Gaming sound Advice Experts in here

easyrider

easyrider

easyrider

Caporegime
Joined
24 Dec 2005
Posts
40,150
Location
Autonomy
I have my HDMI cable coming out of my ATI 6950 going into my Onkyo 876 Amp when playing games through my 5.1 speakers in my cinema room.

I want to game with headphones as I find this more immersive. But I also want to keep the 5.1 suuround.

What are my options? PLug in headphones to the amp? If so what headphones to I get?

Can I use normal Stereo Headphones and allow post processing on the amp?

I want to use the proecessing of the amp really but still get the surround effect with some headphones.


Thanks
 
I'm no expert but a good set of Stereo headphones surpass the quality and positional audio you'll get with a 5.1 headset by a long way. The thing is I don't think the ATI/AMD sound driver has the capability to do any sort of Dolby Headphone magic so you'd need to use a dedicated soundcard (Xonar DG perhaps) and run the sound from that if you do want to use Stereo, I'd imagine.

Not sure how good the more recent 5.1 headsets are when compared with the older technology like the Medusas but from what we read on here it is not as good as DH/CMSS-3D.
 
Tealc said:
I'm no expert but a good set of Stereo headphones surpass the quality and positional audio you'll get with a 5.1 headset by a long way. The thing is I don't think the ATI/AMD sound driver has the capability to do any sort of Dolby Headphone magic so you'd need to use a dedicated soundcard (Xonar DG perhaps) and run the sound from that if you do want to use Stereo, I'd imagine.

Not sure how good the more recent 5.1 headsets are when compared with the older technology like the Medusas but from what we read on here it is not as good as DH/CMSS-3D.
Click to expand...

The AMD driver...doesn't that just bitstream the digital signal into my amp? Then the amp processes it?
 
Yeah, so can your amp emulate 5.1 over stereo like a DH or CMSS-3D sound card can? I think that's the point he's making.
 
you could plug your 'phones into the amp and get sound that way, or you could plug it into the onboard sound on the mobo or a soundcard (if you have either), then switch the output in windows.
 
I think this will work:

Decent set of stereo headphones*
Bitstream to amp and select Dolby Pro Logic IIx (note the x)

EDIT: Might be a bit more complex to get surround from the game into headphones properly with that amp - I haven't played with one in awhile. Might be better to get a soundcard with dolby headphone or CMSS-3D support.


* Audio-Technica, Grado, Beyerdynamic, Sennheiser, Denon, Klipsch, etc. something like that none of this creative, steelseries, etc. rubbish.
 
Last edited:
The onkyo only allows MONO, STEREO and DIRECT sound listening modes when headphones are plugged in.

What I have done is connected my Roland UA-25 EX USB sound module and will play games using that.

I will use HDMI sound output on the GFX for bitstreaming when watching films etc..
 
easyrider said:
The Asus Xonar D1 has an internal thingy that connects to GFX cards for HDMI out?
Click to expand...

Yes, I think all Xonar's do AFAIK. That's SPDIF though, so to send 5.1, Dolby Digital would need to be applied, otherwise it would only be stereo. Will the GFX card be able to send Dolby Digital via HDMI though? I though that only worked with optical, as HDMI has no need for Dolby Digital etc to use multiple channels.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom