Review: Diamond Monster Sound MX400
Review date: 17 March 2000.Last modified
03-Dec-2011.
Bigger is not always better. Take boils, for
example. Or asteroids that cross our orbit. But when it comes to computer
gadgetry, you can generally trust that the UltraZoot 4000 will be better
than the old UltraZoot 2000. It seems pretty obvious, right?
Well, here’s
the darn Diamond Monster Sound MX400 to upset the applecart. Like Diamond’s
rather older MX300 (which I review here), the MX400
is a high end sound card with positional audio support, four speaker output,
ultra low noise and a decent software bundle. But it’s not really a better
board. Newer, yes. Cheaper, even — it sells for $AU179 for the full retail
boxed version. But better…
Well, perhaps.
In basic specification, the MX400 is similar to the MX300, with one significant
addition — an RCA S/PDIF output, that lets you output
full Dolby AC-3 surround sound to a compatible decoder,
like the ones in home theatre amplifiers, when you’re playing a DVD on your
computer. Cards this cheap don’t normally have this feature, and all by
itself it makes the MX400 highly interesting for home theatre enthusiasts.
The connector’s not much use for anything but Dolby Digital audio output
to a compatible decoder, though; as is usual with PC sound cards, it’s just
an output, not an input.
Apart from the S/PDIF, the MX400 has the same basic connectors as the
MX300 — front and rear stereo 1/8th inch speaker connector sockets, a single
stereo line in, a single microphone in, and a joystick port that doubles
as an MPU-401 MIDI interface connector,
with an optional adaptor cable. The MX400 it does the same basic thing as
the MX300. And its main market is the same — game players.
Game support
The question for avid gamers is simple — can I get 3D sound with Game
X?
And the answer, these days, is a resounding «maybe». It all depends on
what your sound card can do, and what your game wants.
The old MX300 uses Aureal’s Vortex 2 chipset, which is still right up
there with the best of them. Aureal’s standard reference drivers work fine
with the MX300, so it’s now just as good as any newer Vortex 2 board, and
supports all of the popular 3D sound Application Programming Interfaces
(APIs).
Sound APIs work the same way as 3D graphics APIs like Direct3D and OpenGL
and Glide; they’re systems programmers can use to do a complicated job without
having to write all of the complicated code themselves. When a sound card’s
driver supports a given API, any software that uses that API will work with
the sound card.
Both Aureal and Sensaura use HRTF with crosstalk
cancellation when you set the output mode to two or four speakers,
as opposed to headphones. Crosstalk cancellation tries to stop sound
that’s meant for one ear being heard by the other, and is necessarily
imperfect; headphones are still, really, the way to go for really
sharp 3D localisation.
The MX400 uses the newer ESS Canyon3D chipset, which employs Sensaura’s
3D sound technology. Sensaura have their own 3D sound technology, like Aureal,
but they split it up into little bits with different names.
Sensaura’s «Virtual Ear» technology, for instance, lets you tweak the
system’s HRTFs to more accurately match your ears and playback system. «EnvironmentFX»
is a canned reverb system; it’s basically just what Sensaura calls their
support for the EAX, EAX 2.0 and Interactive 3D Audio Rendering Guidelines
Level 2.0 (I3DL2) APIs.
I3DL2, by the way, is yet another reverb API. It comes from the Interactive
Audio Special Interest Group (IA-SIG),
which includes Aureal, Creative Labs and Sensaura. ID3L2 builds on EAX 2.0,
and is as yet not at all popular — but Microsoft will include support for
it in DirectX 8, which ought to kick-start the standard.
Back in the snappy name department, Sensaura’s «MacroFX» handles sounds
meant to be very close to the listener, and «ZoomFX» makes large sound emitting
objects, like trains, sound right.
Without a system like this, they’re just
point sources or clusters of sounds.
«MultiDrive» is Sensaura’s multi-speaker technology, and they claim it
«seamlessly integrates front and rear sound hemispheres».
This is one area where the Sensaura chipset has an advantage over the
Vortex 2. The Aureal cards only apply their HRTF magic to the front speakers,
and use plain old stereo panning for the rears. The various Sound Blaster
Live! cards originally did four speaker mode the same way, but since the
2.0 version of the Live!Ware software they’ve supported proper four speaker
HRTF sound too.
In practice, the stereo-panned-rear system actually works perfectly well
most of the time — there’s an occasional obvious transition when a sound
source moves from one pair of speakers to the other, but it’s seldom very
noticeable. The Canyon3D solution, though, has no such glitches — at the
price of using up more 3D sound channels.
Fortunately, the Canyon3D has plenty of hardware 3D channels to spare.
48, in fact, with the Diamond drivers. The Canyon3D is one of the more powerful
pieces of Sensaura hardware.
One sound channel gets used for every sound that needs to be played simultaneously
— but those sounds can be coming out of as many of the card’s output channels
as you like. It doesn’t matter how many speakers are playing the noise of
that game object that’s whizzing round and round you; it still only uses
one channel.
When sound cards run out of hardware 3D channels they can do one of three
things. They can do the 3D processing in software, but that causes a
big performance hit. If it didn’t, there’d be no reason to bother with
all of this 3D sound hardware.
Alternatively, they can just deliver extra sounds in ordinary stereo,
with no fancy 3D effects. Which can sound quite weird. Or they can drop
the extra sounds on the floor and not play them at all.
Obviously, it’s really nice to have lots of hardware channels.
The Vortex 2 chipset has only 16 hardware 3D streams, but it’s got another
60 channels for wall reflections in A3D 2.0 and above. If you’re not using
the fancy A3D 2.0+ wavetracing, the current Aureal drivers make the 60 extra
channels available for ordinary audio streams, and this puts the Vortex
2 well ahead of the Canyon3D.
Marketroidese…
The carving up of Sensaura’s 3D positional audio technology into lots
of separate things is, essentially, just marketing-speak; if you can’t get
enough of it, check out Sensaura’s page
here.
What it boils down to is that Sensaura have themselves a 3D sound system
that’s ahead of the rest in a couple of departments and not far behind in
others; this is not a low-end 3D sound solution, although some other Sensaura
cards certainly are.
On top of their own stuff, Sensaura systems also support the other «open»
3D sound APIs that anybody can use — Microsoft’s DirectSound 3D, Creative’s
open-standard EAX and EAX 2.
0 and, as mentioned above, I3DL2.
Most of the special Sensaura stuff is, actually, incorporated as transparent
extensions to DirectSound 3D. This means that anything that uses DS3D will
automatically produce better results on a Sensaura card. You don’t have
to wait for game support; it’s there right now. The MacroFX close-sound
improvements will work whenever a game puts a sound close enough to the
player, for instance. The ZoomFX extension has to be specifically supported
by the game, though.
The Aureal alternative
With a Vortex 2 board like the old MX300 and the current (version 2.048)
Aureal drivers, you get support for all of the non-Sensaura stuff the MX400
can handle, plus Aureal’s A3D 2.0 and 3.0. Which pretty much covers every
3D API used in any game today.
The latest SQ2500 Vortex 2 cards (I review one
here) from Aureal themselves have a slightly
updated version of the chipset with marginally higher performance,
but the difference is negligible.
Vortex 2 is Vortex 2, as long
as the manufacturer doesn’t mess about with the reference board
design, as for example Turtle Beach did with their Montego 2 Quadzilla
(reviewed here).
The biggest deal about these 2.048 Vortex 2 drivers, and a big selling
point for Vortex 2 boards against other cards like the MX400, is that the
new drivers include support for the new A3D 3.0.
This explains why it took the drivers so very long to arrive — they were
originally billed as just adding EAX support, which wasn’t such a big deal.
Enthusiasts were irked and puzzled by the late delivery of the new software.
But the A3D 3.0 update includes considerably more features than the fans
were expecting.
The original A3D 1.0 is just positional audio, with no environmental
frills. It can easily be emulated by other cards, including the MX400, by
turning A3D calls into DirectSound 3D ones.
A3D 2.
0 added occlusions and reflections, from accurately geometrically
rendered surfaces, and also had environmental sound modification. This lets
A3D 2.0 supporting games properly change sounds when you’re meant to be
underwater, for instance.
A3D 2.0 also added «A2D», the software-only reduced version of A3D 2.0
that works on any old sound card, but at the cost of a big fat performance
hit. You can use A2D with the MX400 and get results no worse than those
from any other sound card, because all of the work’s being done by the CPU.
A3D 3.0 adds volumetric sound sources, which work like Sensaura’s ZoomFX;
you can have a great big crowd or babbling brook or train that emits a sound
from its entire volume, not just from particular points.
A3D 3.0 also lets games play MPEG 1 Layer 3 (MP3) compressed sounds as
positional audio sources, as well as supporting the usual uncompressed sound
formats. This isn’t necessarily a great idea on slower computers using current
sound cards, without hardware MP3 decoding.
But recent machines can take
MP3 decoding in stride, even in games, quite comfortably. And the super
compression offered by MP3 means something like ten times as much sound
can be packed into a given amount of disk space.
The EAX reverb support in A3D 3.0 is actually a fall-back setting, for
games that specifically want to use EAX or don’t work with A3D 3.0’s own
geometric reverb system. The A3D 3.0 reverb seamlessly falls back to I3DL2
or EAX reverb when it’s not supported.
There’s also support for streaming audio — audio that plays as it’s delivered,
rather than making the user wait for a whole file to download — built right
into the drivers.
Setting up
Installing the MX400 is no harder than installing any other PCI sound
card — pop case, turf out old sound card, insert and screw in new one, close
case, reboot, let Win95/98 detect the new card.
If you’re not running Windows 95 or 98, though, you’re pretty much out
of luck.
There are Windows NT drivers, which have no positional audio support
because Windows NT doesn’t dig DirectSound 3D. It is, apparently, possible
to get the MX400 working in Linux, again without positional audio support.
There’s no Windows 2000 driver yet, and users of more esoteric operating
systems can go whistle.
The default driver install doesn’t saddle you with any particularly weird
programs; the «InControl Audio Tools» MX400 control panel is simple and
straightforward. The only thing that’s missing is a tweaker for the «Virtual
Ear» feature; until the drivers support this, or a stand-alone utility is
released, Sensaura’s HRTF tweaking feature isn’t available.
The bundled drivers, which are also the most current ones as I write
this (check
here to see if they still are), also include DOS game sound support,
via the usual Sound Blaster Pro emulation.
Early drivers for the Canyon3D were crummy, and led people to lump it
in with other, cheaper Sensaura technology products, as no match for the
Vortex 2 or Sound Blaster Live! Diamond’s drivers, though, cure all of the
performance and channel number problems, and make the chipset a real contender.
There are two internal MPC2 standard connectors on
the card, one for CD audio and one for an internal modem sound connector,
with the usual single cable for the CD hookup.
There’s also a header that lets you send PC speaker sound output out
through the MX400’s jacks, if you want, and the usual four pin «legacy»
connector that you can hook up to elderly TX chipset motherboards to help
with DOS games that don’t understand PCI sound cards.
The header on the back of the MX300 is for the upcoming Rio PC hardware
MP3 encoder/decoder board. With this card added, the MX300 will be able
to encode MP3 data rather faster than even a high-end PC can with a software
encoder. This may be quite handy for people in the business of making
MP3s, as the Rio PC is likely to be a lot cheaper than previous hardware
encoders.
For home users, the Rio PC won’t make much difference; even a modest
Celeron box should be able to encode tracks in less time than it takes to
play them, and many low-cost CD-ROM drives don’t do great audio reading
at speeds above 1X or 2X, anyway.
The Rio PC will apparently also include an FM radio tuner. This revolutionary,
clamoured-for feature will no doubt make it a record-breaking bestseller.
Software bundle
You get a couple of extra discs along with the MX400’s main software
CD. One’s the standard bundle disc, with a decent seven level demo of the
giant-robot shooter Slave Zero, and the «NetActive» demo version of the
smash-up driving game Demolition Racer.
In a new twist for crummy cut-down demo software, the NetActive game
will only let you play for one hour, and then only if you’ve got an Internet
connection active. If you like it, you can buy it for $US14.95 over the
Web and unlock it for full play, or pay less to rent it for a bit longer.
It wouldn’t have hurt if the people who wrote Diamond’s back-of-box copy
had given some hint that this was the case, though; Joe Average would be
likely to think that «NetActive» indicated a better version of the
game, not a heavily limited demo.
You also get Mixman Studio FX, which lets you do your own MP3 mixes.
There’s a selection of sound player programs as well, and Diamond’s RioPort
Audio Manager, a perfectly good MP3 encoder, player and organiser.
There’s Yamaha Soft Synthesiser, which uses CPU grunt to imitate a quite
capable MIDI module for high quality music playback. Soft Synthesiser sounds
noticeably better than the MX400’s standard on-board MIDI, which is OK but
not quite up to the standards set by the Sound Blaster Live!
More significantly, you get the full version of Zoran’s simple but popular
SoftDVD DVD playback package — an excellent pack-in for home theatre buffs.
One thing to remember about S/PDIF equipped cards like the MX400 is that
your DVD playback software must support your particular sound card — or,
at least, the chipset your card uses, if it’s a standard model card. SoftDVD
supports the Canyon3D, so all is well if you want S/PDIF output and you’re
happy to use the bundled software.
If you want to switch to a different
DVD playing package, though, check to make sure it supports the card you
intend to use.
Actually, SoftDVD is very well suited to the MX400; it not only handles
downmixing of 5.1 channel sound to the four
outputs of the MX400 (if you’re not using the S/PDIF output), but it can
even use HRTF manipulation to give you ersatz surround from only two speakers.
There’s also Soft Karaoke Lite, which allows you to commit crimes against
music in the privacy of your own home.
And that’s not the end of it. There’s another disc, too, which isn’t
even mentioned on the back of the box. It’s Infogrames’ «Family Spectacular»,
which contains superannuated platform game for kids Super Busby, not very
new race game V-Rally, and trial versions of golf game Jack Nicklaus 5,
baseball game HardBall 6 2000 Edition and not-very-realistic driving game
Test Drive 5. And there are 10 video golf lessons from Jack Nicklaus in
MPEG-2 video format.
How do they fit all of that on? By making it a DVD disc, that’s how.
Without a DVD drive, you can’t even read it — but don’t get too bothered,
because everything except V-Rally and Super Busby is just demos unless you,
again, choose to exercise your credit card on the Internet and pay to unlock
the full versions of the trial games, which are on the disc but unusable
until you pay for a key-code.
Given that freebie pack-ins are often pure rubbish, all of this stuff
together is actually pretty good.
Performance
If you’ve got a slow computer, positional audio will make it somewhat
slower. A3D’s super-fancy tricks have a significant effect on game frame
rates on even fire-breathing machines, but you’re not going to be doing
things that complex with the MX400, because it can only emulate A3D 1.0.
You can do sorta-kinda A3D 2.0 via the A2D emulation drivers, but the performance
loss is quite drastic.
When it’s just doing DirectSound 3D and EAX work, the MX400 chugs along
very pleasingly, slowing down most systems by only a few per cent. You’ll
get less slowdown if you use a Sound Blaster Live!, but the difference isn’t
big.
If you switch to the MX400 from an ISA sound card, you’ll gain a little
bit of performance anyway since there’s less CPU overhead from sound cards
on the newer system bus; in any case, the difference is likely to be impossible
to notice.
Overall
A clear successor to the MX300 this card is not. But neither is it a
poor choice; Sensaura technology with Diamond’s drivers is definitely ready
for prime time, the four speaker output sounds great, the S/PDIF connector
is a nice touch for those that want it, and the price is right.
If you’ve got to have the latest A3D capabilities, then you want a Vortex
2 card. But then again, EAX 2.0 sounds pretty darn good compared with A3D
2 or 3, as long as the game programmers have their act together — the EAX
effects settings have to be intelligently chosen and change in the right
places.
Programmer input makes all the difference for A3D 2 and 3, too; either
system can sound weird if it’s not told what to do properly.
Using EAX 2.0 and DirectSound with the MX400, especially with four speaker
output, gives a result that’s arguably better than Vortex 2 performance,
especially when there’s lots going on. The proper all-around HRTF output
and greater number of hardware 3D sound channels makes a difference.
It’s certainly not a night-and-day difference, though. Owners of a card
based on one chipset needn’t rush out to audition a card based on the other.
But the Canyon3D, with its current drivers, is still a real contender.
Of course, it’s only a contender if you’re playing a game that supports
DirectSound 3D and its various extensions. If your game works with A3D 2.0+
— this is the case with Quake 3, for instance — then it should fall back
to DirectSound 3D when you don’t have A3D hardware available; you lose the
fancy A3D extras, but you still get positional sound. A2D isn’t really an
option unless you’ve got a CPU From Hell.
Most positional audio games work fine with DirectSound 3D, though; you’re
not really going to miss out on too much if you don’t have a Vortex board.
Check which games you like use which API, and you’ll probably find an MX400
will suit you just fine. For the money, it’s a great bit of gear.
Pros:
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Cons:
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MONSTER MX400 USER MANUAL Pdf Download
Table Of Contents
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Contents
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Table of Contents
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Troubleshooting
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Bookmarks
Advertisement
Table of Contents
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Table of Contents
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1 Introduction
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About Monster Sound MX400
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MX400 Features
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About ESS Canyon3D
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2 I Nstalling Themonstersoundmx400
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Monster Sound Mx400
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General System Requirements
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Hardware Installation
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Software Installation
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Installing Software Extras
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3 Sensaura Technology
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Sensaura Technology Overview
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4 Configuring Your
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Hardware
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Software
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5 Soft DVD
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Introducing Softdvd
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Softdvd Features
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6 Troubleshooting and Generalq & a
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Drivers
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Update Wizard
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S3/Diamond
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C Specifications
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Minimum System Requirements
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Hardware Specifications
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Lossary of
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Monster Sound MX400 Glossary
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Arranty and Certification Information
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M
S
MX400
ONSTER
OUND
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‘
G
SER
S
UIDE
S3/Diamond Multimedia Systems, Inc.
Corporate Headquarters:
2801 Mission College Blvd.
Santa Clara, CA 95052-8058 USA
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Review and tests of the gaming monster of 2008 — Toshiba Qosmio X300-13P
This material was written by a site visitor and rewarded for it.
Hello friends. Today I got a Toshiba Qosmio X300-13P laptop for review and tests. This is a gaming device from the top Qosmio line. More powerful than this laptop then was the same unit, but with two video cards, and not with one like this one, and with a quad-core processor, and not with a dual-core one like this one. The rest is all the same. Specifically, this laptop was slightly upgraded — a second 4 GB DDR3 memory bar was added and a second 480 GB SSD for the system. nine0004
recommendations
Outwardly, the laptop looks bright, these days there are no such red laptops. Surfaces are all glossy, except for the pallet. Glossy red lid, glossy screen, glossy keyboard. The multimedia remote is hidden in the ExpressCard slot.
There is no keyboard backlight, which is a minus by modern standards. But there is a red backlight on the power button, a group of additional touch keys above the keyboard. In the upper right and left corners, three diodes each glow red. And a red stripe glows above the touchpad. nine0004
Harman/kardon speakers are responsible for the sound, as evidenced by the inscription on the upper right speaker. In total, 4 speakers are scattered in the corners of the case from the keyboard side. Below are three more bass speakers.
The case is very thick, 43 mm in front and 62 in the back. Inside, you can install two drives 2.5 «, they are located one above the other. There are 2 DDR3 memory slots. The maximum supported is 8 GB. There is also a drive for optical discs, it is located in an unusual way — it goes straight to the user. On the right there is a wheel that controls the volume. This is rare even now, and it is very convenient. nine0004
TOSHIBA MK3276GSX Disk Drive (320GB, 5400 RPM, SATA-II)
Optical Drive HL-DT-ST DVDRAM GSA-T50N
Intel(R) WiFi Link 5100 ABG
– Windows 7 32 bit installed on native HDD and Windows 11 Pro 64 bit installed on SSD. In most tests, Windows 7 performed better on the same hardware. But the results of Windows 11 are not much worse, and sometimes significantly better. In addition, a lot of software no longer works on Windows 7, and over time, fewer programs will be able to run on this old system, so there is no alternative in favor of Windows 11. nine0004
Windows 11 works great on this laptop, downloading updates and drivers for all devices. The only problem was with the video driver 342.01, which the system downloaded itself — with it, 3Dmarks did not find the video card. I had to download the full driver of the same version from the Nvidia site, and everything went like clockwork. This video driver is the latest for the GeForce 9800M GTX video card.
Summary of test results can be seen in the table. In most cases, Windows 11 performs worse by several percentage points. Obviously, the load of the operating system on the processor is higher. But there are some tests where the new OS pulls very far ahead. For example, in the CPU SHA3 test, the result is 30% better. And the SSD write speed in the RND4K Q1T1 Write test is 24% faster. The 3DMark Vantage test is noteworthy. The processor received 26% fewer points, while the video card showed a result 6% better. nine0004
The laptop has been tested with 21 games. Games were selected around the same year of release as the laptop itself. It makes no sense to try to run modern games on it, older ones can be used for nostalgia. All games were run at native resolution of 1440×900. The settings of each game can be seen in the photos that capture the laptop screen. The photo also shows how each game looks at the specified settings and how many frames it produces.
Battlefield — Bad Company 2 2010. On medium-low settings, we get a stable 60 frames, it’s comfortable to play. nine0004
Bionic Commando 2009. Nothing can be configured other than permission. Stable 60 frames.
Bulletstorm 2011. On low settings we get 60 frames, it’s comfortable to play.
Crysis 2007. On medium-low settings we get about 30 frames, playing is not as comfortable as at 60, but tolerable.
Crysis Warhead 2008. On balanced settings we get a little over 30 frames, you can play.
Deadfall Adventures 2013. At medium settings, we get above 50 frames, it’s comfortable to play. nine0004
Enslaved — Odyssey to the West 2010. On low settings, we get a stable 60 frames.
Grand Theft Auto IV — The Complete Edition 2008. The lowest possible settings, we get almost 30 frames, with drawdowns in dynamic scenes. It’s not very comfortable to play, but it’s possible. This game is hard on a laptop, harder than Crysis.
Homefront — Ultimate Edition 2011. Medium settings, FPS is consistently above 50, it’s comfortable to play.
Hour of Victory 2008. You can’t change anything other than permissions. We get stable 60 frames. nine0004
James Cameron`s Avatar — The Game 2009. Very undemanding game, all settings on ultra-high. We get above 40 frames, it’s comfortable to play.
Just Cause 2006. This game laptop clicks like nuts. All settings to the maximum, we get consistently above 100 frames. The native resolution for a laptop can only be set in the ini file.
Just Cause 2 2010. Balanced settings, we get a stable 60 frames.
Mafia II 2010. Balanced settings, we get a stable 50 frames. nine0004
Medal of Honor Airborne 2007. We set everything to the maximum, we get stable 70-80 frames, the game is not demanding on hardware.
Metro 2033 2010. All that is possible at a minimum. The game is hard for a laptop, even worse than GTA 4. In corridor locations we get 30 frames, on the street there may be drawdowns of up to 10. You can go through if you wish.
Rise of the Argonauts 2008. Only the resolution can be adjusted. We get stable 60 frames.
Singularity 2010. Not a demanding game, there are no quality settings, you can only turn off the effects. We get stable 60 frames. nine0004
The Saboteur 2009. Medium settings. Another game that is hard for a laptop, but a little easier than GTA 4. Outdoors, fps is about 30, indoors, above 40. You can pass.
Turning Point — Fall of Liberty 2008. There is nothing to configure in the game, the resolution is set in the ini file. We get stable 60 frames.
Wolfenstein 2009. On balanced settings, we get a stable 60 frames.
Based on the results of the tests, we can conclude that the laptop does an excellent job with games that came out at about the same time with it, or earlier. The fact that Windows 11 works great on it means that as an office machine it will last for many years, and will allow you to play the good old classics. nine0004
You can see more photos and test results of this laptop in the video.
This material was written by a site visitor and has been rewarded.
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter
Serious Sam: The Second Encounter Genre: 3D shooter
Developer: Croteam
Publisher: Gathering of Developers
System requirements: P2-350MHz; 64 Mb RAM; 8 Mb 100% OpenGL compatible 3D card.
Waited…
Well, here we are waiting for the continuation of Serious Sam. It did not take long to wait, but it turned out very, very beautiful. No, here we will not see improved graphics (yes, it’s much better there), but we will run at new levels with new weapons (however, with the old ones too). So, Serious Sam: The Second Encounter…
Plot
During the intro video, which, by the way, was made not in avi, not in bink, etc., but on the game engine (I respect this, very beautifully done), we are told how Sam once (in the first part of the game) saved humanity from evil aliens. However, the same Sam considered his work unfinished and went to Sirius, where the monsters, in fact, came from. He teleported to some kind of spaceship, which in its design is more like a flying saucer. He flew to himself, did not touch anyone. And a «tail» followed him, some people with heads clearly exceeding their normal size. So, this «tail» probably lost control and «fitted» into Sam’s plate. He was not at a loss and ejected (ejected). nine0138 The game begins with a fall, but not anywhere, but into the water, so to speak, so that it is soft. And immediately a decent pack of freaks of unearthly origin falls on us (which means that not everyone was «filled up» in the first part). Well, okay, let’s get ready for a mass purge :)…
Monsters and how to fight them
During the game we have to destroy hundreds of monsters, but what’s there hundreds — thousands. There are so many of them that it is simply impossible to count.
The monsters themselves look just awesome, but they behave stupidly, they take not quality, but quantity. Oddly enough, but monsters appear out of nowhere (although in most cases it is imperceptible) and disappear there as well. This is probably more good than bad: they killed the monster, the corpse is away. Less unnecessary models — more FPS. The variety of monsters is not very large (just over 20 species), but what kind (!) — you won’t see such creatures even in a nightmare: there are toothy one-eyed scarecrows, and lava golems, and fish that shock very painfully, and some kind of scorpions with machine guns — in general, there is something to see. nine0138 There are «bosses» to meet every few levels. Yes, bosses are what you need, these are huge powerful beasts that make you «run». There are also jokes, for example, Serious Damage «running away» and a barely noticeable cockroach that takes it away.
As for the weapons in the game, they basically remained the same, but there are also new ones:
— Military knife — a familiar knife, the very first weapon.
— Shofield.45 — 45 caliber revolver. For some reason, he doesn’t run out of ammo. Strange, isn’t it? nine0138 — A chainsaw is a good weapon. I will never forget the old Doom’a.
— Single Barreled Shotgun — no comment.
— Double-barreled shotgun — not a bad thing, very effective at close range.
— The Thompson submachine gun is a weakly powerful submachine gun, but the rate of fire is rather high.
— XM214-A Minigun — a six-barreled machine gun, a very high rate of fire, of course, that it «eats» decently ammunition.
— Rocket launcher — 75 rockets per minute, great gun. Too bad you can’t do rocketjumps. nine0138 — Grenade Launcher — Throws grenades that explode on impact.
— Flamethrower — I don’t know what fuel it runs on, but absolutely everything can be set on fire except water.
— Sniper rifle — if my memory serves me, it was not in the first part of the game. In aiming mode, it is a very powerful weapon.
— XL2 Lasergun — four-barreled laser, high rate of fire, relatively high power.
— SBC Cannon — a large powerful cannon that fires cannonballs. It is very reminiscent of a cannon from a pirate ship, only the wick is missing :). nine0138 — Serious Bomb — Effective when surrounded by enemies. Sooo big damage.
Well, that’s all, so you can get rid of monsters in completely different ways.
Graphics and engine, sound and music
Yes, Sam’s engine is really cool. Playing in OpenGL and Direct3D modes. Support for resolutions from 320×240 to 1600×1200, both in 16- and 32-bit color. Beautiful special effects, excellent lighting and other frills. And what snowflakes fall from the sky — beauty; and the lightning flashing in the sky is a miracle! nine0138 Surprisingly, with a huge number of monsters, «Sam» does not slow down at all. This is due to the fact that the models are made from a relatively small number of polygons, but are «covered» with a high-quality texture.
The level design deserves special praise. There are a lot of free spaces here, in which the showdown with monsters mainly takes place. There are not many buildings, but they are well executed. The only pity is that not all buildings can be entered, however, this is not really necessary. Many things can be «smashed» (in the sense of destroying), be it trees (by the way, they can be felled with a chainsaw) or some statues, behind which some secrets are very often hidden. nine0138 However, the price for all this beauty is the system requirements, which are quite high. On my configuration (Cel 900, 256 RAM and «old» Riva TNT) I was content with playing at 640×480 resolution, with 16-bit color and medium texture detail. An attempt to run the game on different configurations showed that you can play «decently» on P3 800, 256 RAM, 32 GeForce2 MX 400, at a resolution of 1024×768, 16-bit color, textures — maximum.
The game has such a thing as Technology Test, that is, we wanted to see how the video card copes with the effect of light, fog, transparency, reflection, etc. — please load, look, draw conclusions. nine0138 The sound in «Sam» is on top. The EAX system is really cool. What is worth, for example, the stomping of buffaloes, from which lays ears, or the cry of kamikaze, desperately rushing towards us, holding large bombs, and what can we say about the sound of a rocket flying nearby, which literally deafens! The frequent statements of the main character, such as «Serious ammo — for serious people» when finding the SBC Cannon, or the cry «Yahhooooooo!» when rolling down a high-high hill. In short, this is a must hear! nine0138 Now about the music. It is dynamic, changing depending on the situation. These are slow, unobtrusive themes during the exploration of the territory, smoothly flowing into fast, sometimes heavy music. Killing monsters to such music is a pleasure.
To each according to his ability
Sam is definitely a difficult game (the first two difficulties don’t count). No, there are no difficult puzzles here, and the levels are not too intricate labyrinths in their structure. The difficulty lies in the huge amount of the enemy, that is, monsters, otherwise you can’t call them. Immediately I advise you to set the difficulty not lower than Normal, because. only then it will become interesting to play, the Save-Load mechanism will work in full. If you consider yourself an experienced player, then go ahead, on Hard, for the inexperienced, I recommend that you first look around on Easy, and then, as you gain experience, bet on Normal, Hard, and only then, if you wish, you can test yourself on Serious. The passage of the game is not a tedious and protracted process. I completed the game in less than three days playing on Normal, now I’m going through on Hard — I must say that it is much more difficult to play. nine0004
Summing up
The game will undoubtedly attract the attention of many gamers. Of course, there are also disadvantages in the game, such as burning snow, stone floors and other things.