Which Soundcard

Kyo · 23 Oct 2007 at 13:57

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.

Kyo · 23 Oct 2007 at 14:40

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?

Kyo · 25 Oct 2007 at 08:39

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?

Kyo · 26 Oct 2007 at 08:31

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."

Kyo · 26 Oct 2007 at 11:09

James i take it you a creative card then?

Kyo · 26 Oct 2007 at 14:37

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??.

Kyo · 26 Oct 2007 at 20:28

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?