Trying to find the best sound card for both music that also does well with games

The Creative X-Fi Titanium HD seems like the best all-rounder at the moment for gaming + music if analog output beyond stereo is not a consideration, though I don't have one. On the other hand, I do have an Auzentech X-Fi Forte, which isn't that far behind as far as sound quality goes (at least if you go by specs and reviews; again, I'm not in the position to make a direct comparison).

They'll give you hardware EAX support for all the older games, and CMSS-3D Headphone works great for providing binaural surround (though there's a few who just turn it off and play in plain stereo), especially for DirectSound3D and OpenAL games that describe sound as they should (with 3D positional coordinates).

Creative X-Fi Titanium HD or Asus Xonar Essence STX.

You will not need to use the millet for headphones with these sound cards.

I prefer the Essence STX myself, have never gamed with it.

But I like how easy it is to use the control panel.

The Titanium HD will sometimes go on sale or have a mail in rebate, which makes for a great price.

Also Creative Labs is coming out with two new sound cards really soon.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vafan13 
Interesting, that I didn't know.  Are either or both of these supposed to be audiophile oriented?  If they are I'll probably wait.  An improved titanium hd (ish) card w/a molex connector to take power direct from PSU would be awesome.

Not a lot is known about the 2 new cards.

It appears they have integrated more features on to the main audio processor.
 

 I think the Asus Xonar has Dolby, which is good for gaming :) Correct me if I'm mistaken.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Hifianddrumming 
 I think the Asus Xonar has Dolby, which is good for gaming :) Correct me if I'm mistaken.

All Asus Xonar sound cards come with Dolby Digital, except the DS which only has DTS.

Quote:

Originally Posted by vafan13 
Alright thanks.  I think I'll just wait and see what these two cards are.

I forget which review it was but I remember reading the xonar's behaved a little oddly on some games.  I think they were (relatively) older games but as gaming is huge for me that scared me a little.

Definitely some games that come out before Windows Vista would have problems, games written during Windows XP were allowed to communicate directly with sound cards.

but Windows Vista changed the way audio is handled.
 

Quote:

Originally Posted by PurpleAngel 

Definitely some games that come out before Windows Vista would have problems, games written during Windows XP were allowed to communicate directly with sound cards.

but Windows Vista changed the way audio is handled.

To elaborate on this, Microsoft basically killed DirectSound3D in favor of a software-only audio stack (and the XAudio2 + X3DAudio API they're offering now is far inferior if you ask me, just because of the simple fact that it describes sound in speaker positions instead of 3D coordinates).

However, there's still the OpenAL API, which is out of Microsoft's control and can still be implemented in Vista onward. This is why there are wrappers like ALchemy to restore hardware-accelerated audio in older games.

Oddly enough, Windows 8 is bringing back hardware-accelerated audio, but the damage is done as far as I'm concerned. PC game developers will continue to treat their audio engines as an afterthought and only cater to 7.1 loudspeaker users, which isn't helped by the fact that gamers outside of a forum like this simply don't care.

Quote:

Originally Posted by NamelessPFG 
To elaborate on this, Microsoft basically killed DirectSound3D in favor of a software-only audio stack (and the XAudio2 + X3DAudio API they're offering now is far inferior if you ask me, just because of the simple fact that it describes sound in speaker positions instead of 3D coordinates).

However, there's still the OpenAL API, which is out of Microsoft's control and can still be implemented in Vista onward. This is why there are wrappers like ALchemy to restore hardware-accelerated audio in older games.

Oddly enough, Windows 8 is bringing back hardware-accelerated audio, but the damage is done as far as I'm concerned. PC game developers will continue to treat their audio engines as an afterthought and only cater to 7.1 loudspeaker users, which isn't helped by the fact that gamers outside of a forum like this simply don't care.

Yea, what he said.

Just add one detail, ALchemy is for Creative Labs sound cards, other sound card makers use the Creative Labs Audio processors, not sure if they support ALchemy.

Asus cards do not have ALchemy, Asus cards do come with GX 2.5, which emulates Creative's EAX, but there seem to be mixed results.

Just wait for Black Friday, see what's on sale.