The Nameless Guide To PC Gaming Audio (with binaural headphone surround sound) - Page 84

Quote:

Originally Posted by zerocraft 

Has anyone noticed windows sound settings reverting from 5.1 to 2.1 speakers randomly ?  I am not sure whats doing it... really annoying.  Also sometimes on restarting my speaker balance is thrown off, I usually keep everything maxed, but after restarts left and right front channels end up at 67, while everything else will remain at 100.

 

I'm also wondering if it's even worth it to bother with X-Fi anymore, 99% of games I play are newer ones with pre-mixed surround audio, so I am really considering switching to Dolby based stuff.  How do x-fi / xonar dgx perform when it comes to software rendered binaural techs ?  

Windows speaker settings never switch up on me like that, but volume resetting to a particular percentage in Headphones mode has been a quirk of X-Fi drivers for all cards other than the Titanium HD. I'm not sure why.

In software-mixed games where all you get is virtual 7.1 at the max anyway, they both perform about equally, just that CMSS-3D Headphone emphasizes treble a bit while Dolby Headphone emphasizes bass. Both are much, much better than playing in stereo, at least for me.

Quote:

Originally Posted by AzureBeat 

I don't doubt it, that's why I'm looking into this. My thoughts are that if the 3d ability is equal, then better sound quality becomes the most deciding factor, and if that is close, than other features become the decision maker. I had heard some comments that the SQ of the HD series was not so great.

They're certainly not coming from me. I have no complaints about the Titanium HD's analog output in its stock state.

Sound presentation-wise, with EQ, bass boost, and other such features off, it even seems to have a bit more bass punch than Auzentech's X-Fi offerings (Prelude and Forte), which were already no slouch in that department. Nothing overpowering to utterly skew the overall frequency balance, but a slightly increased presence I noticed for sure.

This is with the default JRC 2114D/LME49710 opamp configuration. I once tried swapping the JRCs with LME49860s, but that resulted in the most horridly V-shaped frequency response I've heard in a long time, with exaggerated bass and treble notes along with insultingly recessed midrange.

There are two ways to switch X-Fi modes (on real X-Fi cards only, software-based "X-Fi" products are limited to Entertainment Mode):

-All Console Launcher control panels have a "Mode" button at the lower-left corner. Click that, and you get your mode selection.

-Alternatively, right-click the Volume Panel system tray icon (looks like a metallic volume knob), and there's a Mode Switch area there. I find this method much more convenient.

Setting the Windows speaker layout to 5.1 or 7.1 shouldn't impact any other program negatively, since stereo sources sound exactly the same as in stereo speaker mode (provided that CMSS-3D Headphone's off). You have nothing to lose and everything to gain for surround sound sources!

Personally, I'd still use CMSS-3D Headphone for non-competitive play. Just having a proper 3D sound mix is its own immersion factor, and if the tonal balance isn't to your taste, that's what the EQ is for. But there are people known to prefer Dolby Headphone anyway, sometimes to the point of setting an X-Fi to Dolby Digital Live output and feeding a console Dolby Headphone processor with the signal. (This is how I formed my own CMSS-3D vs. DH comparisons, incidentally.) Only you can really decide which sounds better to you.

I don't consider CMSS-3D Headphone that hard to set up, really. It's a one-time process of just setting the X-Fi to Game Mode, then the speaker layout to Headphones, then setting Windows to 5.1/7.1 speakers. Of course, it's something that Creative should have completely automated to begin with, but that's just the way it is.

I literally couldn't tell apart Headphone and 2 Speakers modes on the X-Fi cards (either with Daniel_K X-Fi Support Pack 2.5 drivers or the Titanium HD's drivers) for music, no matter how hard I tried. Nor could I tell apart the Windows settings for Stereo and 5.1 Speakers with those same music sources. People kept saying there was a difference, and I really did try to find it, but I found absolutely nothing.

Fortunately for me, that makes things quite convenient when switching between games and music, as that just means I have to switch CMSS-3D Headphone on or off, respectively.

If you're really insistent on a pure audio path for music playback, you might even switch to Audio Creation Mode to enable ASIO support and bit-matched playback, then use an ASIO plugin with the media player of your choice to ensure the purest audio from the source. However, I don't really hear enough benefit to justify switching between Game Mode and Audio Creation Mode all the time, especially with Winamp's OpenAL plugin.

Remember what I said about USB DACs being unsuitable for gaming compared to S/PDIF ones?

I may have to reconsider that statement now. I don't know what the hell happened with using the Recon3D USB and the Live! 24-bit External in that fashion, where it introduced enough noise that even a non-audiophile could notice, but the JDS Labs-built ObjectiveDAC I got to review along with Mad Lust Envy's HE-400 has NO such problems. Just tell Windows 7/8 to replay "What U Hear" through the ODAC output, and it sounds just fine...

I'll have to experiment a bit more to see if I can reproduce the issue. The Recon3D USB and Live! 24-bit External had their drivers installed, which may have had something to do with it, but the ODAC is conveniently plug-and-play, completely driverless beyond what comes with Windows. (Unfortunately, that makes it unsuitable as a gaming audio DSP by itself...)

Quote:

Originally Posted by raband 

So you can use the soundcards CMSS processing and output it over the USB to the ODAC?

 

If so that's awesome. I can get rid of the headphone jack into the O2/ODAC from the Titanium HD's RCA and just use the USB?

 

I wonder what would be best for use - the Titanium HD's hardware or the ODAC.

 

(unless I'm reading it wrong and it's not what you mean)

Yeah, anything the sound card normally outputs, be that pure stereo or processed with CMSS-3D Headphone, goes through What U Hear (Stereo Mix). That's the whole point of that "input" in the Recording tab.

You should be able to use the ODAC through USB in theory now, though honestly, I don't notice a dramatic difference between the two right now, at least with the Titanium HD as the default audio device. They both do the job of outputting clean analog audio very well.

I'll probably just stick with the Titanium HD for my desktop and consider getting an ODAC later if I want to set up a dedicated music jukebox somewhere in my house, since the ODAC is more of a "plug-and-play, no muss, no fuss" sort of device.