Sound cards

[DEATHMASTER]

Ok so I hear they take stress off the cpu and that can improve gaming performance. Are there any benchmarks showing this? I know my cpu is holding my gpu back but if I can be shown that a sound card can change that to enough of a degree I might be indulged to get one.

 

[DEATHMASTER]

What worthy cards do you recommend.

 

[giant384]

the audigy 4s have been great for me. superior audio quality if you have a decent pair of speakers. if you have shitty speakers then you wont be able to tell the difference in quality. x-fi ive heard has been good,but alot of the new features are mostly software based. plus ive heard about problems with the drivers and xp. vista and x-fi seem to be good.

 

[Kyorisu]

Avoid creative like the plague. You want either a Asus Xonar or Auzentech HDA X-Plosion. Anything else isn't worth the trouble.

Creative are a bunch of wankers who hate their own community when it solves problems for them.

 

[Asus]

The only game I know of to show much frame rate differences via a graph was battlefield 2. And that is while running resolutions you actually play at and not dumbed down 1024x768 to downplay the GPU just to show CPU and sound card differences. The GPU is the limitation for FPS in most cases by a long shot.

Although BF2 and other games do sound different with EAX and non-EAX cards (or at least cards that doesn't support the later versions). Plus music is better with cards that have quality DACs (creative doesn't hold the crown here).

And Vista killed EAX. Most sound in Vista is done via software instead. The hardware acceleration supported in Vista is OpenAL. Creative does have a program to convert EAX calls to OpenAL so their card uses the hardware (good for sound effects) but then there is still that process of converting which takes up CPU time (won't gain the FPS).

Avoid creative like the plague. You want either a Asus Xonar or Auzentech HDA X-Plosion. Anything else isn't worth the trouble.

Creative are a bunch of wankers who hate their own community when it solves problems for them.

Agreed.

Some game graphs (same playability. wouldn't notice any difference while playing those games)
FYI auzentech prelude in the review uses a creative xfi chip and creative drivers but better DACs.
listening comparison

 

[Iced_Eagle]

I vote for Asus Xonar.

Creative is crap now.

 

[VirusType2]

My X-Fi doesn't work with most games. EAX isn't even selectable! Hardware acceleration doesn't even work! (that was sorta the point of getting it)

It might be broken, but I've read dozens of people complaining of the same problem.

reason why it doesn't affect Vista is because hardware acceleration wasn't working in Vista.


When I tried to get help, creative sent me a cookie cutter sweeping email that offered no help. it suggested that I buy a new motherboard.

they blamed the problem on my motherboard. nuff said

never buying another ****ing thing from them.

 

[McGooTheWise]

The best sound card you will ever be able to get. (Exaggeration ends here.)

http://www.google.com/products/catalog?hl=en&q=creative+fatal1ty&um=1&cid=8850010927283860633

The best one on the market right now, actually.

 

[CptStern]

even though companies like asus use the creative x-fi chip I thought they were limited to not supporting eax or 5.0? the price premium doesnt seem worth it inho ..especially for someone like me who would only want it for games

 

[Adabiviak]

How's your speaker system? The difference between my onboard (Realtek) system and my sound card (Auzentech) is only noticeable (to me) with a nice set of speakers. If you're just running them through a couple of laptop speakers, the difference is negligible. Note: both of these setups on my system were tested via fiber optic cable to a Yamaha receiver set to 5.1.

 

[Asus]

even though companies like asus use the creative x-fi chip

Auzentech has ONE sound card that does use the X-fi chip, the X-fi Prelude. Asus' cards don't use the Xfi chip but rather C-Media Oxygen HD chips and burr brown DACs (on the Xonar).

I thought they were limited to not supporting eax or 5.0? the price premium doesnt seem worth it inho ..especially for someone like me who would only want it for games

Asus cards and other cards with non-creative chips only support EAX 2.0. Asus' Xonar DX does emulate all the effects EAX 5 brings (via the CPU). But they also support OpenAL which, going forward, is the only hardware acceleration that will be in Windows (Vista). Otherwise it will be software/CPU driven. OpenAL does good effects similar to current EAX versions.

OpenAL is owned by Creative but other companies have got in on the action with OpenAL support without Creative having a monopoly on this specific hardware acceleration.