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Some Noobish Questions on Audio in Games, Movies, and Music

post #1 of 5
12/26/11 at 1:52pm
Thread Starter 

1. Should you use 44.1 kHz/16 bit sound for games, or 48 kHz/16 bit sound?
2. 48 kHz/16 bit sound for movies?
3. Lastly, 48 kHz/24 bit sound for mp3, right?

4. Oh- one more thing- 96kHz/24 bit sound for FLAC, right?

 

Thanks.

 

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post #2 of 5
12/26/11 at 4:56pm

I leave my X-Fi cards set at 24-bit/48 KHz. I used to leave it at 24-bit/96 KHz for WASAPI shared mode, but that seemed to cause problems with sped-up audio in certain games. Some games (Skyrim comes to mind) have a reputation for being finicky enough to need to be set at 44.1 KHz to get rid of audio glitches, though; maybe I'm just lucky in that I don't experience them.

 

For music, I use ASIO and bit-matched playback, so I don't have to futz around with the Windows sound control panel to avoid resampling based on each and every source. Most of what I have is the typical redbook CD standard 16-bit/44.1 KHz, but there's a few 24-bit/96 KHz files strewn in there as well. Also note that FLAC is a compression method and can just as easily come in forms other than 24-bit/96 KHz.

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post #3 of 5
12/26/11 at 5:09pm
Thread Starter 

Thanks. Since games have 16 bit sound, will changing the windows settings to 24 bit have a significant effect on the sound quality?

 

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post #4 of 5
12/26/11 at 8:10pm

I didn't notice any adverse effects. Bit depth only affects dynamic range, or how much of a volume difference there is between the quietest and loudest points in a given track. The loudest point in 24-bit is more than enough to cause hearing damage, and I wouldn't be surprised if the same applies to 16-bit.

 

If anything, you might have to adjust the volume a bit, but nothing major. It's the sampling rate you have to watch out for.

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post #5 of 5
12/27/11 at 6:06am
Thread Starter 

Alright- thanks. I'll just leave my sampling rate at 48 KHz, and bit depth at 24 bit, and if I get any problems, I'll switch it to 44.1 KHz and 16 bit for the particular game.

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