Speaker Advice - Games Only

[Heinrich]

ALOHA

I have a very nice Home Theater setup in the living room. If I'm going to be watching movies or listening to music it will NOT be with the computer. Although I suppose my habits could change when I'm web browsing, but currently I just do not.

I have some old Creative Soundworks 4.1 speakers with a proprietery digital cable for a Soundblaster Live. I currently use them with my nforce2/soundstorm based Abit NF7-S 2.0. I grabbed some Logitech Z-640s open box at Best Buy for about $60 yesterday. They are 5.1. I can't say that I really notice much of a difference between them and my old 4.1 setup. It might be a little better. MIGHT. I'm thinking about returning these and taking advantage of the Megaworks 550 5.1 setup that's being sold (listed at the hotdeals site) for about $168 after rebate. These are highly rated speakers on Tomshardware.

My real question is, playing games, would I notice a difference with a nice 5.1 setup or are these setups for movies/DVDs? I do play state of the art games.

 

[PliotronX]

Current games focus on 4.1 output, but starting with Doom 3 and the like (many subsequent games will run on the D3 engine), the center channel will be used for dialog which will keep that seperate from messing up the soundspace of the gameworld (game devs are aiming to make games more and more like cinema ). Whether it's worth it is up to the listener The MegaWorks are awesome speakers regardless if you want 5.1 or not, they are in the top three for computer sets and I will bet that you will appreciate the deeper bass and louder abilities without distorting in the MW set. $168 is a steal for them IMO. Do you have any local stores with them on display or allowing a 30 day return period? That would be the best way to see if they're worth your time/money.

 

[BoomAM]

Theres a few games out now that uses 5.1 sound.
MOHAA, EF2, Splinter Cell, and a few others.
I`d go for 5.1 now. Then you wont be missing anything when all games use 5.1