On the SRC:
The original Live! cards force SRC, and the Audigy (as in Audigy 1, the original) will force SRC, as their DSP engines only work at 48khz. Audigy 2 fixed this, and will only perform SRC if you have to run a signal through the DSP engine - if you're running the card "straight" (no EAX, no CMSS, no EQ performed by the card, etc) it can run native up to whatever the top end is (96k for 6.1, 192k for stereo). If you have to do any sort of DSP stuff, it will SRC to 48k internally. It's just the chip. Audigy 2 ZS and Audigy 4 do the same. The E-MU boards based on the 10k2 have the same limitation, but (potentially) better ASIO drivers (the Creative ASIO driver is not bad).
The X-Fi (20k1/20k2) can similarly run "straight" and do no SRC, but it can also run "straight" at any sample rate that it wants (from 32 up to 192k). I've never gotten a 100% bona-fide answer on Entertainment Mode outside of 48k; it supports higher and lower sample rates, and you can indeed force such sample rates within Windows, but I don't know if the engine itself is re-clocking (like you would see with an M-Audio board). That said, the SRC engine in the X-Fi is very good; Creative's whitepaper for the 20k1 specifies the SRC's noise at somewhere around -135 dB (10k2 is somewhere around -95 dB iirc). In other words, it should be transparent no matter what you're plugging it into (that was their goal). SRC is part of the X-Fi design both to deal with mismatched inputs (which is also why the Audigy does it, the difference is that Audigy has a fixed internal rate (48k) whereas X-Fi can pick whatever it wants), and I believe it still applies DSP effects at 48k but don't quote me on that (I can go dig the papers out if you really want).
I have no idea about the non-hardware X-Fi or Audigy boards; the ones that do software EAX or won't do DS3D H/W, as they generally aren't doing any processing aside from DtoA and AtoD on the board. They're basically dolled up codecs. Not actually a bad model, considering the changes in audio that Windows Vista brought about (and the changes in what people need for their computers to do; unless you need the I/O abilities of the expensive DSP, why buy into it when you can get the same fidelity for playback elsewhere?).
The VIA chipsets are probably more common as onboard solutions these days, but I may be mistaken (in other words, that might have ended too). Anything that says "Vinyl Audio" or "Envy Audio" is almost certainly VIA. I wouldn't consider them too old, at least in context of Head-Fi, as I'm guessing there's quite a few people using Delta or Delta Audiophile boards as part of their PC setup. You can treat them as basically a dolled up codec though, at least for the purposes of your guide; they don't have a lot of h/w support (aside from the TOTL model, Envy24) and don't do anything special for EAX or similar (The one that does h/w assist just lowers CPU usage, it doesn't get you EAX 3/4/5 like the Sound Blaster chips do).
C-Media, I don't know as much about. From what I know about the 8788 (which is your Asus AV200), SRC is possible, but I don't believe it's forced. The chip can throw a lot of I/O around (at least on the level of the E-MU 10k2, if not more), and no consumer solutions fully take advantage (consider the E-MU 1820 vs the Audigy 2 ZS, both use the same chipset; there's no "E-MU 1820" for the 8788). Most of it's DSP/enhancement stuff comes from C-Media's software packages (Xear, EQ, etc) or third-party software (Dolby Headphone, DTS Neo:PC), contrasted to Creative doing everything in-house. The "big one" for the C-Media boards is probably Dolby Headphone (along with a lot of other Dolby branded solutions). The lower-down C-Media chips seem to be less popular as time goes on, and 8788 boards seem to get cheaper (the Sondigo was a great example of this, but it seems to have gone away). Asus buys and re-brands a couple of C-Media chips; I don't know all of the equivalents (and they keep claiming it's new IP) apart from the AV200.
The Turtle Beach you mentioned uses a Crystal/Cirrus DSP (admittedly, I had to look that one up). Some of the other TB boards (like the Montego) use Aureal chips. I know there's also some ancient boards out there that use ESS DSPs, but I doubt you can get official drivers for Windows 2000 for most of that hardware, let alone anything modern. The only "worthy mention" for Turtle Beach is the DDL enabled Montego, I believe there was a Diamond branded card (that looked near identical) that was similar, XS71 if memory serves. Their cards with h/w accel should get you EAX 2 and A3D, but the DSP isn't anything to write home about (compared to the 10k2, 8788, or 20k1/2), and I'd be somewhat concerned about support going forwards. Shame really, the Montego was my "suggestion of choice" for people who needed DDL or other features on a budget.
As far as the whole "5.1/7.1 vs headphone" mode configuration, my thoughts:
- I set everything up to "Stereo" or "Headphones" (when available) and leave it be. Some games have a "Headphones" mode that's truly spectacular. There was a time when I had the audio-card processing in 5.1 (in other words everything was set to 5.1, and a 5.1 signal was coming out) and dumping that into an outboard DSP for mix-down to stereo, and then feeding that into my headphones (and the whole thing had to re-lock if it wanted to switch into stereo). I don't feel I've lost anything in terms of positional accuracy or fidelity by removing the outboard equipment and just setting "Stereo."
- The L/R-main output from 5.1/6.1/7.1/etc with stereo music should be identical to the headphone/2.0/4.0 modes (despite some claims to the contrary), unless you're using a matrix up-mix scheme (CMSS, Dolby).
- Game Mode on an X-Fi board will get you EAX 5 and CMSS features that are conventionally unavailable, I believe it forces SRC to accomplish this though. Creative's claim is that with all of the processing bypassed, the card should be transparent in all three modes, SRC or no, due to the improvements (to be honest, the Audigy already hit this, -95 dB is pretty far down there). That said, Game Mode's CMSS processing can have a nasty effect on music and movies, so I don't like the feature for "daily use" as a result (it is, as you've mentioned, brilliant with games).
The above points only apply to the Sound Blaster cards, other solutions likely need their own configuration tweaks, as RPGWizard points out. The "5.1 to headphones" is a common suggestion I've seen for RealTek built-in solutions for years; surprisingly I've never actually had a RealTek integrated (I think I've hit every other integrated audio device out there, and somehow passed right over RealTek; no idea how that happened).
Quote:
Originally Posted by
NamelessPFG 
I knew VIA made audio chipsets too, but couldn't think of any examples off the top of my head. There's also another chipset from the Win9x era that the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz and some other cards were based on, but again, too old.
I'd also bring up Creative's new Sound Core3D products (mostly Recon3D-branded), but I don't know very much about them at the moment, other than that word is that they're actually a downgrade from the existing X-Fi line in gaming performance. Not reassuring, but the only way to know for sure is hands-on experience and testing.
A complete list of Sound Blasters and their variants...hoo boy. Creative won't make that one easy. Even ignoring all the classic ISA cards that VOGONS regularly discusses (which has a working wavetable daughterboard header, which has a genuine Yamaha OPL3 for FM synth, which has the ASP/CSP, that sort of thing; Creative sure changes up the "same" card a lot), there's still a fair bit of variance in the X-Fi lineup alone.
Sample rate conversion...I know the older Live!/Audigy ones have DSPs that only work on 48 KHz audio. Not sure about the X-Fi or C-Media lineup, but one of the major improvements with the X-Fi DSP was the SRC engine itself, or so they say. It's probably not an issue with modern cards regardless, especially if you know how to set things up right and the card has ASIO support.
I'm PC-first when it comes to gaming because I like the flexibility it offers, though my small collection of retro consoles shows that I'm not against console gaming in general. However, Mad Lust Envy has that area well covered.
I set 5.1/7.1 in the Windows speaker setting at all times; I hear no audible difference from setting that to stereo. X-Fi control panel stays on Headphones, as usual, and I also hear no differences between that and one of the many speaker modes. For that matter, I don't hear any general audio differences between Game Mode and Audio Creation Mode.
For UT3, it's CMSS-3D Headphone without question; it uses OpenAL, after all. (Too bad a later UE3 version switched to XAudio2 by default, severely gimping CMSS-3D Headphone in the process. As a result, later UE3 games like Bulletstorm probably aren't using OpenAL.) But maybe I'll try it at some point, just for the sake of experimentation and knowledge.
In positioning terms, DirectSound3D and OpenAL are on top, though the rest depends on what your sound card can do with the 3D audio coordinates they provide.
That said, most games with software-mixed 7.1 at least provide a fairly good sense of surround, though Battlefield: Bad Company 2 needs to be called out on its lacking sense of directionality for anything (which never happens in the first four games that used DS3D or OAL). On the other hand, the sounds themselves certainly fall into the "fun" category, what with the bombastic blockbuster movie sound War Tapes provides and all...
Amp doesn't matter; it's taking an analog input. Is the DAC taking a S/PDIF signal from the Xonar? If yes, then you're good to go. Doesn't matter what the S/PDIF receiver is. If the DAC/AMP device takes USB in, you're completely bypassing the Xonar card (and it's pointless to have it installed).
Quote:
Originally Posted by
LilBuck I tried asking this in MLE's thread but got a few answers: With a Xonar DG running to a DAC/AMP combo can I still have surround in video games from dolby headphone? Does it depend on the amp?
