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JohnM15141 · Apr 8, 2005, 09:58 PM

I've been playing Battlefield 1942 on my PowerMac a lot and I enjoy it. Recently I played a friends version on a PC and the sound quality was by far superior to my Mac. I could hear the creak of tank tracks and the stretching of metal while flying a plane. The sound was much more dynamic on the PC then on my Mac. Now I understand the PC was using a Sound Card that gave it Hardware 3D sound while my Mac creates Sounds through Software only. I have been given an Audio Revolution 7.1 Sound Card that is Mac Compatible. I've been hesitant to put it in my Mac because I heard the Sound Drivers aren't so good. But I'd risk it if it would give me that Gaming dynamic sound. Has anybody experienced putting a Sound Card in a Mac? Will this mean I'll have to stop using my USB SoundSticks or will the Sound Card still send sound through to USB output.

Maybe I should get a PC to play games like BF1942 cause they sound so much better, plus my BF1942 crashes every few minutes on my Mac, I haven't figured this out yet, I've got the latest version and I'm running Panther OS 10.3.8.

Advice, opinions, anyone?

Krypton · Apr 9, 2005, 03:02 PM

Check xlr8yourmac for reviews on that audio card - apparently it works very well, and you'll get increased fps due to reducing the load on the cpu.

clash · Apr 9, 2005, 04:34 PM

I have this card and absolutely love it, I have a 5.1 setup and it's awesome. I think you may need some sort of adapter to run a usb speaker set however.

a2daj · Apr 11, 2005, 02:46 AM

I've been using the Revolution 7.1 since they first came out. I haven't had any major problems but others have. The latest drivers seem fairly stable. There are a few issues with some games not working with the card, like Doom 3, but that's more than likely an app issue. Certain games, like UT2K4 and World of Warcraft support 5.1, but not a lot of others do.

The card does not offload audio processing. OS X just sees the card as an output device. The CPU still does all the sound processing. That's just how OS X works. The card will only work with either analog or digital (coax) speaker connections. You cannot use the card to output to USB speakers. They're seen as separate devices by the system.

The BF1942 crashes are a separate issue. It may be PunkBuster related.

JohnM15141 · Apr 11, 2005, 09:23 PM

Okay, I went ahead and installed the card and the latest drivers. I hooked up a set of ALTEC Lansing Multimedia 5Pc Gaming Speakers. But, the M-Audio has individual outputs for surround sound speakers and my speakers use a single minijack for plugging into a sound card, so I can only get the left and right channel to play. So far, it works but does not sound as good as my SoundSticks. Also, the sound is worse in BattleField 1942. I cannot select Hardware acceleration. I guess the game does not recognize that I have a sound card installed because that setting is greyed out.

I wonder if there is a way to let it know the sound is coming from a Sound Card instead of software conversion.

Also, just for fun I benchmarked my Mac using XBench 2.0 before and after the card was installed, unfortunately my overall performance dropped from 145 to 140.

Any ideas on what I can do to get the Sound Card to take the work of Audio instead of my CPU and will it help BF 1942 to recognize I have a Hardware SoundCard?

Leonard · Apr 12, 2005, 01:32 PM

Did you READ a2daj email. He answered most of your questions. A sound card on the Mac is NOT going to take the load off of the CPU as much as on a PC. This is just how Macs work. All that a sound card is gonna give you is 5.1 surround sound IF (and that's a BIG IF) the application or game supports it. You aren't gonna get much better sound. The applications that I know that support 5.1 surround sound are the DVD player, UT2003, UT2004, and the odd other game or two. Games must specifically be made with OpenAL to provide 5.1 surround sound. Most of the time you're just going to get 2.1 sound on all the speakers, the side and rear speakers will have the same output.

It also sounds like you don't have 5.1 surround sound speakers which is what is required for the Audio Revolution card (well you could go further to 7.1 speakers, but that's probably a waste). Each speaker should have a cable that goes into each port on the card. Sounds like you have 2.1 speakers, maybe.

As for recognizing the soundcard, this should be done in the Sound Control Panel in the Outputs section.

a2daj · Apr 12, 2005, 03:04 PM

A game doesn't have to use OpenAL to support 5.1. World of Warcraft uses straight CoreAudio code. Apple's implementation of OpenAL is just a layer on top of CoreAudio. The nice thing about OpenAL is that it would offer a more cross platform API for multichannel sound support.

My last and my current sets of speakers both had 3 analog plugs: front, rear, and center. My current set also has digital in. Which Altec Lansing speakers do you have, JohnM15141?

JohnM15141 · Apr 12, 2005, 08:19 PM

The speakers are the AVS500 4.1 Gaming Speakers but they only come with a single minijack for plugging into a sound card. The were advertised as 4.1 but I think they are just Stereo speakers that spread the sound through 4 speakers and a SubWoofer without really decoding as Surround Sound.

Originally posted by a2daj:
A game doesn't have to use OpenAL to support 5.1. World of Warcraft uses straight CoreAudio code. Apple's implementation of OpenAL is just a layer on top of CoreAudio. The nice thing about OpenAL is that it would offer a more cross platform API for multichannel sound support.

My last and my current sets of speakers both had 3 analog plugs: front, rear, and center. My current set also has digital in. Which Altec Lansing speakers do you have, JohnM15141?

JohnM15141 · Apr 12, 2005, 08:28 PM

I see the SoundCard under System Preferences and can select it as my output source and it does work. The Hardware Acceleration Box in BF1942 remains greyed out and cannot be selected. I figured having a SoundCard Installed and the Drivers running would mean that I have Hardware Sound. But I guess BF1942 does not recognize it. It is curious that this option box is in the game under Options so there must be someway to get it to work. I'm assuming that is what will provide me with the more detailed sound that I experienced playing the game on a PC.

Originally posted by Leonard:

As for recognizing the soundcard, this should be done in the Sound Control Panel in the Outputs section.

Leonard · Apr 13, 2005, 10:34 AM

The Sound Hardware Acceleration check box could be an option for PCs only and was just not taken out in the port. It's hard to say - I don't have the game, but I am planning on getting 5.1 surround speakers for my G5 that I'm gonna connect with the digital optical out.

a2daj · Apr 13, 2005, 11:16 AM

You'll find that many ports have those types of options still displayed in the GUI. A lot of the times it has to do with how the game checks for hacks in multiplayer, like various Quake 3 engine games. The Mac developers can't change the GUI because it might affect the CRC checks. BF 1942 may be in a similar situation where changing the GUI would affect some CRC checks.

Other games might have disabled options showing because there may be no way for the Mac developers to change the GUI as the necessary tools to do so may be proprietary and the PC folks may not want to provide the means necessary to do so.

JohnM15141 · Apr 13, 2005, 12:13 PM

I misunderstood this concept. I was reading a back issue of MacAddict that had an article on how to improve the performance of a G4 PowerMac. One of the suggestions was to add a SoundCard to offload audio processing from the CPU. I'll search for the issue and re-read it, but that is how I remember it.

Originally posted by a2daj:
The card does not offload audio processing. OS X just sees the card as an output device. The CPU still does all the sound processing. That's just how OS X works. The card will only work with either analog or digital (coax) speaker connections. You cannot use the card to output to USB speakers. They're seen as separate devices by the system.

The BF1942 crashes are a separate issue. It may be PunkBuster related.

anamexis · Apr 15, 2005, 10:08 PM

It is extremely important to note that you will not get true surround sound out of the analog outputs of the Revolution or Sonica Theater. Neither the sound card, DVD Player, or Core Audio have any Dolby or DTS decoders. This means that you cannot play DVDs in true surround if you hook this sound card up to speakers. The only thing you can do is stream the encoded audio through the digital out and then use either a speaker system with a hardware decoder or a home theater system.