Game Theatre 64 (www.combatsim.com)

Game Theatre 64

GT64

Test System:

AMD K6 233 MHz, 1 meg of cache
64 meg of SDRAM
Seagate Cheetah 4 gig SCSI 3
STB Nitro 3d 4 meg
Orchid Righteous 3d
JAZZ 3d Speaker System front
Hitachi Speaker System rear
MAG DX17

After a recent wrestling match with the Creative Labs AWE 64, I began to wonder about sound board options. Having been in contact with Ubisoft with regard to their Game Theatre 64, I welcomed the chance to road test a sample.

The GT64 is aimed at the same market as the AWE 64 and the Diamond Monster Sound. However, the GT64 is not a PCI bus as is the Diamond. Rather, like the AWE 64 it shares the old 16 bit ISA bus. But though this sounds like a drawback, most users would never notice the difference, and the GT64 has the advantage of running in DOS, where the Diamond requires a second board alongside for DOS support.

As I implied above, the AWE 64 gave me some trouble during installation. The GT64 installed painlessly in WIN95. A separate install is required for DOS utilities, but the driver calls are added to your Autoexec file. In fact, the drivers initialize the board and then exit so no memory additional memory is required. The GT64 can also enable four speaker capability in MS DOS mode.

The board is Sound Blaster Pro compatible for DOS titles. I tested EF2000, Comanche 4 and Silent Hunter in DOS and each ran flawlessly. MIDI was easy to use and I preferred the sound to the AWE64. You can easily add echo, reverb or chorus effects and expand the sense of space in the sound. Quite a cool ability, but if you turn these effects too high you will add some noise. Incidentally, the GT64 does 64 voices IN HARDWARE, while the AWE64 uses Waveguide synthesis to produce the extra 32 voices. This means CPU strain that the GT64 avoids. If you want or need 64 voices, this is a nice feature, and with a RISC-based 50 MIPS digital signal processor you have a LOT of power here.

The GT64 comes with ready made setups for various titles, and with each selection you may choose 2D or 4D sound. If you only have two speakers don't worry, selecting two sound for a given game will give you simulted 3D sound from two speakers. The best option is two sets of speakers, however, and then you can choose four dimensional sound.

With four speakers connected, two in front and two behind me, I tried Comanche 3 F22 Lightning II and was amazed at the effect. I definitely prefer the 3d sound of this board to the 3d production in the AWE 64. Positional audio is definitely the wave of the future and Ubisoft is aiming at the right place at the right time. As far as I know, the GT 64 is the only board that allows you to directly connect two sets of speakers.

Naturally the board has a game port also, and I pulled out my gamecard to check it out. I tried EF2000 with my HOTAS plugged to the game port on the GT64 and it worked perfectly. I've also been running the Longbow 2 beta and F22: ADF. If you need to disable the game port you must run the DOS utility. By the way, this board also sports a daughter board interface so you can add a second board for MIDI if you like.

With 4 MB of Ram as standard equipment you can expand up to 20MB using standard SIMMs. Need even MORE voices (what are you vying for a spot as the local sound studio?), you can upgrade to 96 voices by adding a daughter board.

SUMMARY

Ubisoft has aimed at taking out Diamond and CL with this board, and I think they have done a pretty good job. Ease of installation, ease of use in DOS and WIN95, flexibility, expandibility, great sound, and special effects at the tip of your hat. Its great for games and great for MIDI. I'm really not sure what else one could ask for, except maybe a PCI slot. For about $149 US this is a solid value, but the new version, the Game Theatre 3d, has now been released for as low as $99 US.

As of January 25th DX5 drivers are now available. Check the WEB SITE for information. Ubisoft also has a new toll free support line: (888) 893-2648.

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