What about sound - has there been any progress?

[Deleted]

Almost 5 years ago I got myself a Creative X-Fi soundcard that was apparently supposed to revolutionize the sound-experience. However I never really got to experience much of it as my card proved to be incompatible with my motherboard which resulted in various glitches and errors.

I always felt that sound was always somewhat underrated by a lot of Gamers because it was hard to measure. Yet in my opinion it adds just as much immersion as good graphics.

Now admittedly onboard sound has become pretty decent in the past decade but it seems like very little progress has been made in terms of soundcards or sound-quality.

Creatives X-Fi and Asus Xonar Xense seem to be the only real competitors for high-quality video game sound.

How do you feel about sound in games? Do you have anything invested into it or do you make due with onboard sound + cheap headset?

Am I the only ones who thinks it doesn't get as much attention as it deserves?

[Sephiracle]

Honestly, I think you'd have to have a really nice set up in order to notice a difference between an external or dedicated sound card from an integrated one.

I usually play with headphones but occasionally I'll turn on my 4.1 system and I haven't noticed it being any different between my old pc using an Audigy card to the onboard my GD65 has. It's a lot harder to quantify an improvement in sound quality than video quality unless you're a huge sound person.

[Deleted]

There are certainly differences between integrated and 'external' sound cards; however they will not be present on more standard level sound equipment.

The latest realtek soundcard can't really do sound above 20khz at all, it struggles with lows, and its not 'quite' as even in the mids as the proper sound cards. However, the mid-range difference only shows on a spectrometer, and the lows and highs aren't really gonna be noticeable in games which generally stay away from those ranges. (Too low blocks out other sounds, too high is inaudible by many people)

Progression is not fast however, and a sound card is one of those investments that can likely continually be used for over a decade - assuming the port itself isn't retired, or the new OS version lacks any drivers for it. Still got a few SB Live! cards kicking about just fine, and those are late 1990s cards.

Signal-to-Noise ratios are naturally also improving a lot (todays sound cards are up at ~120db); however we are approaching a level where it gets hard to tell the difference between the SNR of some integrated cards versus those of external ones.

[Hovsa]

Honestly, I think you'd have to have a really nice set up in order to notice a difference between an external or dedicated sound card from an integrated one.

Actually you will notice a performance increase on older computers, sometimes up to 10+ fps increase because onboard sound draws from your CPU.

Even sound quality is alot better. You will notice a big difference by using a pci soundcard, for example if a mounted character comes riding past you, you can hear the direction from where he came and went. (note that USB headphones dont use soundcards, but have built-in drivers).

Personally im the happy owner of an ASUS Rampage II motherboard which comes with a plug-in version of the Creative X-Fi soundcard customized for the motherboard. (used Audigy before).

[BicycleMafioso]

Creatives X-Fi and Asus Xonar Xense seem to be the only real competitors for high-quality video game sound.

Question: When you say high-quality video game sound.. Is that any different to you from normal high quality sound?
Or is it just that past those cards, you don't feel there's a justification for price increase contra performance for gamers?

How do you feel about sound in games?

I don't play with sound on. If I did, I wouldn't be able to hear the wonderful silence emitting from my case.


If I did care about having sound, I'd get myself an Asus Xonar and a pair of Sennheiser PC350/360. Or even better headphones with standalone mic. I probably will. Just to have my peripherals feel more complete (Steelseries Siberia v2 is shite. It's good for "gamerslol", but for soundquality, ugh).

[Deleted]

Question: When you say high-quality video game sound.. Is that any different to you from normal high quality sound?
Or is it just that past those cards, you don't feel there's a justification for price increase contra performance for gamers?
I don't play with sound on. If I did, I wouldn't be able to hear the wonderful silence emitting from my case.

Well I remember Battlefield 2 and some other games had special HD sound that was only available if you had a Creative X-Fi soundcard.

Battlefield games in general have always payed a lot of attention to sound and there is an added benefit for having such a card. And as noted above, you do gain a few extra FPS from it too as the CPU no longer needs to take care of processing the sound data.

[BicycleMafioso]

Well I remember Battlefield 2 and some other games had special HD sound that was only available if you had a Creative X-Fi soundcard.

Battlefield games in general have always payed a lot of attention to sound and there is an added benefit for having such a card. And as noted above, you do gain a few extra FPS from it too as the CPU no longer needs to take care of processing the sound data.

Noted. But my point was - is there a reason you make the distinction between gaming HQsound and "other" HQsound? Or did I just get hung up on the wording?

I'm genuinly interested.

[vesseblah]

Creative's X-Fi line are surprisingly bad if you're looking for sound quality instead of 3d surround tricks. Asus Xonar cards will give better sound for music and movies.

To benefit from the 3D sound processing you'd need at least 5.1 speaker set, preferably 7.1 as the surround effect with headphones will be weak which makes buying soundcards for gaming use into exercise in futility and mostly a placebo effect. Offloading sound processing to dedicated card made some sense few years ago, but not anymore since the CPUs are powerful enough for it and wont spend more than 2-3% of time doing the audio processing.

Also Microsoft broke whole EAX in Vista/7 and are pushing their new audio API, which is the reason why X-Fi cards have issues making it even worse purchase.

[Deleted]

Even sound quality is alot better. You will notice a big difference by using a pci soundcard, for example if a mounted character comes riding past you, you can hear the direction from where he came and went. (note that USB headphones dont use soundcards, but have built-in drivers).

I don't want to be a bitch here but my onboard audio and cheap logitech 5.1 set have no problems producing surround that allows me to pinpoint where something is at any given point in time.

[Deleted]

Noted. But my point was - is there a reason you make the distinction between gaming HQsound and "other" HQsound? Or did I just get hung up on the wording?

I'm genuinly interested.

Well iirc the X-Fi did boast a few features that allowed it to do sound specific things other cards did not. The biggest feature was the 64 MB of dedicated memory, something previous sound cards didn't have. It also supported EAX 5.0 and THX quality mixing, something that's rare even today.

Something the card also excelled at was 3D sound emulation on Stereo headsets. In fact it was so good that many consider the emulated 3D sound to be better and more accurate than in some dedicated "5.1" surround sound headsets.

Afaik some of the best surround sound you can experience in headphones comes from combining an X-Fi with a high-quality stereo headset like the Sennheiser PC 360.

But yeah, for more technical details I suggest you browse this article from 2005: http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/...x,1101-23.html

As with many things in the tech world, people are easily content with what they have, until they experience something new. I remember asking "why would I want a wide screen?"...

[BicycleMafioso]

Creative's X-Fi line are surprisingly bad if you're looking for sound quality instead of 3d surround tricks. Asus Xonar cards will give better sound for music and movies.

That's my understanding as well, so reinforcing this.

I don't want to be a bitch here but my onboard audio and cheap logitech 5.1 set have no problems producing surround that allows me to pinpoint where something is at any given point in time.

Can confirm. The few times I do play with sound, I find it very useful with stealthers in mind.

[openair]

Honestly, I think you'd have to have a really nice set up in order to notice a difference between an external or dedicated sound card from an integrated one.

Either really nice or really weak(cpu). One of the biggest benefits of sound cards is the reduction in cpu time eaten by integrated hardware.

[Deleted]

have no problems producing surround that allows me to pinpoint where something is at any given point in time.

Nor should you. Most surround arguments regarding sound cards should be when done via virtualized surround, typically designed with headphones/headsets in mind.

will be weak which makes buying soundcards for gaming use into exercise in futility and mostly a placebo effect.

I'm gonna have to disagree on the placeboo effect.

At least, its never stopped me from acing non-LOS shots in shooters. (With a single moment of sound, nothing persistent permitting stereo based homing)

[Deleted]

Either really nice or really weak. One of the biggest benefits of sound cards is the reduction in cpu time eaten by integrated hardware.

Which is virtually non on modern hardware.
You'd need to have a quality surround amp, along with some quality speakers with multiple drivers to notice a difference between a high end sound card and an onboard one these days.

[Cows For Life]

Which is virtually non on modern hardware.
You'd need to have a quality surround amp, along with some quality speakers with multiple drivers to notice a difference between a high end sound card and an onboard one these days.

If you have quality headphones that need a lot of power to drive them properly, most onboard is too crappy to do it right.

[Adappy]

Either really nice or really weak(cpu). One of the biggest benefits of sound cards is the reduction in cpu time eaten by integrated hardware.

IF you're playing games that support hardware acceleration, which many don't.

Only place I've noticed a difference between my motherboard's onboard sound and my ASUS Xonar DX is while listening to music (which is why I bought the card in the first place) and even then it's slight and I only notice it because I'm somewhat of an audiophile. While gaming I don't notice much of a difference.

[ispano]

Most audio in games is lossy, and not necessarily "HQ" bitrates either. Most people would only notice it with music, if that even. Many people just don't hear the difference, be it because they just can't hear it or they don't care enough to be able to pick out the differences actively or passively. "Gaming" sound cards really don't do anything aside from things like 3D surround, EAX, whatever.