Gamers - What Soundcard Are You Using?

MooSey-UK

MooSey-UK

MooSey-UK

Associate
Joined
29 Aug 2006
Posts
635
I've had an X-Fi since back in the day it was the thing for BF2. Since Vista its had crap driver support and i've just used it without worrying to much in conjunction with a Medusa 5.1 headset.
I had a problem yesterday (over overclocking) which resulted in having to remove the soundcard. Vista now thinks its a new device and wants to find drivers. The old one and audio control panel no longer work.
Frustratingly removing Creative software is like getting rats out of a barn and im having a 'mare trying to get drivers to install correctly.
Consequently it crossed my mind as to what was i doing mucking about with 5 year old crap.
What soundcard is the buisness now for gaming? I'd like analogue and surround as a headset is essential and it's about time i replaced my tatty medusa with another. Surround headset is a must too.
Is EAX still a big thing or not? I've lost the plot with hardware so am out of date.
I don't play music. Just want good ear thumping audio in my gaming without filling my pc with spyware junk as Creative like to do.
 
Im planning on moving from my audigy 2 zs to a asus xonar dg in a few days when it comes. Main reasons are, newer tech (should be as its a recent card) and win 7 drivers which should work as intended instead of needing daniel K drivers for my audigy 2zs. Also the headphones amp im keen to see how that effects my music listening.

Im into my music atm, which im not 100% sure the dg is right for but i will see as atm the music is so so with the audigy2zs, some music sounds good some sounds bad (flac). Stereo cmss i would miss for non headphone usage tho as i like that for my x-530 speakers as it puts the front speakers (not centre) into the back ones (clones). So i can have at least something coming out of the rears instead of nothing during listening to non 5.1 stuff. I think the asus has something that can do something like that but not 100% sure its either the dolby headphone thing or the virtual speaker thing.

The headphones i have is the senn hd555s i just got very recently (love em). So the headphone amp might improve em even tho tbh i dont think they need it.
 
Yeah, Creative's Vista 64bit support was crap! I went from Creative/Vista/X-fi to an Asus D2X and never looked back... seams to be a good sound card, got it for less second hand too
 
Using a Sound Blaster X-fi Xtreme Audio.

Mostly fine in terms of what quality and features I need, but really want to get one with on-the-fly digital encoding so I can end up running my pc in 5.1 via optical out through the same speaker system as my ps3/xbox. Any recommendations that aren't super expensive?
 
Xonar D2!

It's heaven, also if you like to watch films on your PC you have no idea what decent sound card will do for your movie experience...

Admittedly my Sound card drivers have issues with Fallout 3, which mean I can't play it, but meh...

kd
 
Had a X-Fi Xtreme Music, loved the sound but hated the drivers. Bought a Xonar DG, drivers are ok, sound is a bit worse in actual terms but excellent for the money.
 
Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer PCI-E Edition, never had any driver problems using Win 7 and works great when used through optical.
 
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