you shouldn’t be able to hear (how’s that for an advantage) but go too far and the software will distort some of the sounds because they’re too far away. It’s really a matter of your tolerance – I found the distortion to be annoying, so I moved the settings bar down to the middle and found a happy medium.