Sonic Vibe design
zdnet.com
Peripherals
Hi-Val PCI-128
This sound card is trendy, but incomplete.
By Will Fastie
January 27, 1998 -- Hi-Val is following a good sound-card trend that
such companies as Aztech and Turtle Beach started in the first half of
1997. Rather than using a digital signal processing (DSP) chip with
an audio chip or chip set, as most sound cards have to date, the
Hi-Val PCI-128 ($100 street) has its entire feature set on a single
chip from S3--the S3 SonicVibes PCI Audio Accelerator. More
vendors will be following this trend, using the same chip.
The chip provides all the muscle, including compatibility with all the
popular standards of the past. It offers MIDI synthesis, Microsoft
DirectSound and DirectMusic, full-duplex operation (simultaneous
playback and recording), MPU401-compatibility, 3-D sound effects,
positional auto-muting, chorus, reverb, and a sophisticated mixer.
The chip is relatively new, so it is designed around PCI 2.1. In
systems that support Distributed DMA (DDMA), the SonicVibes
supports old, real-mode programs.
Even the ports on a SonicVibes-equipped
sound card come from the chip. It provides
monaural microphone input; stereo line-in,
line-out, and speaker-out; and the game port
for a joystick controller, game pad, or MIDI
interface. The PCI-128 sports jacks and
connectors for all these. The chip also supports
CD-ROM audio input, PC speaker output,
AUX-in, and modem audio. Again, the
PCI-128 supports all these, using pin
connectors.
The software muscle for the PCI-128 comes
from Voyetra in the form of about a dozen
utilities, led by the AudioStation for playing
music from various file sources, including
digital audio tape (DAT), and, of course, CD.
The utilities also include Orchestrator--a
16-channel MIDI music editor--and WinDAT, a recorder, player, and
editor for digital sound files. The product provides drivers for DOS
(on DDMA systems), Windows 95, and Windows NT 4.0. Not all
features are available under Windows NT.
The chip has 32 oscillators and can thus support 32 simultaneous
parts. The designation "128" in the card's name points to the 128
simultaneous voices that the system generates. The PCI-128
includes 676 instruments and 21 drum kits.
With all that power coming from the SonicVibes, a company such as
Hi-Val simply needs to put the chip on a board and package it.
Unfortunately, the package is the fly in the ointment. There's nothing
wrong with the hardware: It has no switches or jumpers and so should
install easily. But there's no hardware documentation at all. Because
two identical connectors are on the board (both appearing suitable
for the CD audio cable) and because their labels aren't obvious, you
just have to guess. (Hint: They're labeled MPCAUDIO1.) We think
Hi-Val should have what many other products have--a hardware
installation card.
The various software installations went smoothly in our testing. Tests
with various programs--including Quake, configured for a
SoundBlaster--were all successful. We managed to find one
positional (3-D) sample, but be warned that the application must have
built-in support for 3-D; you don't get it just by installing this board.
Despite the SonicVibes' power for serious PC music, the PCI-128 is
intended for the low-end market. It has no on-board memory for
wavetable support, relying instead on PC memory. And although it
supports downloadable sounds (DLS), it does so only as far as
system memory allows. On our 16MB test system, we could not use
any DLS file bigger than 4MB, even though Hi-Val claims support for
15MB. If music is your aim, you might do best to wait for a more
expensive model with more memory, for use on a bigger PC. But if
your aim is to fill a PCI slot, Hi-Val can help.
Hi-Val PCI-128. Street price: $100. Requires: Pentium/166 or
faster, 16MB RAM, 20MB hard disk space, Windows 95 or Windows
NT 4.0, VGA video or better. Hi-Val Inc., Santa Ana, CA;
714-953-3000; www.hival.com. |
