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PC Gaming these days puts quite a bit of demand on audio, sound reproduction is key to making the atmosphere just right. As such soundtracks during races or verbal feedback in a bloodbath are not uncommon anymore. Games like Unreal Tournament 2004 provide pleanty of bots to fill the game with sounds of rocket fire and trash talk after getting nuked. Other titles like Doom 3 use the ambient noise to lure players into a quick scare as monsters rest behind walls or right around the next corner. No matter how it's done it still needs a good playback medium.

Our first subject is Unreal Tournament 2004 , testing was done using 32 bots through various DM levels. In cooperative atmospheres the game does well also but it tends to not be as busy as straight DM is. Audio was set to use EAX instead of standard D3D Hardware audio. In initial rounds the SRS was turned off, even with it off the game was very clear on what was going on, while the drivers obviously faced a lot of problems from the amount of sounds at once, they still managed to define a pretty good environment to work with. Turning on the SRS the closer items took priority over the fights happening in other parts of the level. Attack directions are better placed and the feel is improved greatly. I only used SRS to about halfway in this game since it seemed to be overkill at full effect. Some coloring could be heard on the audio feedback but usually at ranges near max. After a healthy round of DM matches and then a few rounds of Assault (I couldn't resist) it was shown that the AHS-602's could hold in there.

Next up was Medal of Honor: Pacific Assault Demo , the game packs a lot of variety with teams of enemies and tons of environmental sounds such as planes from above, troops scattering through brush and just tons of random gunfire as troops fight to survive. Also calls can be heard from members of the group calling for medic support or backup. The SRS was turned up to near full effect this time around and it only made the game that much more lively than before. The highlighting of voices and gunfire and the deeper tones from things like explosions that really help bring the game to life. The AHS-602 didn't really disappoint at all but I would advise for people to adjust the SRS to their tastes on this game since if the effect is too high distortion tends to occur from too much of a boost to the low frequencies.

Doom 3 closes the tests out, normally I would play a level or a few levels to see the response of the game, this time I went through the whole game with the AHS-602 to just see how much it brightens up the levels. For this I needed to change up my current setup, I used the Altec Lansing 641's with the center/sub output running into the front aux port. This allowed for all 5.1 channels to mix into the system, then I adjusted my control panel to reflect a 5.1 setup. After that I adjusted Doom 3 to support surround sound. Following this I finally plugged in the headphones to the control pod of the 641 and set it to gaming mode which mixes all input channels into the headphone signal. From there I enabled the SRS and set it up just a bit to help make everything distinct. Yes it's a bit of work but raises the quality of the game quite a bit. Level for level I could hear sounds that are generally faint using a surround system with normal daily volumes. Monsters jumping out seemed so much more exciting than normal and shootouts were much more fun than in the past since marine communications could be heard as they tried to surround and only got mowed down instead. Online play was enhanced as well, it was easier to try and pinpoint movements from other players in levels like Lights Out. I didn't have to give much attention to someone was running around shooting their rocket launcher off at anything they thought moved. The AHS-602 held up with no problems at all in Doom 3, actually it seemed to have no real distortion issues at all. Coloring was minimal and all of the creepy sounds could be heard a bit too clear.