3DsoundSurge Review: BestData's Theatrix

Theatrix.jpg (4647 bytes)

Important Info:

Sound Card By : BestData
Price : $70
API Support : DirectSound, DS3D, EAX 1.0 and A3D 1.0 (by translating to DS3D calls, works with most but not all titles)
S/N Ratio : > 95 dB

Minimum System Requirements:

Pentium 133MHz or above
Windows® 95/98, Windows NT 4.0 or MS DOS 6.0 or above
System Memory - 16MB or above (32MB for WaveTable software users)
One available PCI slot
CD-ROM or DVD-ROM
Speakers (Dolby® 5.1 compatible speaker system recommended)

Reviewers PC:

Mikael
- Win98
- Celeron 300a o/c 450
- 128MB PC100 ram
- Creative TNT
- 6.4 GB Quantum SE
- For four speaker testing purpose I hooked the card up to Videologic's Sirocco Crossfire speaker system using the analog inputs and later in testing I used Videologic's Digi Theatre speaker system for 6-speaker testing. For two speaker testing purposes I used the same speaker systems but only connecting to the front channels and for headphones testing I used a set of Sennheiser HD5570

Specifications

PCI 2.2 compliant, and PCI Bus Power Management rev. 2.1 compliant
18 bit AC-97 rev. 2.1 Codec with low floor noise(over SNR 95dB, and THD – 80)
Built-in SRC(Sampling Rate Converter) and digital mixer.
Dual game ports support MPU401(MIDI port)
Analog/Digital-Joystick interface
YAMAHA 128 Voice Software WaveTable
Q3D positional filter API: provides scalable audio for 3D games.
Connect 5 Speakers And A Subwoofer
Audio input/output : Mic-In, Line-In, CD-In, Video-In, Line-Out(stereo earphones), Front Speakers Out, Rear Speakers Out, Center Speaker, Sub-Woofer, and S/PDIF Out.

Compatibility

Microsoft Direct 3D Sound and MMsystem support, compatible with DirectX 6.0
Support AdLib Music Synthesizer, and real DOS Sound Blaster Pro
D3D, A3D, EAX and Native DOS game compatible

Update: We suggest you check out our FM801 reference review if you want to know how well the Theatrix performance with more recent drivers, games and software DVD players. Could also be worth noting that we got some reports that the Theatrix include a copy of WinDVD now unlike the card we got for review. However it's not mentioned on BestData's site so you better check this before you buy the card if it's important to you.

The last 18 months soundcards using the Vortex2 or the Emu10k1 (all Creative Labs Live cards) have garnered almost all the attention in the consumer market. Soundcards using other chips have to compete on price or offer some special feature that the Vortex2 or Emu10k1 lacks to create any interest. With the Theatrix 5.1, Best Data did both by offering 5.1 speaker support with a SRP of $70. The Theatrix 5.1 uses Fortemedia’s FM801 chip which features support for DS3D, A3D 1.0 and EAX 1.0 using QSound's Q3D 2.0 engine. It also features QSound’s stereo expansion technology, QXpander and 2D-3D. The killer feature as mentioned is of course the 5.1 speaker support which many have been waiting on to play DVD movies using 5.1 systems that are just Dolby Digital ready. That is they don’t include a Dolby Digital decoder. To be able to take advantage of the cards support for 5.1 output you also need to buy a software DVD player that supports the 5.1 mode of the Theatrix. In this review we will take a look at how Theatrix 5.1 performs for playing music, games and DVD movies. We will also compare it to true hardware DD 5.1 decoders and the 4-speaker down-mixing mode of the Live and Vortex2.