The Nameless Guide To PC Gaming Audio (with binaural headphone surround sound) - Page 68

It's not that outdated if you can play DotA :)

What are your hardware and software specs?

A 2.4 Core 2 Duo, 2GB RAM, crappy built in GPU. The processor usage shoots up to 70-80% at times when I'm playing DotA. :p

Please post a CPU-Z screenshot, as well as a GPU-Z screenshot. If you do have the IGP I imagine, I just might be able to provide a couple of hardware-specific tools and modded drivers to improve your gaming performance.

Does anyone here have experience with Oblivion or Fallout 3 with the Titanium HD card? I have been told it is capable of the most impressive sound queues such as near perfect height, distance, and angle. Is this true and is it convincing? I want to disappear into the Capital Wasteland and explore a few dungeons like I'm there!

Both games are quite good examples of how running a soundcard with full gaming support can dramatically improve immersion and positional cue accuracy. Both games have DirectSound3D as the audio renderer, being properly wrapped to OpenAL, and providing a very good aural experience.

Can I just say that I am stoked? I am building a killer computer and have been planning to do so for a while and therefor avoided completing my favorite games so I wouldn't be simply replaying them. This will be fun.

A high-end computer that will do its fair share of gaming will gladly welcome a Creative X-Fi Titanium HD. It simply doesn't get any better than that :)

What are the specs of the computer you're building?

CPU: i7-3770K

CPU Cooler: Noctua NH-D14

Motherboard: DZ77GA-70K

Memory: Corsair Vengeance 16GB (2X8) DDR3-1600

Storage: Intel 520 Series 180GB SSD x2

GPU: Galaxy GeForce GTX 670 4GB

Soundcard: X-Fi Titanium HD

Case: Cooler Master HAF XB

I just needs to pick a power supply and monitor. This is my first build, though, and I'm always open to suggestions.

Sounds about right. Slap a Corsair AX760 on it and you're all set.

However... aren't you going to add some large HDDs to store data? SSDs will burn out relatively quickly if you use them for large I/O activity.

Is that true? I've heard little about that. I haven't been planning on any standard HDD. I like the idea of all SSDs. I got two 520 series for $115 each!

Yes, their lifespan is quite a bit lower. Just add a 2TB HDD along with the SSDs and you won't have anything to worry about.

I totally want my games on the SSD, though. Is this foolish? For example, I want to have Skyrim on the SSD for all sorts of loading reasons.

I wish I could consider that a practical option...

In my case, installing my entire PC game library at this point will take up around 1 TB of space, probably more. Needless to say, buying 1 TB or larger SSDs is extremely impractical at current prices.

For those whose gaming tastes are narrower, though, it could work out without spending a fortune on storage.