BF2S Forums The Audio Debate thread; for .Sup and Freezer

james@alienware wrote:

But you can't disregard EAX. If you have Dolby-capable headphones then the Xonars are definitely the card of choice, even for gaming. But for example the positional sound (which is essential in gaming) is slightly less well produced by the Xonars.

Yeah, that shouldn't have happened with his drivers. That's the thing, the cards are good, just the drivers and support are shit.

EAX is pretty much old tech. It doesn't go along well with Vista, and thus, as far as I know, isn't used at all. As for positional sound, EAX doesn't really do much with that. EAX tends to add some reverb in buildings and trenches, but that's pretty much it.

And no matter what, the Xonars can do EAX. It works really well, too.

And no, Creative's cards aren't good. They're very poorly designed, and they even manage to bottleneck their own chips pretty badly when compared to Auzentech. And even so, The DX is better than the most expensive of Creative's offerings.

Last edited by Freezer7Pro (2009-07-20 13:37:10)

Freezer7Pro wrote:

EAX is pretty much old tech. It doesn't go along well with Vista, and thus, as far as I know, isn't used at all. As for positional sound, EAX doesn't really do much with that. EAX tends to add some reverb in buildings and trenches, but that's pretty much it.

What do you mean they are not used in vista?

Beduin wrote:

Freezer7Pro wrote:

EAX is pretty much old tech. It doesn't go along well with Vista, and thus, as far as I know, isn't used at all. As for positional sound, EAX doesn't really do much with that. EAX tends to add some reverb in buildings and trenches, but that's pretty much it.

What do you mean they are not used in vista?

Vista handles sound in another way than the earlier Windows versions, which made EAX fuck over. But I just checked, and it seems they managed to put it back in again a while ago, so my point was flawed.

james@alienware wrote:

Yeah what, it is used in Vista!

+ Xonar mainly supports EAX 3 and some 4. Whereas the creative cards (and some of the latest games) use EAX 5. Yes the Auzentech card may be better designed and the Xonars are good, but they are far from a perfect card.

That still doesn't make the Creative card a perfect card. If the Auzens and Xonars are 'good', the Creative is 'okay' at most.

Last edited by Freezer7Pro (2009-07-20 16:47:09)

No, Creative are not good compared to the rest. They used to be ok, but that ended about when the X-Fi range (and some competition) came around.

Last edited by Freezer7Pro (2009-07-20 17:26:35)

Creative don't release specifications, but from what I've been able to find out about your card, it's a pretty poor performer. Low rolloff starts at 100Hz and high at about 17kHz, -0.5dB at about 50Hz and 20kHz. THD seems to lie at around 0.003%. Compared to a Xonar that's flat down to 2-3Hz and up to about 40kHz with 0.0007% THD, it isn't really great.

Freezer7Pro wrote:

Creative don't release specifications, but from what I've been able to find out about your card, it's a pretty poor performer. Low rolloff starts at 100Hz and high at about 17kHz, -0.5dB at about 50Hz and 20kHz. THD seems to lie at around 0.003%. Compared to a Xonar that's flat down to 2-3Hz and up to about 40kHz with 0.0007% THD, it isn't really great.

Can you pin point differences more accurate? link?

thanks God I dont  have "Audio" ears, cause It sounds pretty nice.
Ever had creative? heard it? Cause am no pro, but I know for sure one have to lesson before judging.

Last edited by Beduin (2009-07-20 19:31:11)

HaiBai wrote:

So, I want to buy a headset.  I was thinking the G35 would be good, but it's a USB plug-in.  That means it wouldn't use my sound card, which is a bad thing, right?  My sound card is a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1, which I got purely for Battlefield 2 to use the Ultra High sound quality.

I still want to use the Ultra High sound quality, but would Battlefield 2 still play sounds in Ultra High quality even if I have USB headphones?

Thanks.

G35 is the secks. Epic sound, really fun voice modding function, very clear mic. Only problem is they aren't very durable and you have a high chance of accidentally pulling it apart by just putting it on and need to spend $20 on Billy Mays' Mighty Putty to fix it.

tl;dr: G35 is God's headset if you are a weak bitch.

Hey Beduin make your own thread, this ones for me and Freezer

Freezer7Pro wrote:

Beduin wrote:

Freezer7Pro wrote:

Creative don't release specifications, but from what I've been able to find out about your card, it's a pretty poor performer. Low rolloff starts at 100Hz and high at about 17kHz, -0.5dB at about 50Hz and 20kHz. THD seems to lie at around 0.003%. Compared to a Xonar that's flat down to 2-3Hz and up to about 40kHz with 0.0007% THD, it isn't really great.

Can you pin point differences more accurate? link?

thanks God I dont  have "Audio" ears, cause It sounds pretty nice.
Ever had creative? heard it? Cause am no pro, but I know for sure one have to lesson before judging.

Sorry, there are no links. What I've found out is scattered all over the web, many pages into Google.

And yes, I've had a bunch of Creative sound cards. I have two 1997 Sound Blaster Lives in use right now, as a matter of fact, and they aren't too bad. Your card isn't downright bad either, but it's not really good for the money.

Are you sure this isn't another case of 'My gear is far better than yours, here are some abstract statistics and figures! Even if you have the same manufacturer and brand as me, my stuff is fucking vintage, Goddamn you, don't you know that old technology is always better! My immense knowledge of audio-science flips Moore's Law onto its silly motherfucking head!'.



For all intensive purposes, i.e gaming and listening to mp3's on a PC, there is hardly any difference between Creative and Xonar, lets be honest. Pick your brand and ride with it, the chances are that the difference will be minimal at most.

tbh, I am pretty surprised how good the Creative Audigy Player is. It beats the bundled pci-e sound card that comes with highend Asus boards. With DanielK's modded XFi drivers its awsome. Definately good buy for the minimal price I paid of it years back.

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:

tbh, I am pretty surprised how good the Creative Audigy Player is. It beats the bundled pci-e sound card that comes with highend Asus boards. With DanielK's modded XFi drivers its awsome. Definately good buy for the minimal price I paid of it years back.

How surprising, that card is just a riser for the integrated sound card.

Beduin wrote:

I just wanted to make sure it is not a personal thing Freezer has against Creative, specially when he mentioned DanielK.
Thats not how you judge electronics.

I don't have anything personal against Creative more than anyone else, but I don't think the way they run their marketing department is acceptable. They don't even tell you the most basic specifications, but yet have they charge a premium compared to other brands.

Last edited by Freezer7Pro (2009-07-22 04:28:47)

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:

Freezer7Pro wrote:

GC_PaNzerFIN wrote:

tbh, I am pretty surprised how good the Creative Audigy Player is. It beats the bundled pci-e sound card that comes with highend Asus boards. With DanielK's modded XFi drivers its awsome. Definately good buy for the minimal price I paid of it years back.

How surprising, that card is just a riser for the integrated sound card.

I didn't know they integrate XFI these days? Because I was talking about the XFI one.

ASUS boards ship with X-Fi cards?

Last edited by Freezer7Pro (2009-07-22 04:43:25)