Which Soundcard

Kyo

Kyo

Kyo

Soldato
Joined
11 Oct 2003
Posts
8,790
Hi

Right seeing how i want to totally upgrade my sound setup on my pc i was also thinking on the soundcard also. I have mentioned in the past that i am currently using a very old soundblaster 5.1 and mainly will be gaming above most things ie music, movies etc.

I have ordered a Zalman's surround sound headphones (and i know) some have mentioned to get a proper set to be far superior but i got a limited budget and the set i ordered are meant to be pretty good for gaming nevertheless.

The soundcards that i got my eye on is either the creative X-FI xtreme gamer or xtreme music. Searched before and read that there isn't really a difference between the 2 and that the music would have better components as it basically the same card. However i was looking around and xtreme gamer is classed as a 7.1 surround card whereas music is only 5.1. The other thing is that the music has a manufacturing warranty of 2 years but says nothing for gamer. Am i right in thinking that both cards should be 2 years standard.??

Any input on what u would choose would be appreciated.

Cheers

Kyo

P.s i will be running xp so that 4gb ram issue on Vista shouldn't be a issue hopefully.
 
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I seen different versions of the same card. What the main difference between the fatal1ty versions and the standard. I always thought it was just additional goodies packed to the exact same card. ?? Or did i read somewhere about additional onboard memory?
 
from the description of overclockers website :

"Sound Blaster® X-Fi Xtreme Gamer - Fatal1ty Professional Series is the essential audio upgrade for serious PC gamers. Endorsed by the world's leading pro gamer, it's the most powerful sound card ever, accelerating Direct X, OpenAL and EAX 5.0 to give the highest quality cinematic audio at faster frame rates, with 64MB of X-Ram to ensure fast loading of high-quality sounds. Game Mode dedicates the processor 100% to game audio, powering X-Fi CMSS-3D to give ultra-realistic surround sound over stereo headphones for LAN or late-night gaming. In addition, X-Fi 24-bit Crystalizer restores sparkle to low quality audio, upgrading games, MP3, DIVX and TV audio to 24-bit quality. "
 
musx64 said:
from the description of overclockers website :

"Sound Blaster® X-Fi Xtreme Gamer - Fatal1ty Professional Series is the essential audio upgrade for serious PC gamers. Endorsed by the world's leading pro gamer, it's the most powerful sound card ever, accelerating Direct X, OpenAL and EAX 5.0 to give the highest quality cinematic audio at faster frame rates, with 64MB of X-Ram to ensure fast loading of high-quality sounds. Game Mode dedicates the processor 100% to game audio, powering X-Fi CMSS-3D to give ultra-realistic surround sound over stereo headphones for LAN or late-night gaming. In addition, X-Fi 24-bit Crystalizer restores sparkle to low quality audio, upgrading games, MP3, DIVX and TV audio to 24-bit quality. "
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As far as Creative goes it's what they don't say that troubles me. They make no mention of popular online game of "hunt the working driver" which is bundled with their cards. I happen not to be a fan of this particular game.
 
If you're running XP, then an XFI card is fine. If you plan on using Vista at any point, avoid any Creative card like the plague. They have quite possibly one of the worst driver development teams in existence (and by team I mean two or three people max, and one of those is probably a gardener in his spare time or something).

If it works ok for you on Vista, great. If it doesn't, too bad. That's pretty much the company's stance towards its customers.
 
Almosted ordered it as well. hmmm is the fatal1ty pro worth the money your paying ontop for onboard memory. I have been experiencing slight lag sometimes ingame for explosions etc which probably would benefit with faster performance. What do u think?
 
If you can afford it, the Auzentech is the best card to go for, its got the functionality of the X-Fi with some additional features being implemented with time and drivers by Auzen, not to mention AFAIK they've already addressed the 4GB Vista issue which has plagued creative customers for months, so I hold far more stock in the driver support team. It also has better internal components than the Creative editions. It's got a price premium, but for a card to last you some time, it might be worth the investment for the better sound quality, and driver support; as you'd be able to take it forward to a Vista system at a later date, a move you might have trouble with, if you're using the Creative cards.

If you can't afford the Auzen, go for the music out of the two you mentioned, its meant to have superior component quality when compared to the gamer model. The X-RAM is marketing, virtually nothing has used it. The Fatal1ty editions are only really to be considered (because of the price premium), if you need the front drive bay.
 
the azuentech is a contradiction in soundcards. people spout the better component quality and the features that'll be added soon (DDlive/DTS encoding) as reasons to buy the card yet if you want to use that dd/dts encoding, the quality of the analogue component will mean jack squat (because you wont actually be using them)

if you're going to buy the card, buy it for the analogue outputs OR the dd/dts encoding (which is a waste of time for gaming imo). buy it for both and you're living in cookoo land.


and also, their better driver support. Dont forget the low mic input issue that has plagued every card since the original x-mystique which, i might add, they have never fixed.
 
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james.miller said:
the azuentech is a contradiction in soundcards. people spout the better component quality and the features that'll be added soon (DDlive/DTS encoding) as reasons to buy the card yet if you want to use that dd/dts encoding, the quality of the analogue component will mean jack squat (because you wont actually be using them)

if you're going to buy the card, buy it for the analogue outputs OR the dd/dts encoding (which is a waste of time for gaming imo). buy it for both and you're living in cookoo land.


and also, their better driver support. Dont forget the low mic input issue that has plagued every card since the original x-mystique which, i might add, they have never fixed.
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Thats very true, HOWEVER on the other hand, the drivers DO actually work, even with some slight faults, which is something that a lot of X-FI owners of Vista can't say about Creative's own versions, with many users reporting issues of massive sound issues etc, plus they've apparently fixed the critical 4GB issue, whereas a 'quiet' mic input, whilst unfortunate, is hardly a critical bug.

On component quality/features, whilst the upcoming features don't benefit as the effects are mutually exclusive, they have the choice of digital connection with added encoding capabilities, or better quality analogue, so either way they connect, they still have benefits over a Creative card, which won't have the encoding capability, nor the higher quality analogue connection, so whilst they're both mutually exclusive, and won't be usable at the same time, they both offer something extra over the Creative variants.
 
yep. doesnt warrent spending £100 though, imo. now, the real question is, how many people are buying them to use the analogue outputs, and how many are actually buying the azuntechs because of the dd/dts encoding?

ahhh;)
 
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Thats a good question, and ofc spending £100 is perhaps a little steep, but when you consider the lack of competition for various reasons, and the additional other features, its easy to see why people building an expensive system shouldn't hesitate to use an Auzen to top it off, although the Xonar is an interesting prospect, now that Vista is rendering EAX irrelevant for future games, but again thats another expensive card.
 
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Did Creative not have a solution that forces Vista to Hardware Render the sounds from the device rather from the OS. Think it was called Creative Alchemy but this app only works for certain games so not so sure about the newer apps/games.

Taken from Creative site.

"In Windows Vista, Microsoft has decided to remove the Hardware Abstraction Layer (HAL) for DirectSound and DirectSound3D. The HAL is the software layer that in previous Windows operating systems enabled an audio accelerator such as the Sound Blaster X-Fi to provide DirectSound3D applications with hardware accelerated audio. This enabled soundcards to perform tasks such as sample-rate conversion, mixing, 3D spatialization using HRTFs, filtering, and effects processing. Without the HAL, DirectSound on Windows Vista will be rendered in software with no advanced functionality such as EAX.

The audio changes in Windows Vista do not affect OpenAL however. For audio cards that feature 'native' OpenAL support, such as the SB X-Fi series of cards, there is no need to worry! Games that enable support for OpenAL will continue to run just as they do on Windows XP - with hardware accelerated audio and effects. A listing of OpenAL titles can be found at http://www.openal.org/titles.html.

Although OpenAL has arguably replaced DirectSound3D, particularly in many modern PC Games (e.g. Battlefield 2142, Doom3, Quake 4, Prey, etc.), there are hundreds of older PC games that support DirectSound3D and EAX technology. All of these games will sound empty and lifeless on Vista. As most DS3D games only enable 3D Audio and EAX if a hardware accelerator is present, most of these games will be reduced to a stereo output.

The good news is that the Creative ALchemy Project allows you to run your favorite DirectSound3D games on Windows Vista as the developers intended - with full hardware accelerated 3D Audio and EAX support! This is done by translating the legacy DirectSound calls into OpenAL. In order for this to happen, a couple of files need to be installed into each game directory. This is handled automatically by the ALchemy installer - but can also be performed manually by advanced users.

The Creative ALchemy Project is still in development and the ALchemy installer only supports a limited number of PC games. However, with your help, we would like to add more titles to the DirectSound3D Games list so please download the ALchemy installer, run it, and enjoy 3D Audio with EAX effects in your favorite games. Please share your experiences with ALchemy in our discussion board.

ALchemy vs Drivers
ALchemy is a software application that translates audio calls from one API to another. ALchemy is NOT a hardware driver, and will require that you have an appropriate driver installed and functioning properly first. You can download the latest Sound Blaster drivers for Windows Vista from http://us.creative.com/support/downloads."
 
Alexrose1uk said:
Thats a good question, and ofc spending £100 is perhaps a little steep, but when you consider the lack of competition for various reasons, and the additional other features, its easy to see why people building an expensive system shouldn't hesitate to use an Auzen to top it off, although the Xonar is an interesting prospect, now that Vista is rendering EAX irrelevant for future games, but again thats another expensive card.
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it is. but if you want decent analogue outputs, its a nice card. im quite happy with mine:)
 
Right rather than add more clutter to the forums by having a extra thread i may as well include my next query to compliment my new sound card going for headset as well.

My original intention was to get a pair of Zalman 5.1 headphones but they aren't available on stock atm :( so i suppose i can strech my budget and get a decent pair instead. Which i know many of you will agree after reading so many threads that the general consensus is that surround sound headphones are vastly inferior to a decent set of headphones.

Therefore thinking to get the Beyer 770 headphones as there so many threads to say it is apparently one of the best headphones u can get particular for gaming. What i don't really get is that how can a pair of decent quality headphones with 1 jack be vastly superior in deciphering sound to say a pair of zalman 5.1 headphones that has 3 jacks that separate the feed to front rear and centre channels??.
 
Sound is originally mastered in Stereo most of the time, and humans HEAR in Stereo - we have a left and a right input! Good stereo headphones are far better as it involves less electrical fiddling with the sound, and also the speakers in the headphones are usually of higher quality - £30/6 vs £30/2 as an example... you can see how that goes :)

The extra speakers are just *trying* to convey information that a human being is going to take as Stereo in the first place, its differences in pitch etc due to direction that the brain interprets as directional audio. Due to the positioning of these speakers in the headphones, they're also inferior in placement, as you dont get front/back etc, you get slightly front left, slightly front right etc, not true audio representation.

Long story short, spend your money on some nice headphones, if you listen to lots of music, your ears will thank you later on!
 
I am all for gettng a the 770 but like i mentioned my main objective is to get the "best" spacial awareness when i am gaming in css. So i take it the 770 will be just as good if not better for sound position than the zalmans?
 
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