by: Marc Spiwak, Technical Editor
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which goes with this article, entitled:
CD-ROM Drive Performance
If you bought your PC a couple of years ago, you're probably multimedia-challenged--sans sound card and CD-ROM drive, but longing to run the terrific CD-ROMs coming on the market. So you hike to the computer store, and there they are: brand-new multimedia upgrade kits with everything you need. Do they work? Are they easy to get up and running? Good questions.
Installing multimedia hardware under Windows 3.1 used to be an adventure fraught with conflict and peril. Then vendors got the kinks ironed out, and upgrading was a comparatively straightforward affair. Now, with Windows 95, things should be even easier, right? Well, not always.
In theory, Plug and Play and Win95's installation wizard should make installation a snap. In practice, we found that some upgrades are indeed smooth as silk under Windows 95. But other multimedia kits--Plug and Play or not--are difficult to install. Apparently, some vendors don't have Plug-and-Play multimedia upgrades ready just yet, and others rushed to put Plug-and-Play hardware on store shelves without thoroughly testing it.
It's clearly worthwhile to make sure you upgrade the easy way. To save you from a downer of an upgrade experience, WINDOWS Magazine took seven upgrade kits for a test run to see which live up to the promise of easy installation and great multimedia performance in Win95. Our review criteria called for a minimum quad-speed CD-ROM--the de facto standard today. Most of the kits had 4X drives, although one had a 6X and one--which is covered in Fast is Great but Easy is Better--had an 8X.
The good news is that once they were running, all the kits worked fine. Even better, two of the kits worked like a charm from the outset. But, as you'll see, it took some trial and error to arrive at that point with the other products.
The sample here includes upgrades that will at least support Windows 95: Some are Plug-and-Play systems, while others are not. As is often the case, some upgrades support Windows 95 better than others.
All of the cards we tested had built-in IDE ports. On all but two of the cards, they proved to be useless, because our test computer system could not recognize the CD-ROM connected to them.
The majority of multimedia upgrades today come with IDE CD-ROM drives, and the sound card will usually have an IDE controller built into it. This makes more sense than proprietary systems, where the CD-ROM drive must use a particular controller. Such a drive could not be installed in another machine without using the original (or a compatible) controller. On the other hand, an IDE CD-ROM drive can be installed in nearly any computer and use the motherboard's IDE controller(s). I was very fortunate that this was the case, because otherwise I would not have been able to test the majority of these upgrades.
One additional note: If you have an older video card (with perhaps 1MB of DRAM for the video memory or an early SVGA type), you may want to get an updated card to play videos without dropping frames. The card in the Gateway 2000 test bed was an ATI mach32, which played all the videos we tried with no frames dropped. Similarly, the sound cards in the upgrade kits played video-clip sound without breaks.
Aztech Labs provided the one 6X package in this review. A 6X drive spins the disc 50 percent faster than a 4X drive. Although this speed improvement is noticeable, it is not necessary.
After installing the Aztech upgrade in our Gateway 2000 DX2/66, powering up the system and running the Install software from within Windows 95, I found that I still had no sound and no D: drive (the IDE CD-ROM). I manually installed the hardware within Win95 and had it load default software. The sound card worked--but there was still no D: drive. Connecting the CD-ROM drive to the motherboard IDE controller solved that problem.
Aztech's upgrade exhibited very ordinary sound quality. Audio contained static at times, and the speakers had a shrill quality with the treble boost turned on and somewhat flat sound with it off. The speakers didn't have much oomph even with batteries installed.
The Aztech upgrade is an average package, and even its helping of bundled software leaves a bit to be desired. With only two multimedia titles included, it had the least software of any kit tested. But if the 6X speed is more important to you than having a wealth of software titles, you might like this upgrade.
The speed of the drive tends to place this upgrade kit at the high end of the spectrum, but its nonwavetable sound card, unimpressive speakers and small software selection puts it at the low end. A 6X drive should be strapped to a much better sound card and speakers. If you're buying only a CD-ROM drive, then by all means go for a 6X drive. But if you're buying a complete upgrade package, a better sound card and speakers contribute much more to overall performance than a speedier CD-ROM drive.
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Aztech Labs Stellar 6X
Price: $379
In Brief: This kit has a slight performance edge with the only 6X drive in the bunch, but is short on accessories and bundled software.
Aztech Labs
800-886-8859, 510-623-8988
One advantage of a Sound Blaster sound card is that most software, including Windows 95, recognizes it. This package includes the Sound Blaster 16 PnP, and Plug and Play it does. This kit was a breeze to install. Both the sound card and its secondary IDE controller worked without a hitch in the test-bed Gateway 2000 DX2/66 computer
Once I had the Discovery CD 4x upgrade working, I installed its handy assortment of utility software, which can be loaded from included disks or a CD-ROM. Choose the latter: It's easier, and it gives you a chance to do something productive with your new CD-ROM drive.
The speakers included with this Discovery CD 4x upgrade are of average quality. They can be connected to the line output on the sound card with batteries installed or to the amplified output with or without batteries. An AC adapter is optional. General sound from these speakers is fairly full, but audio CDs sound flat unless you install batteries in the speakers.
These speakers can be used with or without batteries. If batteries are not used, the speakers must be connected to an amplified sound-card output or else nothing will be heard. With batteries installed, they can be connected to either an amplified output or a line-level output. They sounded much better and more powerful with batteries installed and connected to the amplified output, although the sound tended to break up at higher levels. Treble and bass boost controls on the speakers worked, but both controls should always be turned on, as the sound was missing some quality without them.
While this kit's sound quality and amplification power are not going to knock anyone's socks off, a setup like this is certainly adequate for most multimedia applications, especially if it's your first multimedia setup. On the other hand, the easy time I had installing this kit more than made up for any sonic shortcomings. And for the multimedia newcomer, nothing is more important than getting the equipment to work.
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Creative Labs Sound Blaster Discovery CD 4x
Price: $369.99(street)
In Brief: The Sound Blaster Discovery CD 4x is a good entry-level upgrade with lots of bundled software. It's one of only two Plug-and-Play systems that worked as advertised.
Creative Labs
800-998-LABS, 408-428-6600
Of all the kits tested, the Performance 4x is the one that I would most like to have in my computer because of its superior 32-bit wavetable Sound Blaster sound card. It gave no installation trouble at all, even to the point that
I was able to use the IDE controller on the sound card. This was the case only with the Creative Labs upgrade kits.
While the speakers that come with this upgrade were not the best of the lot, they were certainly adequate, and the better sound card more than makes up for them. (If you are looking to save a few dollars, you would probably be just as happy with the Creative Labs Discovery CD 4x.)
The Performance 4x lacks Plug-and-Play capabilities, so
first I tried running an installation program from DOS. After this program ran, the computer could access the CD-ROM drive through the sound card, but there was still no sound. I had Windows 95 do an auto search for new hardware. The OS "found" the sound card and its game port, and configured both properly with default drivers. The reward I got was beautiful sound.
The Performance 4x is the only upgrade tested that includes a 32-bit sound card, a Sound Blaster 32 to be exact. This wavetable card is hands down the best sound card in this review. And while the speakers are not the most powerful in the group, they are much better than the low-end ones packaged with some of the other kits. An AC adapter is included. In general, any speakers powered by an AC adapter will sound better than battery powered speakers, and you'll never have to buy batteries. An audio purist might want speakers with a little more power and perhaps even a subwoofer. That aside, anyone should be very happy with this kit. A very complete utility software collection rounds out the package.
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Creative Labs Sound Blaster Performance 4X
Price: $429(street)
In Brief: This is the upgrade I'd buy with my own money. It comes loaded with software and has a 32-bit wavetable sound card.
Creative Labs
800-998-LABS, 408-428-6600
Diamond Multimedia is perhaps best known for high-end products. We can't argue with that, especially since it was the only company to submit an 8X upgrade (see Speed Demon"). But both the 4X and 8X Diamond upgrades were the fussiest in terms of getting them to work in Windows 95.
When I first powered up the Gateway 2000 with the 4400 upgrade installed, I had no D: drive, which was the normal situation with these upgrades, and there was no sound.
Eventually the 4400's sound card worked, but only when it was set for non-Plug-and-Play operation and after running Diamond's install program from DOS. And that wasn't all. Back in Windows 95, an automatic search failed to detect any of the new hardware. Manually installing the drivers from within Win95 brought the sound card to life, but I still couldn't control the CD-ROM drive from the IDE controller on the sound card. Thankfully, the controller on the motherboard worked, which generally proved to be the rule in this review.
The Diamond 4400 produced average sound quality. The sound card is a 16-bit, non-wavetable type, and the speakers are probably the least expensive in the lot we tested. These speakers must be connected to an amplified output on a sound card because they are not amplified at all. There's no way to use batteries or an AC adapter, so all of the amplification must come from the sound card. Although the sound they produce is clear, there's just not enough of it. Most people would not be happy owning these speakers, and would probably replace them with something better soon after installing the upgrade. For the person who wants to hear only an occasional sound effect or warning beep, they would suffice, but there's a lot more to multimedia.
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Diamond Multimedia Kit 4400
Price: $299(street)
In Brief: The kit has plenty of goodies for a very reasonable price. It had one of the fussiest installations, though.
Diamond Multimedia Systems
800-468-5846, 408-325-7000
The Kiss Technology Super Edition multimedia upgrade includes a Pioneer 4X IDE CD-ROM drive, a Plug-and-Play sound card, a pair of very basic speakers, some generic utility software and eight assorted CD-ROM titles. You set a jumper on the sound card to Plug and Play if the system is being installed under Windows 95 or to Disable Plug and Play if it's being installed under DOS or Windows 3.11. The sound card also has a built-in secondary IDE controller for the CD-ROM drive.
Documentation for this package was somewhat sparse. Parts of it pertain to installing under Windows 95 and others don't. When I installed this upgrade in the Gateway 2000 DX2/66, the sound card would not play immediately. I had to have Windows 95 search for the new hardware, which it found and set up properly. I could not get the sound card's IDE controller to work in the Gateway 2000, so I had to plug the drive into the IDE controller on the motherboard, which worked.
The speakers can be used without batteries if they are connected to the sound card's amplified output. In this configuration they sounded fine, though somewhat "hollow." With six C batteries installed and the speakers connected to the line output on the sound card, they sounded about the same, but now I could use the speakers' volume and bass-boost controls. With batteries installed and the speakers connected to the sound card's amplified output, the sound was much fuller and louder. You can plug in a 9-volt AC adapter, but none is included with this kit.
This upgrade's utility software bundle is generic. In addition, it does not have an applet that will play audio CDs, so I had to install the CD-player option as part of Windows 95's Media Player. That worked just fine, but you have to wonder why this package lacked a CD player.
In addition, this would be one more hitch for the Win 95 novice, and perhaps one more reason to call technical support.
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Kiss Technology Super Edition
Price: $289 (street)
In Brief: The Super Edition is a basic package with price and features in the mainstream.
Kiss Technology
301-216-1300, fax 301-216-1212
The Quad Elite XL is the upscale version of the two Reveal kits submitted for review. It has essentially the same hardware as the lower-end kit, except that it has much better speakers, a joystick and tons of multimedia software.
After I installed the Elite hardware, I ran the Win95 Install program. This provided sound, but, of course, the old "no D: drive" problem cropped up once again. Not being too quick to abandon the sound card's IDE controller, I tried to have Windows 95 autodetect the new hardware. Supposedly, the OS found and configured the new IDE controller, but the machine was then very slow to reboot and, alas, still no D: drive.
As usual, I had to connect the CD-ROM drive to the motherboard IDE controller before we could spin any discs. An unexpected wrinkle appeared with this upgrade kit, too. All the other drives in this review were set as slaves, but this one was set as a master, which meant that I had to move the jumper to the slave position. Then it worked like all the others. Although this was not something to worry about, had I not made the switch, I would have spent a lot of time wondering why the drive wasn't responding.
As far as sound quality goes, this upgrade kit can really put out the sound. The AC-powered speakers pack quite a punch with 40 watts per channel. Only a subwoofer would make the sound any fuller. The trade-off for that power is space: The speakers take up a lot more room on your desktop than the others reviewed. This was the only upgrade I tested that can transform your PC into a home stereo (for CDs at least), and it's also the only one that might cause coworkers to yell, "Turn down that computer!" The wavetable sound card, while not 32-bit, produces clear, realistic MIDI sound and good FM synthesis. The powerful speakers coupled with the wavetable sound card make for a very pleasing multimedia setup that you could live with for a long time.
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Reveal Quad Elite XL
Price: $549(street)
In Brief: The Elite XL is the most feature-filled package we tested, loaded with software, accessories, wavetable sound and the most powerful speakers of the lot.
Reveal Computer Products
800-REVEAL-1, 818-704-6300
The Reveal Quad Ultra upgrade is loaded with accessories, including many software titles, a how-to-install videotape, a microphone and headphones. The speakers included with the Quad Ultra could easily find a long-term home on your desk. They're not high-end, but they look nice, sound very good and come with an AC adapter.
The Reveal upgrades include some of the best documentation of any of the kits I examined. For example, a neat little supplement explaining IDE controllers was thrown in. The supplement shows how IDE conflicts can occur, how to test for IDE controllers on your motherboard and so on. It provided substantial background material on what might cause problems with an IDE installation.
But even with its excellent documentation, the Reveal Quad Ultra upgrade presented the most bizarre installation problem of all. After I installed the hardware and connected the CD-ROM to the sound card, the Gateway 2000 DX2/66 wouldn't even boot. After much experimentation, I found that the machine would boot if I first entered the CMOS setup and then simply exited it. Then the computer booted just fine but, as usual, gave no indication of a D: drive connected to the sound card.
The computer also failed to boot after shutting down Windows 95 and turning off the power; it needed the little CMOS setup trick. Strangely, if I merely had Win95 restart itself (no power down), it would boot up again just fine. This dilemma continued as long as I left the CD-ROM drive connected to the sound card's IDE controller. Disconnecting the CD-ROM drive solved the problem, as did using the motherboard IDE controller. (Apparently, the Gateway 2000's BIOS strongly disliked something about this upgrade!)
Once the hardware problems were straightened out, the Quad Ultra upgrade was trouble-free. The Install disks worked properly from within Windows 95, and I soon had sound. Overall, this upgrade's sound quality was good compared to some of the other kits tested, due to the better speakers and the wavetable sound card. The card produces realistic sound, and the speakers reproduce that sound clearly. The speakers, while not earthshaking, are more than adequate for most business multimedia applications. But again, audio purists will want more power.
You'll be happy with any of these multimedia upgrades once you get them working properly in your computer. And it's quite possible that you would have no trouble installing any one of them in your computer. It's also possible that you might have trouble with one of the ones we liked. It depends greatly on your computer setup, and at this point anything could happen. Whatever you do, don't let our cautions ruin your appetite for multimedia. There's an exciting new world of software out there, and it's just waiting for you to get the right hardware to run it.
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Reveal Quad Ultra
Price: $449(street)
In Brief: The slightly higher price of this 4X package reflects the abundance of software and accessories, better speakers than most upgrades, and a wavetable sound card.
Reveal Computer Products
800-REVEAL-1, 818-704-6300
Speed--people can never get enough of it. Not in amusement parks, not in cars and certainly not in CD-ROM drives. The first CD-ROM drives would spin a disc at the same speed as an audio CD player, which was unbearably slow. Next came double-speed drives that transferred data at double the speed of ordinary drives. You could buy triple-speed drives briefly, but they vanished soon after quad speed drives became available--which seemed like only days after the 3X drives came out.
Quad-speed drives are fairly standard today, as they are quite fast (at least compared to 2X) and very reasonable in price. It should come as no surprise that 6X and even 8X drives are now available. While a 6X drive spins a disc 50 percent faster than a 4X, an 8X is twice as fast! That would make for a really slick multimedia upgrade. We reviewed one 6X kit (an Aztech), and an 8X kit almost made it.
The Diamond Multimedia Kit 8000, with an 8X drive included, is a rather expensive upgrade (about $599 street), but it's also probably the fastest one around. Although I spent the better part of a day trying to make it work, it never operated completely on the test-bed system. Diamond said it was busy working on new drivers and Install disks that should clear up the problems I experienced.
While awaiting the new software's arrival, I tested the 8X IDE drive by itself connected to the motherboard's IDE controller. By CD-ROM standards the drive cooks, transferring data at 1.2Mb per second. I copied a huge file from the 8X drive to the hard drive in about half the time of the 4X drives tested, which was pretty much what we expected.
The new drivers didn't make installing the upgrade in the Gateway 2000 DX2/66 test-bed machine any easier. While the 8X upgrade never worked in that machine, all the other kits eventually did. The 8X upgrade kit did work in a brand-new Pentium 133 with a working Plug-and-Play BIOS, installing in this machine with no problems at all. That was very satisfying, but it's highly unlikely that anyone would be installing new multimedia hardware in a new computer.
I ran into many problems getting these multimedia upgrades to work, apparently because installation software has not yet been thoroughly tested under Windows 95, and Plug-and-Play drivers often aren't available. But there are a few tricks that can be helpful in getting new multimedia hardware to work in Windows 95.
IDE Problems
The upgrade kits all include IDE CD-ROM drives and have secondary IDE controllers on their sound cards. IDE controllers are easy to use, except when they conflict with another IDE controller, or the BIOS thinks there's another controller or the Install software fails to configure the new controller properly. Mostly, the sound-card function worked correctly, but the CD-ROM drives were unresponsive.
Controlling the CD-ROM drive as a slave from the motherboard's IDE controller solved the problem. Tech support suggested this.
Disabling the sound card's IDE controller leaves the computer in its original configuration. You can't do this if the motherboard has only one IDE controller installed with two hard drives connected to it. But if you need only one hard drive, it's better to have only one controller operating. Unnecessary controllers eat up memory.
The ribbon cable connecting the hard drive to the motherboard's IDE controller had a spare connector. If this is not the case, you'll need a new ribbon cable with two connectors, not a big deal, but certainly a hassle. Had the Gateway 2000 test computer already had a slave drive connected to the primary IDE controller, I would have had to connect the new drive to the motherboard's secondary IDE controller.
Try, Try Again
The instruction manuals mostly discussed installation in Windows 3.11; the same procedure often doesn't work in Windows 95. Check your documentation for specific Win95 installation instructions, and follow them. Sometimes you just have to boot Windows 95, and it will automatically detect and configure your new hardware with its own default software. This ideal situation did not occur often.
If the instructions tell you to start the Install procedure in DOS, then you should start your computer in Win95's DOS mode and try running Install from there. If that doesn't work, try using the Run command line in Windows 95. When you have run all the install procedures available and the new hardware still isn't responding, try having Windows 95 automatically detect the new hardware.
Should Windows detect the hardware, it might configure it automatically. Or it might ask you to insert a manufacturer's disk containing drivers or information about the new hardware. First insert any disk that might be an obvious choice. Or, you could try having Windows look at each disk one at a time.
Your new hardware must be configured manually if Windows fails to detect it. At this point, you must notify the Add New Hardware Wizard that you will tell it what to look for.
Last Resort
If you have tried everything you can think of but still cannot get the hardware to work, you can uninstall Windows 95, go back to 3.11, install the hardware from there, and then reinstall Win95. The new OS sometimes sets up hardware better while it is installing itself. It simply copies the earlier, workable installation setup.
Finally, Windows 95 can install properly and have all hardware working, only to reconfigure some device automatically later on so that it no longer works. So, if you upgrade to Windows 95 and all your hardware is working correctly, disable the "Make settings automatically" box for all system hardware. This means Windows won't be able to juggle around those "locked" resources in the future, but as long as they are properly doled out today, you're okay! Should problems persist, try disabling each statement in your CONFIG.SYS file, and then reenabling only what you need to get everything to work reliably.
It's a question of installation ease, sound quality and drive speed.
We decided to test the Plug and Play upgrades in an older machine without a Plug and Play BIOS, so that we would duplicate the situation that most readers would have. We first tried an old AST 33MHz 486. After experiencing various CD-ROM install problems with the first three upgrades, we decided to try a slightly newer Gateway 2000 DX2/66. Ironically, the first three Plug and Play sound cards all worked fine in the AST, but not in the Gateway 2000. We had no better luck with the sound card IDE controllers in the Gateway 2000, either. By this time we realized that the problems were caused mostly by the upgrades, and not by our computers. So we decided to stick with the Gateway 2000.
To ensure that the upgrade kits started on level ground, we tested each in a clean installation of Windows 95. That way, nothing remaining from a previous test would interfere. To do this, we ran a batch file that renamed the old Windows subdirectory and then completely reinstalled Windows in a new subdirectory. That left us with a fresh, bare-bones installation of Windows 95 every time.
After we had an upgrade working properly (the main focus of this article), we simply loaded the included software and listened to what it could do. Our opinions on the overall sound quality of these upgrades are purely objective. Although you might not agree with them, you can use them as starting points. For the performance aspects, we did identical tests for each upgrade and measured the time it took for each one to complete.
We ran a program that played an AVI file from the CD-ROM drive included with the upgrade kit and counted the number of frames dropped while the video played. Our tests indicated that if you have a 486 or better computer and are installing at least a 4X CD-ROM drive (our minimum speed requirement for this review), you will have no video frames dropped from AVI files. None of our test systems dropped frames.
We also tested CD-ROM drive speed while searching and transferring data to another drive. For each upgrade kit, we searched for the same information (Open GL and Windows NT) on the Microsoft Developer Network CD-ROM and timed the operation. In addition, we copied the Weezer video on the Windows 95 CD-ROM to the hard drive. On a 4X drive, the copy time averaged about a minute.