New soundcard help

alexisonfire

alexisonfire

alexisonfire

Soldato
Joined
8 Sep 2005
Posts
3,684
Location
Chichester
I've never believed in sound cards, and i have always used onboard sound, but recently been playing with the idea of getting a sound card.

Am i honestly going to notice any difference at all going from the onboard sound on my mobo (dfi ultra-d) to this X-Fi? Speakers im using are Aego M's.
 
Depends really on several factors. If the game supports stuff like EAX or if the game engine supports x-fi directly (e.g. BF2) then you'll definitely notice a difference especially with EAX turned on (or whatever the latest version of it is called). There's also sound effects such as CMSS which can make a profound difference if you use headphones but in all honestly I never use any of these and just prefer to use the neutral settings with maybe a slight bass boost for games.

You also have to factor in the quality of your speakers/headphones; are they good enough for you to even notice? With a decent pair of headphones you'll most likely notice better bass response, more solid output, better dynamics and a generally cleaner sound output (well thats what I noticed when I got the x-fi). On the other hand with my fairly average 2.1 pc speakers I hardly notice any difference at all.

Finally theres the performance issue. Many say theres a noticeable increase in framerates yet from benchmarks the difference seems very small and insignificant. I once switched to onboard when my previous sound card died and I didn't notice any decrease in performance.

All in all it was a non-essential purchase but one that was worth it since I listen to music via headphones on my PC very frequently and wanted something at least half decent with full support for games. The x-fi are fairly complex cards, way ahead of their predecessors with lots of features (I never use :o ) so I figured it would last me a while in any case; my last card, an Creative SBLive! 1024 lasted me almost 5 years! :D
 
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The card you linked to is useless for gaming as it has no hardware EAX accelleration and probably worse than your onboard audio in games

Get the Xtreme Gamer instead for £46 ;)
 
Im mainly after a new soundcard to improve MP3 and movie quality, at the moment im happy with the sound quality im getting in games. But i listen to music pretty much constantly, so its important to me. But if the XF-I i posted isn't going to offer me much more than what my onboard does, then i won't bother with it. Unfortunately i can't justify spending £46 on something thats not going to make much difference.
 
Id stick with onboard mate as the one you linked to is pants :p

If your budget is £25 then you can get a used audigy 2 for that much which would be better than onboard at pretty much everything :)

Theres an Audigy 2 im MM for £15 right now, and an Audigy 4 for £22.50 ;)
 
I have got the Audigy 4 PRO and its brilliant. makes games better.. I have my 5.1 speakers and i also have a plantonics headset for games that i need to hear!
 
I didn't really notice a difference with my x-fi at first, i got it working and opened itunes and there was a deeper and more defined bass from my sub, and the treble sounded a bit clearer in songs, but it wasn't really apparant.

Switching on CS:S was a completely different matter though. The silenced weapons had a much more realistic punch to them, without a silencer they actually made a "CRACK" sound like a real gun as opposed to more of a "bang bang" noise with onboard. The clarity of other players voices over the mic had been vastly improved and it was possible to actually understand what they were saying. I was amazed.

Movies sounded good, i noticed things i couldn't hear before in some films, and the explosions in lethal weapon 3 were great (the bomb in the beginning scenes that blew up the mall) and literally did shake my house.


What i can say now is that when i hear music on other speaker setups i think, that doesn't sound anywhere near as good as my pc does. I wouldn't say that with music you notice how much better your new card is, i would say its more apparant how much worse everything else sounds. I do enjoy listening to music on my pc a lot more now that i have the x-fi and i can say that after you listen to it for a while you can physically hear the differences in the music. I think for most people though you don't really have anything better to compare your onboard to, before i had my x-fi i didn't know the difference between onboard and an x-fi, i'm pretty damn confident i do now though :D .
 
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Thanks for that kris, you've practically persuaded me :p

Which X-Fi version are you using? And a general question to all, would the x-fi gamer still be worth getting over the audigy 4, even though its almost 4 times the price?
 
alexisonfire said:
Thanks for that kris, you've practically persuaded me :p

Which X-Fi version are you using? And a general question to all, would the x-fi gamer still be worth getting over the audigy 4, even though its almost 4 times the price?
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I've got the xtreme gamer one. I love it, great purchase and i don't regret buying it for a second now.

Been playing far cry this morning with the EAX turned on, and i swear if i close my eyes i'm actually in a jungle. I can hear birds, trees blowing, leaves rustling, the ocean lapping at the foot of the cliffs, any footsteps of enemy soldiers. Its Great :D

I would say go for the X-Fi. You won't need to uipgrade it anytime soon and its got a lot of processing power behind it.
 
Is it worth going for the XFi Gamer edition even if you have bad speakers? Was thinking of getting a surround sound headset, would I notice the difference over on board?
 
fen739 said:
Is it worth going for the XFi Gamer edition even if you have bad speakers? Was thinking of getting a surround sound headset, would I notice the difference over on board?
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With the bad speakers, i think from an audio clarity point you would see more of an improvement with new speakers. You will notice new sound effects and some changes to the way sound in games is produced, but nowhere near as much clarity as if you had better speakers.

With the headphones, i'd imagine you'd notice a vast improvement. I've been using cheap £14 philips headphones from argos and the X-Fi has a remarkable ability to actually create a surround style field of hearing while i'm using them. Much more noticeable than with my onboard soundcard.
 
Cheers, I'll consider getting that with a pair of gaming Sennhiesers!

I'm on a £5 game headset, so I think I deserve a new one lol and people say they make a large difference!
 
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