"A3D", short for Aureal3D, is an advanced API that was developed two years ago to offer support for true positional 3D audio. Clear spatial separation and depth was offered to gamers for the first time in the initial A3D release (now known as A3D 1.0). For 1998 Aureal's engineers have developed an enhanced version of the original format, and added the ability to offer unprecedented depth as well as sound on X, Y, and even the Z axis.

Armed with this knowledge, the following comparisons for both the MX300 and the SBLive! Value take on new importance for the gamer: (Note that any feature that has an asterisk after it is a feature that isn't currently implemented via either the MX300 or the SBLive!'s current drivers. Expect the additions to occur over the next 30 - 45 days)

MX300	MS DirectSound MS DirectSound3D MS DirectSound3D EAX * A3D 1.0 A3D 2.0
SBLive! Value	MS DirectSound MS DirectSound3D MS DirectSound3D EAX A3D 1.0 *

The lists above are identical except for one omission: The SBLive! won't be able to implement a version of A3D 2.0. The reasons why are vague, clearly the SBLive!'s audio processor has enough power, but Sharky Extreme suspects that Aureal's legal forces are a strong deterrent. Similar to video accelerator vendor 3Dfx's native Glide 3D API, A3D 2.0 is something that might only be allowed on native Aureal Vortex 2 powered audio cards (the MX300 uses a Vortex 2).

For the meantime, the SBLive! Value will be able to render a simple version of A3D 1.0's capabilities via software emulation, the timeline for a driver update to add this feature is estimated at four to eight more weeks.

Similarly, the MX300 can't currently utilize the Creative designed and Microsoft implemented DirectSound3D EAX format. A planned driver update to the MX300 will occur in January that adds full support for the reverb extensions.