Diamond announces its next PCI-based 3D audio accelerator card, the Monster Sound MX300, powered by Aureal's new Vortex 2 processor. The card will be the first card to the consumer market to support Aureal's newest audio chip.

　　The new Monster Sound MX300 is a completely new monster. It's undergone a bit of an identity change. First, the board is an all-in-one board encompassing Aureal's high-end A3D 2.0 positional support for DirectSound, DirectSound3D, and Sound Blaster Pro compatibility for older titles.

　　Previous Monster Sound cards offered limited Windows-only support with little DOS support. Although DOS isn't the major platform for gaming in the '90s, giving gamers the option of running older DOS games on their machines is a good way to make sure the entire gaming populace is happy with the product.

　　Secondly, you can rip out your old card because the Monster Sound MX300 does all the audio processing. Before, it required that you have your older ISA or onboard sound card enabled for older DOS games.

　　Thirdly, the new MX300 will be running an authentic Aureal Vortex 2 processor as well. Previously, the Monster Sound series ran a chip that was capable of processing A3D signals.

　　New features for the card include support for DirectX 5/6, up to 96 simultaneous DirectSound audio streams, and up to 16 audio streams for positional audio. Moving onto the board, the MX300 provides full Dolby Digital/A3D support, CD-quality 320-voice (64 voices in hardware and 256 voices in software) wave-table synthesis, and the ability to use all the sound functionality though headphones, two speakers, or four speakers. If you're looking to add a DVD-ROM to your PC anytime soon and want to make sure that you have the full experience, the MX300 should give you that home theater feeling without all the added hardware. As newer games move into the higher-end of audio, Dolby Digital sound should give gamers even more reason to upgrade.

　　The thing that should get gamers listening is that the board will have a new audio suite. Usually with most cards you get a few applications that you probably don't use. Rather than have those tools, Diamond has added some audio tools that it knows is popular - MP3 tools. The included MP3 tools will allow owners to encode, decode, and manage MP3 files. Since MP3 files are used all over the Web for many purposes legally, Diamond thinks that this is a feature that people will want to use. Diamond wanted to stress that it was going to encourage the legal use of its MP3 tools since there is a hot debate about the "other" uses of the MP3 digital audio format. Offered as an upgrade, Diamond's MX-LINK will allow consumers to add digital input and output through an S/PDIF connection. This will allow gamers to get cleaner sound into and out of their PCs.

　　Currently, the A3D API is used in 100 games (shipping or in development) with titles like Unreal, Incoming, Descent: Freespace, Battlezone, and Jedi Knight.

　　Looking at all the features and price, it is apparent that Diamond has its sights set firmly on competitor Creative Labs' new Sound Blaster Live!. The Monster Sound MX300 will be shipping to retailers in October for US$99.95.