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sound card and headphones

K

Koudelka

Senior member
I need to get a good sound card and set of headphones for my PC. My only concern is gaming and not music.

I've been trying to research the video cards today, the last one i had was an audigy 2 ZS platinum and i loved it. Apparently Creative has about a dozen sound cards out today. None of them seem to have hookups anymore for cases with headphone or mic jacks either.

So, whats a good sound card to get nowadays? A reliable one, and a good set of gaming headphones. A set of headphones with great directional sound would be superb.

I play a lot of Counter-Strike and being able to tell where footsteps and gunfire is coming from is key.

Looking for something in the $100-150 for sound card and headphones each. So $200-300 on the both of them if possible.

Thanks for any suggestions!
 
Auzentech X-fi Forte and Sennheiser HD555.

If you look in the BST market, you can find HD595s for around $150, they are a huge step up from the 555s.
 
Auzentech is x-fi, and x-fi is creative. It's just a better piece of hardware.

The Forte has a way better feature set, both hardware and software, such as onboard headphone amp that can drive impedances up to 600 ohms.

Sure for 100 bucks you can get the creative xtreme gamer, but for a little more you can get a card that is a lot better, since your budget allows.
 
creative is dying.
vista and future games will use software sound..universal solution that benifits all.

all you need are good headphones for gaming. directional headphones are a gimmick, you simply need quality headphone. senns as said are ok. head-fi.org has more
 
Do you need to keep sound from leaking out?
http://www.head-fi.org/forums/...e-buyers-guide-271258/
here's a nice buyer guide

Beyerdynamic DT770 Pro look good from that list for your price range. Bass monsters + closed design.

then get this headphone amp
http://www.dealextreme.com/details.dx/sku.18350

Honestly, I'd just save money and get these though
http://www.headphone.com/produ.../sennheiser-hd-205.php
You're not listening to music, so you don't exactly need the highest fidelity, just something very punchy with lots of oomph. These fit the bill.
 
Thanks for all the replies guys! Lots of great info

@OrooOroo

So you're saying future games will use onboard audio?
 
no what hes saying is that EAX is dying, and without EAX there is no need for a creative chip. any other chip can do the job just as well without creative drivers up your bum.
 
bingo, multicore cpu+decent hd audio on board + vista basically telling creative to screw off mean game devs have been pushed towards software sound solutions. which is good, as it saves them money since their work is for everyone to enjoy, not just creative labs owners.

 
Originally posted by: JAG87
no what hes saying is that EAX is dying, and without EAX there is no need for a creative chip. any other chip can do the job just as well without creative drivers up your bum.
Click to expand...

Interesting that Vista is going this way. Ever since getting my first X-Fi card a few years ago I've never been without one for one reason - CMSS-3D for regular stereo headphones.

I was a total Battlefield 2 nut at the time. Going from on-board sound to the X-Fi, suddenly every time anyone fired a gun I could hear exactly what direction they were from me. It's such an advantage that I would never dream of giving it up. I recently went back to on-board audio (forced by a new micro-ATX motherboard and a graphics card with larger heatsink than I expected) and found myself spinning around trying to figure out where gunfire was coming from.

Are new games just achieving this kind of thing in software now? I can't see why it wouldn't be possible, of course.
 
Originally posted by: 0roo0roo
bingo, multicore cpu+decent hd audio on board + vista basically telling creative to screw off mean game devs have been pushed towards software sound solutions. which is good, as it saves them money since their work is for everyone to enjoy, not just creative labs owners.
Click to expand...

Wouldnt that mean overall sound quality will go down the chute? if game devs are forced to use onboard audio. The only reason i've been buying sound cards is that i've been under the impression they improve the overall quality of the audio in your games. (among other benefits)

Sorry for the questions, but i wasnt aware of any of this and its interesting.

EDIT: To better word it, i had thought onboard audio is only capable of so much. So, by limiting games to onboard audio now.. doesnt that screw everyone over?

Someone enlighten me 🙂 this is very interesting though.
 
You are mixing up onboard audio + creative sound cards + high fidelity non-EAX capable sound cards. Games have nothing to do with onboard audio or cards. What matters is the quality of the sound files in the game (the sample rate and the compression used), and if the game has been coded to use EAX effects.

Onboard audio is plain crap, no matter how you put it. You don't get EAX, and the sound quality is terrible due to the DACs and operational amplifiers being cheap.

Creative based cards provide hardware DSP acceleration (Direct sound and OpenAL), which process EAX sound effects (mostly related to positional audio). They are also a huge step up in sound quality from onboard audio (which has nothing to do with positional audio and DSP), due to better DACs, op amps and circuit that is separate from the rest of the motherboard. However they are not the best there is for sound quality: lets say creative cards focus more on the x-fi processor than the rest of the components to keep cost down. There are more expensive cards from both creative and other parties that use better components, such as the x-fi elite pro and the cards from Auzentech which not only use the x-fi chip, but are also built with absolute audio fidelity in mind.

Other high-end cards or external DACs do not provide hardware DSP acceleration. Depending on the cost, they can match Auzentech's quality (Asus Xonar is a good example), or stretch even beyond (HT Omega Claro, Onkyo, and a big selection of external DACs that stretch far beyond normal budgets).

The debate here is if EAX is getting killed with no games supporting it, and Windows Vista/7 killing direct sound to the point where creative had to make a direct sound to OpenAL converter to be able to accelerate EAX in hardware, what is the point in buying creative based hardware and having to deal with their horrible drivers, when there is hardware from Asus and HT Omega that provides better sound quality and most importantly better drivers?

If you are a sucker for CMSS-3D/Crystallizer/all the other junk that alters and deprecates the source signal, then I guess you can still find a use for creative labs.
 
Originally posted by: JAG87
You are mixing up onboard audio + creative sound cards + high fidelity non-EAX capable sound cards. Games have nothing to do with onboard audio or cards. What matters is the quality of the sound files in the game (the sample rate and the compression used), and if the game has been coded to use EAX effects.

Onboard audio is plain crap, no matter how you put it. You don't get EAX, and the sound quality is terrible due to the DACs and operational amplifiers being cheap.

Creative based cards provide hardware DSP acceleration (Direct sound and OpenAL), which process EAX sound effects (mostly related to positional audio). They are also a huge step up in sound quality from onboard audio (which has nothing to do with positional audio and DSP), due to better DACs, op amps and circuit that is separate from the rest of the motherboard. However they are not the best there is for sound quality: lets say creative cards focus more on the x-fi processor than the rest of the components to keep cost down. There are more expensive cards from both creative and other parties that use better components, such as the x-fi elite pro and the cards from Auzentech which not only use the x-fi chip, but are also built with absolute audio fidelity in mind.

Other high-end cards or external DACs do not provide hardware DSP acceleration. Depending on the cost, they can match Auzentech's quality (Asus Xonar is a good example), or stretch even beyond (HT Omega Claro, Onkyo, and a big selection of external DACs that stretch far beyond normal budgets).

The debate here is if EAX is getting killed with no games supporting it, and Windows Vista/7 killing direct sound to the point where creative had to make a direct sound to OpenAL converter to be able to accelerate EAX in hardware, what is the point in buying creative based hardware and having to deal with their horrible drivers, when there is hardware from Asus and HT Omega that provides better sound quality and most importantly better drivers?

If you are a sucker for CMSS-3D/Crystallizer/all the other junk that alters and deprecates the source signal, then I guess you can still find a use for creative labs.
Click to expand...

Thats for 3D-Positioning in games, not for music.
 
Originally posted by: videogames101

Thats for 3D-Positioning in games, not for music.
Click to expand...


It's just DSP that adds delay and reverb to create a feeling of space. Pretty much all games have this built into the sound engine. CMSS-3D was made to create a feeling of position from a flat stereo signal. I have never played an fps game that did not give me a sense of position by using a pure direct stereo signal. I play BF2 and CS 1.6 regularly, and I can tell where everyone is just by using direct stereo with no post-processing.

And BF2 is one of those games that was coded specifically for x-fi, in fact when I had the Auzentech Prelude the game sounded so much better that I am positive the Ultra-high setting not only enables EAX, but uses a whole different set of higher quality sound files. Even the music in the menu sounded better, which just shows you how far creative went in making you believe your sound card actually made a difference...
 
Thank you very much JAG87.

I'll be looking into an Auzentech then. I've only ever used Creative and honestly had no idea other cards were made of comparable quality for uses other than music.
 
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