Скачать или смотреть Half-Life Opposing Force | Aureal Vortex 2 w/ A3D 2.0 (Audio Raytracing) - Full Playthrough

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USE HEADPHONES!

As a continuation of my series "Hardware Dives" we are taking a look at the Aureal Vortex 2 sound card which utilizes the amazing A3D 2.0 API to produce unparalleled 3D audio in games. I would even say that (until recent audio hardware and software implementation) the 3D audio effects achieved by Aureal in the late 1990's was never really surpassed in terms of its technical sophistication and the quality and accuracy of the 3D audio in game. The Aureal Vortex 2 even uses a process called "Wavetracing" which is essentially the audio analogue to Ray Tracing of accurate real-time lighting and this was being run, real-time on this sound chip back in 1998. This isn't the only look we'll have at the Vortex 2, but I wanted to put up a full playthrough of a game that had excellent implementation of everything A3D 2.0 had to offer, for viewers to experience a longer length of gameplay with the card than the shorter clips that will be featured in the upcoming video on the Vortex 2 sound card.

The entirety of the Half-Life goldsource games supported A3D 2.0 which encompassed: Half-Life, Opposing Force, Blue-Shift, Counter Strike, and Team Fortress Classic. These games make good use of the extremely accurate 3D audio and many other features of the A3D 2.0 API including: Occlusion Effects, Doppler Effects, and Echo & Reverb generated by the wavetracing simulation. The Vortex 2 and its associated technology were designed primarily to produce convincing 3D audio effects using headphones, so PLEASE WEAR HEADPHONES WHEN WATCHING THIS VIDEO. Due to the lack of drivers for the Vortex 2 on OS versions later than Windows 98 (as Aureal shuttered its doors before the launch of windows 2000 or XP) I am running this on a very beefy windows 98 rig and using period appropriate hardware and the original retail CD-Rom of Half-Life Opposing Force. So put on a good headset and enjoy this playthrough of Opposing Force using the Aureal Vortex 2 sound card running A3D 2.0.


PC Specs (Real Physical Hardware, not Emulation):

MB: ASUS A7N8X-LA w/ NVIDIA nforce 2 chipset
CPU: AMD Athlon XP 2600+ @ 2.1 Ghz
RAM: 512 MB DDR 400 Mhz
HDD: 7200 RPM 160 GB Seagate (From 2006)
GPU: ATI Radeon 9600 SE 128 MB VRAM
Sound Card: Turtle Beach Montego II (w/ Aureal Vortex 2 DSP, without daughter board or audio panel)

*Footage was rendered on PC at 1024 x 768 and upscaled for the capture card to 720p