View Full Version : HDA X-Mystique 7.1 Gold distributed by BlueGears
In keeping with the review crazed franzy at nV News, the latest review has been posted. This time it is the HDA X-Mystique 7.1 Gold distributed by BlueGears.
http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/x-mystique/images/bluegears1.jpg (http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/x-mystique/)
Dolby Digital Live is back. Please post any comments or questions...
Very nice review. I was thinking on getting the Audio Track Prodigy 7.1, but this seems to give more for about half the price. :) What's more it's digital capable right out of the box where I'd need to pick up some coaxial with the Podigy. Now I'm just hoping those driver bugs are sorted out, nice drivers are also important to me.
Keep up the good work with the reviews!
Marovincian
05-09-05, 01:51 PM
Does this card support DVD Audio? Many new audio cd's are now available as dual disks with a dvd side with 5.1 audio tracks now.
Does this card support DVD Audio? Many new audio cd's are now available as dual disks with a dvd side with 5.1 audio tracks now.
Yes, though I do not have a DVDA to test. I assume you just set your player to decode the channels or set to pass-through to the SPDIF out same as you would a movie.
iansilv
05-09-05, 04:52 PM
Will it encode/decode to 7.1 dolby digital ES? Just curious if it will encode to the extra two rear channels if a reciver (denon 3805) supports them :D
Will it encode/decode to 7.1 dolby digital ES? Just curious if it will encode to the extra two rear channels if a reciver (denon 3805) supports them :D
According to Dolby Labs, DDL is limited to 5.1.
You can use the discrete ouputs to 7 channel input or allow the receiver to to upconvert.
Nicely done as usual Brian. :thumbsup:
It would be nice if you could benchmark the sound card with 3DMark2003 and Ziff Davis WinAudio Bench. Both of these are pretty good for benching CPU utilization even though you have put a couple of games in the review.
It would be nice if you could benchmark the sound card with 3DMark2003 and Ziff Davis WinAudio Bench. Both of these are pretty good for benching CPU utilization even though you have put a couple of games in the review.
A forum member with the card tried running the Futuremark apps, but they did not recognize the X-Mystique. I may look at the Ziff-Davis Bench, but I dread synthetics, heh.
A forum member with the card tried running the Futuremark apps, but they did not recognize the X-Mystique. I may look at the Ziff-Davis Bench, but I dread synthetics, heh.
Okay, thanks. That doesn't say a lot for the drivers or so called hardware acceleration.
Okay, thanks. That doesn't say a lot for the drivers or so called hardware acceleration.
It is a Futuremark issue. I would assume it means that the benchmarks are code specific for each sound card to optimize, but the C-Media chip is not included. I will check it tonight.
It is a Futuremark issue. I would assume it means that the benchmarks are code specific for each sound card to optimize, but the C-Media chip is not included. I will check it tonight.
Okay, if you say so. I am always concerned about driver quality. That's the reason I strongly discourage purchasing Creative Labs products at any opportunity having owned several in the past. It's also the reason I'm interested in alternative sound sources.
Okay, if you say so. I am always concerned about driver quality. That's the reason I strongly discourage purchasing Creative Labs products at any opportunity having owned several in the past. It's also the reason I'm interested in alternative sound sources.
I'm with ya. I noted the driver bugs I found in the review and brought them up with the distributor specifically because I know there are so many users like you that just don't like Creative and their "support". I didn't want anyone to come away with the impression that this card is a silver bullet, but it has delivered on the main marketing point of delivering DDL in hardware.
Again, I'll try running the ZD Bench and report back. I know that Veger reported some favorable CPU usage reports vs. the Audigy 2ZS in this post using a different benchmark; http://www.nvnews.net/vbulletin/showpost.php?p=576381&postcount=12
Thanks for your questions, etc... :thumbsup:
Quick Follow-up The Audio Winbench did not recognize the card in system configuration and returned scores of 10% in every test, very odd. Can't say I trust it.
However, when using the Darwinia Demo, I switched back and forth between 3D Hardware enabled and disabled with maximum sound quality and effect settings. The Demo reports Sound CPU load as 8-10% (I even saw one wierd spike to 47%!) when disabled and immediately dropped to 2% when enabled, and started fluctuating between 1% and 2% no matter the amount of activity. This corroborates Veger's numbers. Moreover, I noticed an improvement in channel seperation.
I'll continue to update this thread.
One more quick note, I did receive word that the Windows 64-bit driver is being tested as we speak with a niddle of the month estimated release and a new 32-bit driver will be released "shortly".
seeker010
05-11-05, 01:56 AM
what about audio rightmark?
also DVD-A cannot be support through SPDIF, and I don't think any player exists capable of decoding MLP in its full glory on anything other than an Audigy2 series and up.
Thanks for the updates Brian. I'm still missing my old Sound Storm... it was so fast, so stable, and it came with a free motherboard.
Thanks for the updates Brian. I'm still missing my old Sound Storm... it was so fast, so stable, and it came with a free motherboard.
I hear ya...
what about audio rightmark?
also DVD-A cannot be support through SPDIF, and I don't think any player exists capable of decoding MLP in its full glory on anything other than an Audigy2 series and up.
Would you mind giving further detail about why a sound card would not allow a decoder program to pull a DVD-A stream from a disc?
I ahve read theough some of the specs of DVD-A and from what I understand, the content is packaged in a surround mode or the player chooses a PCM Audio source in stereo. If you have pass-through capability, which this card does, the DVD-A audio stream should be ported untouched thorugh to SPDIF to allow the speaker system to decode either a DD stream or the PCM Audio, right?
I don't ahve a DVD-A disc to test at present. I may go get one though to leard more about the format. Radiohead's OK Computer is available on DVD-A IIRC, and that is number two on my Desert Island Disc list...
cantrellg
05-11-05, 03:45 PM
Are you able to record AC3 from the digital input and still have sound processing available to other applications concurrently with this card ? I currently have a TBS Catalina sound card and it disables all other features when digital input is enabled. This makes it impossible to record thru my PVR card (Hauppage PVR-250) because no decoding is being done for the line-in (stereo/wave). I also wish to capture the DD 5.1 audio from the optical out from my Set-top cable box. If a show is broadcast only once I can't have original DD audio. If more than once I have to record the show one time to get video w/stereo only mp2 and then again (could be days later) capture AC3 using Sound Forge, save as .raw, run Besplit with ddwav -fix options to get AC3 file. Then I have to sync a/v. This would be the card for me if it has this capability.
Are you able to record AC3 from the digital input and still have sound processing available to other applications concurrently with this card ? I currently have a TBS Catalina sound card and it disables all other features when digital input is enabled. This makes it impossible to record thru my PVR card (Hauppage PVR-250) because no decoding is being done for the line-in (stereo/wave). I also wish to capture the DD 5.1 audio from the optical out from my Set-top cable box. If a show is broadcast only once I can't have original DD audio. If more than once I have to record the show one time to get video w/stereo only mp2 and then again (could be days later) capture AC3 using Sound Forge, save as .raw, run Besplit with ddwav -fix options to get AC3 file. Then I have to sync a/v. This would be the card for me if it has this capability.
Wow, good question.
I'll run it past the BlueGears guys, I think you would need the I/O board to get it to work.
cantrellg
05-11-05, 06:35 PM
My cable box is a Scientific Atlanta 3250-HD which features both
optical and coaxial digital output. If the base card has coaxial in, then maybe I don't need the add-on card, although you never know what else I may want to attach in the future...
H-street
05-12-05, 08:52 PM
just an FYI..
i got this card today (5/12) and it appears the control panel bug is still present.. (driver version 5.12.01.0043)..
other than that i love the DDL and am ready to ditch this audigy 2..
so far i haven't had any problems in any game i've played (moboard is an A8N-SLI)
On a driver related note, there is a 64-bit version beta available here (http://www.hidiaudio.com/download/index.html).
As soon as the new 32-bit driver hits, I will test to see of the current bugs have been fixed and update the review.
Glad you like the card. Doom3 sounds better than ever!!!
H-street
05-13-05, 12:25 AM
Brian i hope you don't mind me posting this in your thread..
i posted these over on the Hardforums too..
I ran some benchmarks using TRAOD v49
First set is at 640x480@16bpp PS off
NoSound:333fps
Mystique
DDLoff: 177fps
DDLon: 166fps
OnboardNVaudio@2.1: 171fps
OnboardNVaudio@5.1: 167fps
Audigy2
EAX2: 195fps
EAX4: 192fps
Next Set is 1280x1024@32bpp PS2.0 defaults
NoSound: 146fps
Mystique
DDLon: 107fps
Onboard@5.1: 109fps
Audigy2
EAX2: 128fps
and finally 1280x1024@32bpp PS2.0 and 8XS AA/16AF/HQ (16XAA failed to run)
NoSound: 106fps
Mystique
DDLon: 100fps
OnboardNV@5.1: 101fps
Audigy2
EAX2: 105fps
From these results it is clear that DDL comes at a price, The Audigy2 is clearly the performance leader, which is no suprise since the Audigy2 was made by those that made EAX (Creative).. but on the other hand, the feature that you gain from the DDL IMHO is worth it..
i think too many times we get sucked into performance numbers and not enough into the sound quality (lets face it, PC sound innovations are sevierly lagging behind the rest of the PC tech)..
just some info about my system
evga 6800GT SLI @ stock speeds
AMD64 3500+
A8N-SLI
1.4Gb DDR400
all 3 sound cards + latest drivers are running along side each other, for this test i didn't remove cards... performance may increase with only 1 soundcard installed (although i don't really see it changing that much)..
Brian i hope you don't mind me posting this in your thread..
i posted these over on the Hardforums too..
I am not sure if the test with all both card installed is valid. We have already seen another forum member that had issues with leftover Creative drivers causing problems with the X-Mystique.
That is not to say that the Creative is probably still the fastest, but DDL is done in hardware and once the card is running in 5.1 mode, the DDL causes no noticable hit in performance unless you run in ultra low res. I mentioned in the review that there is a performance difference and that there is some low-level work being done. However, DDL does not incur the 15% penalty of the software encoders.
Run DriverCleaner and rerun the X-Mystique benchmarks. I wonder if that would change things at all.
Thanks.
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