M-Audio on Wednesday introduced the Revolution 5.1, a surround sound audio card compatible with both Macs and PCs. The PCI card comes bundled with Aspyr Media’s Wakeboarding Unleashed featuring Shaun Murray, billed as the first Mac game optimized for surround sound. The Revolution 5.1 is available for US$99.95.
The Revolution 5.1 is compatible with Mac OS X’s Core Audio, OpenAL, EAX, A3D, SRS TruSurround XT and many other audio technologies. The card supports DTS output and Dolby Digital 5.1 decoding and 24-bit/192kHz audio playback on up to 6 channels. The Revolution 5.1’s backplane includes 1/8-inch analog line in, mic in and headphone out jacks, three 1/8-inch jacks for connecting to 5.1 computer speaker systems and a S/PDIF digital out coaxial connector for pass-through to home entertainment systems.
System requirements for the Revolution 5.1 call for a Power Mac G4 with 256MB RAM and Mac OS X v10.1.5 or 10.2.6 or later, or Mac OS 9.2.2 (Wakeboarding Unleashed requires Mac OS X v10.2.6 or later, G4/700MHz or faster, 256MB RAM, 580MB hard drive space and ATI Radeon 7500 or Nvidia GeForce2 MX or better 3D graphics with at least 32MB VRAM).