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Guys I need help... I have had the soundblaster fatality card for years. I wanted to upgrade to a better card but there are a million out there. I basically game with my pc and watch blue rays occasionally.I have a 5.1 klipsh surround sound system as well.
Whats your price range. I would say use the ASUS Xonar, Creative SB Titanium or M-Audio (not the best for gaming, more for music production)
Creative Sound Blaster ZxR , Hands down.
Integrated sound cards are pretty much equal to dedicated cards at this point in terms of gaming capabilities, no so much in terms of I/O. If you don't have fancy I/O needs there is no reason for a dedicated card.
Not if you are using expensive headphones , and want somthing to offer you 124dB !!!Quote:
Originally Posted by ImaNihilist
That is the volume control knob you are looking for...Quote:
Originally Posted by PCVSNotebook
Most recent onboard cards are really good for gaming (and most everything else) now; not like they were a few years ago.
JKILLA, what Mobo do you have?
wrong !Quote:
Originally Posted by Wurm
see this to learn somthing
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iueTVM3xfFM
and today Creative ZXR is the best
specs
http://www.soundblaster.com/products...aster-zxr.aspx
Review :Quote:
124dB Signal-To-Noise Ratio
A signal to noise ratio or SNR of 124dB means your audio will be > 99.99% pristine audio which is more than 89.1 times better than the average sound cards.
http://www.expertreviews.co.uk/gadge...nd-blaster-zxr
Edit : (you dont know what you are missing :) )
I really don't care, you know why? Because to listen to music, I have a (really) nice sound system.
He asked about gaming. The new onboard cards do it well. My onboard card even supports THX TruStudio-Pro.
Also he has normal PC-centric 5.1 speakers, to get full use out of that card you listed he would need to upgrade them as well.
*edit* PCV you tend to be "fan-boyish" about the hardware you have, not everyone does or should agree with you.
And BTW there was nothing "wrong" about my post.
*edit 2* And I seriously doubt you have anything to teach me.
when you mock people insulting their brain and say "That is the volume control knob you are looking for."Quote:
Originally Posted by Wurm
expect to get replies like mine. and I was very polite I just said to you that you were wrong.
and as it seems you thought it was about Volume control knob ... the 124dB SNR ...
well surprise you did learn something from me .
the Same Volume control Knob will give you different results with a normal 100db card vs 124DB card ...
and as it seems you did not even know that each 3 DB more means double the sound quality as explained in the movie and the quote I posted.
surprise again , you should be thankful :)
and it is not about music only ... it is about the better sound quality .. the digital to Analog converting and output.
and Games have music too I guess.
hint : dont shout.
It was a joke. pretty sad you took it personal, like I said fan-boyish.Quote:
Originally Posted by PCVSNotebook
I know all about Creative, spent hundreds of dollars on their good hardware paired with so-so drivers and software for many years.
And you know what, the onboard cards have caught up so well, that for gaming, you can do everything with them that you can do with that high priced card you love so much.
*edit* And you still haven't posted anything I didn't already know.
Quote:
Originally Posted by PCVSNotebook
Sound quality doesn't quite work the way you think it does. It's not like a spec sheet suddenly means "more quality". For games it really doesn't matter, since there isn't anything recorded in super high quality.
Sound cards for gaming don't really serve a purpose anymore. It was never really about quality anyway. It was about surround sound and offloading processing from the CPU. In the era of multi-core CPUs it no longer matters.
LOL ... did you really know every 3 DB more you get double sound quality ? come onnnnnnnn I know you are an old timer but still you can miss a thing here and a thing there ..Quote:
Originally Posted by Wurm
oh and you are wrong about Creative , Asus Xonar cards took the lead for about 3 years , untill the ZXR was released when Creative took the lead back ..
btw , how much do you pay for each speaker ? Reciever ? Amplifier ? etc , for your sound system ?
I dont need to be a sound Engineer to judge . My ears tell me .. let your ears be the judge , dont go into much technical explanations every where .. when it comes to sound quality , your ears are the judge.Quote:
Originally Posted by ImaNihilist
I know you are using Mac now and Cant test it . but if you test High end Sound cards today VS onboard sound ,you will hear the difference.
some High end motherboards started adding 118DB SNR and 600ohms amplifier and shielding to their onboard sound chip , even gold plated i/o as well , like the Sniper motherboard from Gigabyte and the supreme FX from Asus but those are $300+ motherboards .
There is no difference. We are talking about video games. The soundtracks are 256Kbps VBR on a good day. The sound effects are just sound effects. The sound of a sniper rifle isn't going to sound any different.Quote:
Originally Posted by PCVSNotebook
It's a wonder that Creative is still making sound cards. A of SNR 124dB is pretty irrelevant as a statistics. The Sound Blaster brand is a joke designed to sell a dead product to chumps. For a while it still made sense after the dedicated sound card was made redundant, because the I/O was still useful… but now there are better I/O solutions as well. Almost all I/O has gone external. They started putting things like an amp on the sound card because they had to find someway to continue to sell a 5 year old worthless product.
I bet PCV has silver cables as well.
Better get some of these or you might lose 0.00001% sound quality! http://www.aspenaudio.com/Merchant2/...uct_Code=GA470
Ima is right. Most games encode their audio to low bitrate. I know the "standard" for most iOS apps is 64Kbps... Games are around 128-256Kbps. No amount of tube amp, gold connector, blah blah will make that sound better.
Even fancy new games with 100+ audio channels are using 128Kbps audio. It just doesn't matter when it's sound effects, and the quality of a soundtrack in the actual game itself is almost irrelevant when sound effects are layered on top of it.
Look through the game files. I almost challenge you to find something above 256Kbkps VBR. Even that is a stretch. You won't find lossless anything anywhere.
I guess you should go and ask Asus and Gigabyte , why are they taking the same route , adding 118dB SNR sound onboard , including the 600 ohm just one year after Creative and Asus introduced similar sound cards.Quote:
Originally Posted by ImaNihilist
it is not a 5 years old worthless product. and you can hear the difference. you are talking technical ... we are talking from Experience ... and I dont think the motherboard makers are stupid to make their high end motherboards $100 more expensive just for worthless product as you have said.
maybe you never tried a really expensive headphones to feel the difference .... I dont know..
They are making them $5 more expensive and then charging you a $95 premium.Quote:
Originally Posted by PCVSNotebook
You aren't going to get better audio out of SoundBlaster board than you will out of an Intel Desktop reference board. It's going to sound exactly the same. It's just marketing ******** the same way TV manufacturers now make outrageous claims like, "1200Hz" or some other nonsense.
If you really want/need higher quality audio you use the S/PDIF output and pipe it into a real audio system. There was a period of time when games even supported this. Then everyone realized that it was kind of worthless to pipe 64Kbps audio channels into a fancy Dolby hardware decoder.
Sure, good headphones matter A LOT. Especially when compared to pack-in computer speakers. There is no comparison. We are talking about the sound card's effect on this, not the physical driver. The point is, the ship has already sailed on quality when the dev encoded the track to 128Kbps. A cheap bundled sound card won't make that worse. Physical drivers matter a lot, because most simply can't represent the entire frequency range.Quote:
Originally Posted by PCVSNotebook
If we are talking lossless through an audiophile sound system with a VERY discerning ear, then there will be some difference. The OP needs to ask themselves if it is worth $300 for a sound card and $5000 for an entry level audiophile sound system.
well as I said I am talking from experience. I compared the onboard sound with my card using my EARS , and it is way better.Quote:
Originally Posted by ImaNihilist
as for using the digital out , I agree , but there is a minus here , when you move your pc around you will need to move your HUGE sound system with it. and this is not practical . I want it all in the box .