It's a luxury problem.

PC360 connected to the Titanium HD Headphone out and Mic.
Stereo-Mix over SPDIF enabled towards my DAC.

I only need the PC360 for multiplayer purposes with Skype/any other Voicecom. Volume is at about 25-30% when using it.

Since I am quite the immersion fanatic (playing SP primarily) I want to play my singleplayer games with the best I have, in that case the HD 800 and generally you maximize the volume of the source and leave volume changes to the amp. Since the PC360 is connected as well, a volume level of 100% on the X-Fi makes them quite loud of course. Luckily you can dial it back via the knob on the PC360. Unfortunately it is not able to fully dial the sound down and can be heard across the room.

Of course this is more of a luxury problem, but I have the Silverstone Fortress Case under my desk and it's mainboard installation is rotated by 90% so all ports and connections are on the top of the case and I have to put the PC360 connections blindly if I'd disconnect them every time. It's rather annoying.

Ahh, I figured you had a USB DAC, forgot about the card's SPDIF output and the fact that it does play over both outputs simultaneously... Hrm. Nice case btw.

You could hook up the PC360 to an extension so you could effectively disconnect it when not in use without having to open up the top of the case. A short extension (1-3 ft) would work perfectly and it's a cheap/easy solution, get two (and label them, one for the mic jack) if you wanna be able to disconnect it entirely and put it away etc.

Doesn't the card's mixer let you mute the specific output anywhere on the control panel tho? Been a while since I've touched a Creative card...

Quote:

daleb said:

No, it doesn't come with Dolby headphone. I wish it did, ugh. Maybe theres a way to set up the dll for that to run through everything?
 
My laptop does have a realtek, the ALC 271x... According to Realtek's site, that doesn't even exist. Modded version from Acer, maybe? I wonder if these hacked drivers would even work. Is it possible to even attempt that without killing my computer and its audio?

Click to expand...

 
Installing the drivers won't do any hardware damage, and Realtek fortunately uses unified driver packages.
 
There's still a chance that the drivers won't recognize that particular codec model, though, in which case you're back to square one.

Quote:

namelesspfg said:

 
Installing the drivers won't do any hardware damage, and Realtek fortunately uses unified driver packages.
 
There's still a chance that the drivers won't recognize that particular codec model, though, in which case you're back to square one.

Click to expand...

But how can I go back to the old drivers if the new drivers completely break audio? Rolling back drivers has never worked on any computer I've used...

You've had pretty miserable luck then... Worst case scenario, there's tools you can use to clean up old divers if the manual route fails, plus there's always this little thing called backups...

Create an image backup before messing with anything, if it doesn't work you can revert the system to the exact state it was in when the backup was made, bit for bit. Even Windows' own backup tools are pretty robust if you're on 7 or later, and if not there's plenty of robust freeware alternatives (EaseUs gets my vote, or CloneZilla/DriveImageXML if you just need a bare minimum of functionality).

Win 8 kinda dumbs down some of the backup options but I believe all of the functionality is still there, haven't experimented with it a lot... Not having a system/image backup these days is silly tho, storage is so cheap and it saves you so much time if your main drive ever dies or you mess up the OS somehow.

Yeah, extension cables are the best thing to do before trying to look for settings that unfortunately aren't there. 

Quote:

Originally Posted by NamelessPFG /img/forum/go_quote.gif

Amazing Frostbite-era Battlefield sound samples, with the Refractor engine's vastly superior positional audio (and less "unlock everything" crap in the gameplay, to boot)? Sign me up!

Click to expand...

 
Pretty much. It's rather demanding mod to play with a steep learning curve. Some sound samples are taken from Battlefield 3 and some were recorded by the mod team (this channel has many samples). 
 
Anyway, you need Battlefield 2 patched to 1.50 prior to installing. Project Reality files can be found here.
1. BF2 1.50
2. PR 0.97 part 1, 2 and 3
3. PR Patch 0.97 to 0.98
 
Before playing you really need to read the manual, download and install PR Mumble (the version that comes with the mod is not the right one) and, of course, SoundMod 0.5.
 
This is the sort of gameplay to expect (note that this is 10 min highlight out of an hour long round):
 

Tomb Raider 2013 Benchmark sequence with CMSS vs. THX and SBX
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lo0uZdNt064&hd=1 CMSS
 
vs
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQejv8hiQRM&hd=1 THX
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pti1l20UGPc&hd=1 SBX
 
Metro 2033 Benchmark with CMSS vs. THX
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YQw-m8ijNJA&hd=1 CMSS
 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=069uA5bCxL0&hd=1 THX

Not sure how I'd never run across this before, Essence Toggle:

https://sites.google.com/site/essencetoggle/home

Very useful for for anyone with a Xonar STX, enables hotkey switching from speakers to headphones (can even set it to revert volume levels or enable DH). Haven't tried it yet but I'm gonna do so as soon as I get home...

I'll probably bind it to one of the macro keys on my Corsair K90, right next to the taskbar shortcut keys and the keys to switch from spanned desktop (Eyefinity) to regular multi-display mode and from landscape (LLL) to portrait (PPP).

Hi everyone ! thanks for this guide.
I just bought the AD-700 headphones and a nice X-fi titanium HD and I wanted to know if the settings I use are correct.
 
For music I use stereo settings in windows, and a sample rate of 96Khz (the 192khz seems to disappear at random, lol) "entertainment mode" with all effects disabled
For gaming I use 5.1 settings in windows, sample rate of 96khz, EAX enabled, thx thru disabled, and headphones settings with cmss 3D enabled. My AD-700 are plugged in the jack (I use the RCA for my hi-fi)
 
Is that the optimal way to use the X-Fi titanium for best positional accuracy? Thanks !
 
Next month I will consider buying an objective O2 ! I wonder if it makes that much of a difference ?

An O2 might not make much of a difference with the AD700 tbh... I'd probably spend those $150 on another pair of headphones if you actually crave a different kind of sound for certain music or scenarios. Then again if you start looking at other headphones you might eventually end up with an amp anyway.

Those settings sound right to me but it's been a while since I've tinkered with Creative cards so maybe someone else can confirm... Wasn't there some other mode that forcefully turned off all processing for music tho? Content creation mode or something like that. Also, EAX's probably irrelevant these days...

You're not ever switching Windows to headphones are you? Just Creative's cc...

Yeah there's an audio creation mode. I must investigate all those settings !
I keep the windows settings @ 5.1 sound, headphones only in the creative console.
And yeah EAX is probably for older games, I don't think this will be very useful
Roger on the amp. The sound is already pretty good as it is

Quote:

impulse said:

An O2 might not make much of a difference with the AD700 tbh... I'd probably spend those $150 on another pair of headphones if you actually crave a different kind of sound for certain music or scenarios. Then again if you start looking at other headphones you might eventually end up with an amp anyway.

Those settings sound right to me but it's been a while since I've tinkered with Creative cards so maybe someone else can confirm... Wasn't there some other mode that forcefully turned off all processing for music tho? Content creation mode or something like that. Also, EAX's probably irrelevant these days...

You're not ever switching Windows to headphones are you? Just Creative's cc...

Click to expand...

I agree, as you would get better results if you get a headphone that has the sound signature you need, instead of getting a headphone amp with a different sound signature to tweak the sound signature of the AD700s.

Quote:

olinoob said:

Hi everyone ! thanks for this guide.
I just bought the AD-700 headphones and a nice X-fi titanium HD and I wanted to know if the settings I use are correct.
 
For music I use stereo settings in windows, and a sample rate of 96Khz (the 192khz seems to disappear at random, lol) "entertainment mode" with all effects disabled
For gaming I use 5.1 settings in windows, sample rate of 96khz, EAX enabled, thx thru disabled, and headphones settings with cmss 3D enabled. My AD-700 are plugged in the jack (I use the RCA for my hi-fi)
 
Is that the optimal way to use the X-Fi titanium for best positional accuracy? Thanks !
 
Next month I will consider buying an objective O2 ! I wonder if it makes that much of a difference ?

Click to expand...

 
Looks good, though don't be surprised if some games start sounding all whacked-out due to the 96 KHz sample rate. I recall having to set it to 48 KHz because of that.
 
The only thing that surprises me with your music settings is that you're not using Audio Creation Mode instead of Entertainment Mode. That allows for proper bit-matched playback through ASIO if you want it.
 
Also, a clarification on EAX:
 
-If it's a setting for room modes, KEEP THOSE OFF unless you want reverb unnecessarily applied to everything you hear!
-If it's more of a volume setting, which it is in Game Mode, KEEP IT ON and at 0.0db. Won't screw with your sound that way, while ensuring that in-game EAX effects (if used) sound as intended.
 
And as mentioned above, a headphone amp is a waste on an AD700 because of how sensitive they are. Get some better headphones first.