(IDG) -- There once was a titanic struggle between Creative’s Sound Blaster cards and everything else. Wave after wave of would-be challengers sent their best—and worst—ISA-bus champions into computer stores, only to be vanquished by gamers who rallied their dollars around the reliability of the Sound Blaster standard. When the dust settled several years ago, the AWE32 sound card emerged triumphant and unchallenged—a reign that would be passed on to the AWE64 a year later.

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Computerworld Minute

But as every gamer knows, the vanquished always rise again.

With half of 1998 already behind us, ISA sound cards are being swept away by a rush to the plug-and-play goodness of the PCI bus, as well as by an impudent upstart named Aureal that has championed 3D audio. Both trends have chipped away at Creative’s Sound Blaster fortress—giving gamers reason to look elsewhere for their sound cards.

To help you better understand the sometimes confusing claims and choices out there, PC Games took a look at the latest crop of sound cards. You’ll notice that Creative isn’t represented. True, we reviewed the AWE64 more than a year ago, but what about the new Sound Blaster PCI64 card? Since it’s actually a reworked product that Creative inherited during the buy-out of Ensoniq last year, Creative decided not to send out units for review. You can draw whatever conclusions you wish, but Creative is gearing up for the release of its Environmental Audio package, which includes a PCI sound card as well as a special set of speakers produced by Cambridge SoundWorks. Environmental Audio is Creative’s return volley to Aureal’s A3D, a technology providing surround and positional sound with just two speakers. The difference is, Creative’s attempting to cut A3D off at the knees by lobbying Microsoft hard to include Creative 3D-sound protocols in DirectX 6.1. So, until we can have a look at Environmental Audio, here’s the state of the art in game sound today.