Got my new Philips Accoustic Edge up and running...

[Insane3D]

Well, let me first say this is a nice card and it is replacing my SB Live! Platnium 5.1. I am running Win2K and I had heard about problems with the Win2k drivers, so I was a little worried. It installed no problem at all, and it sounds great!! I just played some Alice with A3D 2.0 support even though the card only supports A3D 1.0, but it sounded great! The settings for the card need a little tweaking, as with anything else, to get the best performance, but all in all it seems very nice. I think the drivers may still need a little work, but I am sure Philips will be releasing some new ones soon, after all this is a brand new product. Nice connectivity too with the various outputs and connection methods...not as many as the SB Live Drive has, but I never used that thing anyway. The software is a bit lacking, but Power DVD 3.0 is included. My system specs are below if anyone is considering this card and has a similar set-up.

Abit KA7-100
Athlon "Classic" 850@1045 (9.5X105, 1.85v)
(2) IBM 75GXP 30gb (ATA100, RAID 0)
(1) IBM 75GXP 20gb (on Promise Ultra 100)
Radeon 32mb DDR (201/201)
Kenwood 72X, Pioneer 16X DVD (105S)
TDK VeloCD 12X10X32
Hollywood Plus Card w/remote
Kingston Nic, LS-120
Enermax 450W PS
Klipsch ProMedia 4.1

 

[Noriaki]

Hey you have an hollywood plus and Win2k...hmm do you have any sound system that will accept an SPDIF dolby digital input?

I want to get an Acoustic edge and hook up the Hollywood+ to the SPDIF input on the Acoustic edge and then hook up the SPDIF output to a reciever...

Win2000 won't allow a software DVD player to passthrough dolby digital sound, but I wonder if that would work....(that way I can have my soundcard and my hollywood plus hooked up to the same digital input becuase I'm looking at a pretty cheapo amp that only has one)

 

[Insane3D]

I haven't tried to do SPDIF connection because I run the line out (analog) connection from the H+ to the line in of the AE. When I output to my reciever, it is Dolby Prologic so I just use the line out connection. I can try and see if I connect the SPDIF connection to the AE if I still get sound in movies. I won't get a chance tonight cause I need to go to work soon, but I will and post the results.

 

[LXi]

The drivers need a lot of work, UT fps and Q3 fps lack significantly behind Santa Cruz and Live!, otherwise its an excellent card.

 

[yo2tup]

so what's the advantage of this card over sblive?

how's perform with music?
is the sound quality better over live!'s?

 

[Insane3D]

lxi:

Not sure about UT yet, but I have been playing Alice, which is a Q3 engine game I believe, and I have noticed no difference in fps as compared to the SB Live, plus I can play in A3D 2.0. The drivers seem to work fine, they just seem to need a little refining, but this is a completely new product for Philips and I think they did a nice job. This TBird DSP reproduces sound better than the SB Live! does in my opinion. My only complaint is lack of a good software bundle. Maybe this will force Creative to release a next generation card using some of Aureal's technology to compete. Until recently, there hasn't been much of a choice in a high-end soundcard, especially if you were using Win2k. It's nice to have some good competition again, and Creative can't just bully a larger company like Philips-Magnavox out of the competition like they did with Aureal. Should be good for us...

 

[Insane3D]

yo2tup:

In my opinion, it does reproduce sound better and more accurately than the Live does. This is just my opinion though...check out this review for a comparison of the two cards.

Gamer's Depot Review

 

[LXi]

Are you sure there is no difference in Quake3 engine based games?

Take a look at this, its about ~13% behind SB Live! and 10% slower than Santa Cruz in UT. 8-10% slower than SB Live! and 4-5% slower than Santa Cruz in Quake3. Yes they tested it with prereleased drivers, but its enough to tell Philips needs to work extra hard on the drivers. Everything else is very impressive.

 

[Insane3D]

lxi:

That test system is a Duron 600, I would imagine the extra 445mhz of speed I have over the Duron, and the much larger, albeit slower, L2 cache, might make up for any extra CPU usage. I have not done any testing myself, but I have not noticed any speed drop. I also am using Win2K and that bench system uses Win98SE....

 

[Insane3D]

^

 

[yo2tup]

i'm sold