Is audiophile PC gaming possible?

Boozebeard · 1 Mar 2011 at 22:04

My motherboard does cmss-3d, now I'm starting to think I should have bought an external amp and dolby headphone device, instead of the sound card.

mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

I could try sending it back or sell it on for a hopefully small loss. Dunno if it would be worth it though. Why are things always so complicated?

Uriel · 1 Mar 2011 at 22:19

Boozebeard said:
My motherboard does cmss-3d,

Not properly it doesn't. Your motherboard has the kneecapped version without MacroFX or Elevation filter - the same as on the Xtreme Audio.

Having said that, we are starting to get the odd motherboard with full X-Fi capabilities on board.

Uriel · 1 Mar 2011 at 22:23

Global_Inferno said:
I take it you run the windows config as a 4.1 -> CMSS-3D Virtual -> DH -> Amp -> Headphones?

Yep - near enough.

Only any point in running 4.1 in hardware based games though. For software based engines I'll happily run 5.1 (DDL and DTSC don't do 7.1).

A receiver that takes 8 channel analogue connection with Dolby Headphone would be nice though...

Global_Inferno · 2 Mar 2011 at 08:32

Boozebeard said:
My motherboard does cmss-3d, now I'm starting to think I should have bought an external amp and dolby headphone device, instead of the sound card.

Like Uriel said, it may well "do" it, but not very well, plus if you're then using the DAC on your motherboard it will be awful compared with what you have now.

Boozebeard · 2 Mar 2011 at 21:59

Global_Inferno said:
Like Uriel said, it may well "do" it, but not very well, plus if you're then using the DAC on your motherboard it will be awful compared with what you have now.

Well if I was doing it how Uriel described it I would output via optical from the mobo so that shouldn't really matter.

Chiribo · 4 Mar 2011 at 12:21

Gotta admit that I'm not overly impressed with Dolby Headphones feature at the moment. May possibly be that the one game I've used it with (Rift) doesn't have much in the way of sound options, something I'll have to look into.

Generally though, I'm rather pleased with my Xonar Essence STX. Currently have some Sennheiser HD 215s plugged directly into the card which I am planning to upgrade some time soon.

Actually did a little test the other day to see if I could notice the difference between a FLAC and v0 version of a track. Was a bit hard but I did notice a slight difference between the two versions, so overall I'm rather happy