Performance

From a features perspective, the Muse 5.1 DVD offers only 16 hardware accelerated streams while the DigiFire and Fortisimo III offer 32 hardware accelerated streams. In addition, the acceleration features on the Muse 5.1 appear to be far poorer than that of the DigiFire. Our test platform of a Duron 950MHz was used to maximize the differences between these cards

DirectSound 2D

	Muse 5.1 DVD in 5.1 channel mode	DigiFire/Fortisimo III in 2 channel Sensaura HRTF mode	DigiFire 7.1/Fortissimo III in 8 channel mode	nForce2 MCP SoundStorm with 2 channel Sensaura HRTF mode	nForce2 MCP SoundStorm in 6 channel AC-3 mode
Static 22kHz, 8-bit, 8 voices	6.95	1.45	0.965	2.11	0.958
Streaming 22kHz, 8-bit, 32 voices	13.2	3.77	4.87	4.21	5.08
Static 22kHz, 8-bit, 8 voices	6.75	1.33	1.06	2.83	1.01
Streaming 22kHz, 8-bit, 32 voices	13.4	4.12	5.11	5.62	4.33
Static 44.1kHz, 16-bit, 8 voices	7.14	2.72	2.05	2.85	0.954
Streaming 44.1kHz, 16-bit, 32 voices	15.9	5.88	5.87	5.01	5.34
Static 44.1kHz, 16-bit, 8 voices	6.31	1.57	1.69	2.35	0.936
Streaming 44.1kHz, 16-bit, 32 voices	15.3	4.74	5.33	4.97	5.8

DirectSound 3D

	Muse 5.1 DVD in 5.1 channel mode	DigiFire/Fortisimo III in 2 channel Sensaura HRTF mode	DigiFire 7.1/Fortissimo III in 8 channel mode	nForce2 MCP SoundStorm with 2 channel Sensaura HRTF mode	nForce2 MCP SoundStorm in 6 channel AC-3 mode
Static 22kHz, 8-bit, 8 voices	9.45	4.9	6.3	3.29	3.09
Streaming 22kHz, 8-bit, 32 voices	17.4	13.8	12.4	6.64	5.34
Static 22kHz, 8-bit, 8 voices	9.46	4.58	6.11	3.21	2.98
Streaming 22kHz, 8-bit, 32 voices	17.4	14.9	12.3	6.99	5.2
Static 44.1kHz, 16-bit, 8 voices	9.86	5.12	5.23	3.39	2.28
Streaming 44.1kHz, 16-bit, 32 voices	20.7	15.4	13.9	7.31	6.27
Static 44.1kHz, 16-bit, 8 voices	14.4	5.66	5.0	3.72	3.22
Streaming 44.1kHz, 16-bit, 32 voices	21.5	15.5	14.4	7.31	6.25

By selecting the maximum speaker configuration for each system on the DigiFire and nForce2, the Sensaura MultiDrive algorithms are mixed with proprietary spatialization algorithms. This is done because 1) Sensaura has not developed the math for 5-channel spatialization and 2) as you increase the number of physical speakers, the importance of HRTFs decline slightly. Interestingly, while the 2D performance of the Hercules sound cards is slightly better than NVIDIA’s, the 3D performance isn’t as capable. It's unclear if Hercules will provide support for Sensaura 5.1 in future drivers -- it has been in the Analog Devices SoundMAX for over a year now

The Muse 5.1 DVD offers poor performance across the board in comparison to modern sound cards. It is worth mentioning, however, that this performance on the Duron 950 is actually better than what the Sound Blaster Live! originally had in Windows 2000 with their LiveWare 3 drivers. The DigiFire/Fortissimo III line offers good 2D hardware mixing performance but falters when it comes to 3D performance and offers poorer numbers than the Game Theater XP. If you’re not gaming though, it’s not a problem.