Asus Xonar D1 config - HELP !!

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[WU-TANG]GZA

[WU-TANG]GZA

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Hi guys,

Thanks to advice from Marsman and C64 I decided to go for the Goldring DR150s combined with the Asus Xonar D1.

I have installed it and yeah, the phones sound very good. It's like when I put an amplifier into my car the sound just went balistic.

anyway - I was wondering what settings are optimal for gaming? I'm sure it differs slightly for each set of phones but I'm such a noob with these things I could really do with some help on this. My positioning in games hasn't really improved like I thought it would.

Was I expecting too much? Do I need to get used to it? Or are the settings I've currently got all wrong?

If someone who has the card and uses it with headphones for lots of gaming could tell me I'd REALLY appreciate it.

There are soo many settings with these things I just don't know where to start... It's for gaming but I do like BASS (Even in games)

Cheers
 
First of all go to control panel in windows
go to sound/manage audio devices look for playback the xonar dx click properties change settings to 16 bit 96000hz do the same in the asus control panel too.

now on asus control panel just select gx ds3d and game and click on dolby headphone tab play around with the settings til you get what you wish.

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Thanks mate.

I tried that but it kinda made it worse. So I turned off GX it got much better. Prolly just cos the game I mostly play is tfc on the half life engine so it prolly works very differently. Either way...sorted very happy bunny o/
 
GX mode is known to have some serious compatibility issues, and not just with games. Recommend you leave that off.
 
Which TFC servers do you use? I've not fired it up in a while, but when I last did, the blue pill and red pill servers were broken (for about 2 months :()
 
There a couple of servers that are populated on a regular basis:

Games Inside

Royston Vasey

And if you liked playing clan style there are always pickup matches on the wireplay pickup server.
 
i recently installed an asus xonar, i downloaded the latest drivers for win7.on the install it went on and on and on..............:( in the end i suspected faulty driver download ? re downloaded re installed .....same thing.
am i doing something wrong ? or is anyone else geting the same problem ?
 
Ive just got a Xonar D1 and already had 5.1 gainward sound xplosion headphones. I'm looking at going for some DR50's and using dolby headphone as it sounds pretty mint over the headphones i have atm.

My questions are:-

- Should I set the sound to 96khz or the 192khz
- with all the 5.1 headphone jacks via analog it sounds very 'tinny' are there any settings to better this? ie DSP mode - game & GX?

The dolby headphone sounds great, positions isnt bad but the 5.1 position is better on my headphones so may as well use this until i have other cans.

Also are there any other settings worth using like game etc? I mainly play CSS and BC2 (when I install it)

Also the best setup for dolby headphone - is it headphone in windows xp setting, headphone in the software and 5.1 in game?

Cheers in advance :)

PS. the D1 kicks the ass off my old SB & the ALC888 & 889a onboard sound!
 
Clairvoyant said:
Why 16 bit & not 24 bit

Why 2 channel and not 8.

Just asking.
Click to expand...

Yea my bad should be on 24 bit but i personally use 2 channels because that sounds better to me through headphones
Only had my dx a while never really explored exactly what everything does

the goldrings will have sibilance / tinny for a while until they burn in
 
It's a good while since I used a Xonar but I'll have a quick comment on settings.

Channels should be set to whatever your media is natively. For CDs and mp3s that's usually 2 channel. For DVDs it's usually 6 channel. For games it's usually 8 channel. That's Asus's advice anyway.

Anything else can involve upmixing / downmixing - so for example IIRC 6 channels for music will upmix stereo across 6 speakers.

Ideally sample rate should also match the media. For CDs that's 16 bit 44.1khz. For DVDs it's 16 bit 48 khz. Games are variable. In practice I never detected 24 bit 192 khz causing audible problems for anything and ended up running the Xonar at that.

Analog out should be set to whatever you are listening through. So headphones then.

Finally - Dolby Headphone on. Which you prefer will depend on headphones, material and personal preference. I initially liked the spacious aspect of DH3 but grew to dislike what I percieved to be artificial sounding reflections. They're present to a lesser extent in DH2. Basically the more detailed headphones are, the more likely I am to use DH1. I now tend to use DH1 almost exclusively but it's a much more subtle effect than the other two and it doesn't suit all headphones.

I have a vague recollection that DH3 seemed to suit the DR50s. They have a very clean sound that gives the illusion that they're a bit more detailed than they actually are.

Please note that all my recent Dolby Headphone use has been with the Victor SU-DH1 (games) and the software version that's included in PowerDVD 9 (movies) combined with Foobar2000 (music). Earlier software versions I tried weren't very good but the latest DLLs seem to do the job superbly.
 
PCM is the audio sent digitally over SPDIF in stereo, with no 5.1 encoding. It will be sent at the sample rate you specify to a DAC / receiver.

Effectively you are bypassing the DAC chips in the soundcard and getting the reciever to do the digital to analogue conversion.
 
Mmmmmm, the options on my xonar D1 with latest drivers from website only show PCM with the various 96khz & 192 khz.

Also I only have options for headphone, 2 speaker, 4 speaker, 5.1 & 7.1 speaker then also something called FP headphone & fp 2 headphone.

any ideas?
 
The FP is showing incase you want to connect speakers/headphone to the front panel audio jacks on your pc case. It doesnt auto select.
 
Setting up dolby headphone, am i right in thinking the following is how it should be set up?

asus software:-
speakers -> Headphone
gaming mode or dolbyheadphone enabled

to get the surround sound in games do you then have to select 5.1 (ie, cod & CS:source)?

In bad company 2 it has home theatre im guessing thats the setting thats best to use?
 
BC2 audio is generated solely through software and CPU cycles, no need for fancy sound cards (I have a Xonar DX btw...). This was done to maximise the enjoyment/quality of sound for all the target audience, not just for those with Xonar's/X-Fi's etc. The devs therefore recommend turning off all post processing options for best quality and maximum effect. In other words disable all CMS3D/Crystilizer & Dolby Headphone (DH) options.

all audio processing is performed sequentially on a single hardware thread regardless of platform.
Click to expand...

See this BC2 Audiophile's Guide BF:BC2 for full details.

For info I run a Xonar DX on 8 channels, sample rate at 96KHz and Headphone selected. It appears not to matter whether I enable or disable the Gaming mode, but I tend to leave it off for good measure. If I do enable DH the sound becomes tinny and directional sound is lost.

With Vista/W7 you will need to manually configure your sound settings from the control panel to match your sound set-up. For me that means 7.1 surround despite only having headphones connected (Senns HD555). For some reason these OS's don't auto configure like XP did. Or the more likely scenario is that the Xonar drivers/settings do not auto update the Windows settings.

Anyhow, you may also want to check the BC2 settings.ini file and ensure SpeakerCount='0' or '6'. The 0 will default to the windows settings and the 6 will enable 5.1 if you wish set it manually.

Lastly, for the in-game sound settings I move between Hi-Fi and Wartapes for best effect depending on mood. Can't tell the difference betyween the other options, but that could just be me. The game is naturally chaotic so in a busy/high player number map you will not pick up footsteps as easily as in BF2 or CSS for instance with either option selected.
 
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