Montego A3Dxtreme

Last updated: February 12, 2001

Mark Muschett

First Impressions

Update : The lack of EAX support and only 8 3D Streams make this card a poor choice for anyone that cares about 3D sound in games.

Never judge a book by its cover but it does look nice. There’s also a sticker on the box indicating that a 14 level OEM version of Battlezone is in the box. That certainly got my attention and would do so even on the store shelf. Upon opening the box the first thing I noted was the size of the board. Vortex based cards are very small.  

Technical Overview

The Turtle Beach Montego A3DXstream accelerates DirectSound, DirectSound3D and A3D APIs, relieving the CPU of some of those duties. The muscle on the card is Aureal’s first silicon based venture into the gaming market (licensing of the A3D algorithms to Diamond, etc. was their first foray into sound card market) – the Vortex AU8820 chip.

The Montego A3DXstream sports a fantastic signal to noise ratio of better than 92dB and samples audio at up to 48 kHz and a total harmonic distortion of 0.005%.

For you MIDI fans out there the card offers up to 64 voice advanced wavetable synthesis (32 hardware + 32 hardware-accelerated software) with 4MB instrument samples stored in PC system RAM using dynamic caching to minimize RAM requirements for only the instruments being used. It also offers reverberation and chorus on the MIDI wavetable instruments.

If you don’t fancy the built in wavetable you can always connect your own as the A3DXstream has a WaveBlaster-compatible connection, and of course the card has a hardware-based MPU-401 MIDI UART-compatible MIDI interface through the joystick connector.

The joystick interface (aside from doubling as a MIDI interface) provides standard analog/digital joystick support. The digital joystick further accelerates gameplay by performing remote polling of the joystick position without CPU intervention.

The other interesting feature is the S/PDIF expander port, which accepts optional S/PDIF expander card for recording and playback of pure digital audio.

Bundle:

Aside from the aforementioned Battlezone OEM version, the Montego A3DXstream comes bundled with the following software.

Voyetra MIDI Orchestrator Plus (MIDI Sequencer) AudioStation 2 (CD, WAV, MIDI media controller) AudioView (Digital audio editor) MIDI Orchestrator (MIDI global parameter editor) Jam Grid (Interactive MIDI music maker) Music games Multimedia diagnostic programs Wide selection of sound files (WAV) and music files (MIDI) Drivers for Windows 3.1/95/NT4.0/NT5.0 and 98

Aside from the Battlezone demo (which featured enhanced 22 kHz 16-bit audio (instead of 11 kHz, 8-bit that the full version shipped with) the bundle really does not cater to gamers. However, to be fair, the utilities that ship with the card are quite well done.

Installation:

Bonus points to Turtle Beach for actually including a printed "Getting Started Guide." This is a nice change to the going trend of 100-percent electronic documentation. When I am installing hardware I usually only resort to a manual when I have an issue (not ahead of time) and at that stage often times I can’t get into the electronic files dues to whatever problems I am trying to solve. I proceeded to pop open my case and pull out Monster Sound XL that I had been using for the past few months. As is customary, I had already prepared for the installation by checking for and downloading the latest drivers. Note that in this case the only change I made was to the A3D driver updating it to 1.2.12. Don't use the Vortex reference drivers posted at Aureal’s Web site as Turtle Beach has customized the reference driver for the Montego.

The card installed flawlessly with one or two switches between my Windows 95 CD and the Montego CD. The provided CD connector (none came with my Monster Sound XL) was well designed to eliminate the guess work as to which way to turn it avoiding any chance of reversing channels coming from the CD player.

Next to test my gaming devices. My SpaceOrb was all messed up with the change in sound cards. The axes were completely crossed up. I am sure this is a software issue that can be pointed to Spacetec as it has happened with every sound card change I have gone through. FYI, the Spaceorb connects to a COM port but is selected through the gameport devices. A removal and reinstallation of the SpaceOrb software was all that was required to fix this problem. Next, I tested my Microsoft Sidewinder 3D Pro (a digital device) -which worked flawlessly in all games I tested it in. Unfortunately (at least for testing purposed) I don’t have access to a force feedback stick so I can’t offer test results in that area.

Configuration: 

Double clicking on the TB symbol on the task bar then on the left A3D button brings up the following screen.

I confirmed that the output was set to external speakers and I turned off the splash to avoid the issues with Unreal. I selected the helicopter demo that sets a circling helicopter into action. Letting the chopper rotate, I moved around the screen and stopped and listened. I have been a four speaker user for some time now, however, I found that the two speaker A3D support on the Montego is more effective than on the Monster Sound XL (two speaker mode). Changing to headphones in the setup and donning my trusty headgear lead to an even more immersive helicopter flyby.

The comparison between the Montego and Monster Sound for two-speaker/ headphone A3D support is subjective, but given that the Vortex chipset was developed by Aureal, as opposed to Diamond licensing and implementing A3D on a separate chipset, it stands to reason that the A3D on the Vortex chip may be slightly better than on the original Monster Sound. Also, because the Montego is a cleaner card in terms of THD and signal-to-noise, the sound will be crisper, and thus the illusion created by A3D is improved.

Before diving into the A3D titles that I have, I wanted to see how the Montego handles run-of-the-mill DirectSound. The card performed flawlessly in Quake 2, NHL ’98, Forsaken (which has A3D in the Demo but not the full version despite the fact it was advertised as supporting A3D – sorry I could not resist the dig), as well as demos of Barrage and Sin. All of these titles showcased the clean, full-range audio output of the Montego. It is possible that in some older DirectSound titles, there may be problems with the acceleration of DirectSound by the Vortex chipset. The drivers anticipate this need and allow users to simply turn off DirectSound acceleration as a work around (note that I did not experience this issue on the Montego, but had in the past seen it with the Monster Sound on Wing Commander Prophecy for which is currently no room on my cramped hard drive to reinstall to test).

My testing of A3D-enhanced games was done using the headphone settings. While I prefer to not use the headphone I find the "sweet spot" in two speaker A3D systems a little restrictive and recommend a good set of headphones to enhance your 3D audio investment. Next I installed the OEM version of Battlezone. This is a fantastic game and at the time the Montego was released, I don’t think they could have picked a more addictive game to showcase the powers of A3DXstream. The 22 kHz audio is noticeably cleaner than on the retail release of Battlezone and the A3D certainly adds to the overall experience. If you have an A3D system, or even if you don’t and have not invested in Battlezone, go get it!

Next in line was Unreal. I left the 3d channels in the advanced options of Unreal on 16 3D streams and never experienced a problem. Audio effects were consistently handled well by the A3DXstream. Again, no complaints here. Last on the A3D front I tested the demo of Incoming. Fantastic! Those jets and flying saucers we buzzing all around me and I could close my eyes and picture where they were.

In summary, the Montego A3DXsteam performed flawlessly in all my game tests.

Performance:

This card is a PCI slot sound card. PCI helps the sound card by improving data transfers, which are slower on ISA slots. Performance is great on this card. Picture playing multiple wave streams at once, meaning you can have an MP3 playing while you listen to wave files. You can listen to multiple wave files at once, without (there is a another application running) dialog boxes coming up every time you want to hear two waves at once (you know, one for each ear!) A good PCI card like the Montego A3DXstream will help you seek out a few more FPS. In a game that does not support A3D and in a game that does, PCI is the only way go. There are ISA cards out there with 3D audio but they simply don’t have the bandwidth to keep up.

MIDI: I’m mot a big MIDI guy so my test here is basic. There are three settings: 64-voice pro, 64-voice game and 32-voice pro. The 64-voice pro sounds excellent and definitely better than the Monster Sound XL, but is a resource hog ranging from 50-70-percent of system resources (baseline three-percent). 64-voice game is noticeably inferior to the pro for quality and uses between 30 and 47 percent of system resources. 32-voice pro I found to be the middle of the road in terms of quality and only used 22-27 percent of system resources.

There are also sliders for reverb and chorus effects.

Having given you all of these numbers I will tell you that given that most games are not using MIDI, the high system use on 64 voice pro is not a detriment to the card, as it will be used primarily to edit and listen to MIDI files, not play games.

Compatibility:

In Windows 95 this card offers full backward Sound Blaster compatibility both in a DOS box and in real mode. To me that’s just an added bonus for anyone who would be shopping for a card. Most of you at this point will have abandoned your DOS games, but then there is still Descent and Castle Wolfenstein! Bottom line is whatever your needs, there is no need to keep you ISA card around if you are running Win 95/98

Summary: 

As I write this review, Turtle Beach is selling the A3DXstream for $129.95. I find this price a little high, but street price is closer to the $90 to $100.00 range. At that price it is an excellent card for your money, far outstripping the features of cards with alternative chipsets to the Vortex in the same price range. I feel quite comfortable awarding this card the 3DsoundSurge *Surge Of Approval* and a numerical score of 8.5/10. If you are looking for a new sound card and four speakers are not in your plans, then definitely take a close look at the Turtle Beach Montego A3DXstream!

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Reviewed: August 8, 98

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