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

May 10, 2012 at 2:46 PM Post #421 of 4,147
Quote:
azncookiecutter said:
Some anecdotal experiences with SPDIF: I actually have success outputting Dolby Headphone over SPDIF to an external DAC using the Asus Xonar D1, with the unified drivers, but was not able to with any of the X-Fi based cards I tried (Titanium and X-Fi Forte). 
Click to expand...

 
My experimental settings... Xonar DG Optical/SPDIF --> X-Fi HD USB & Dolby headphone works great 
beyersmile.png
I´m using unified drivers and with this settings I don't have annoying DG headphone amp hissing/white/static/whatever noise 
 
The myth is busted:
-Myth: Sound card DSP effects for gaming do not carry through S/PDIF.

-Fact: They do go through S/PDIF. I've tested it myself with RightMark 3DSound's positional audio test (uses DirectSound3D, so be sure to point ALchemy or other wrappers to the installation directory). This makes the combination of a sound card as a DSP and an external DAC with S/PDIF input a plausible upgrade option, as the sound card's lesser analog circuitry is still bypassed.


However, arbitrary driver decisions may prevent some DSP features from working over S/PDIF anyway, such as Dolby Headphone on Xonar cards. This does not apply to all cards; X-Fi cards allow CMSS-3D Headphone output over S/PDIF.
 
May 10, 2012 at 6:16 PM Post #422 of 4,147
So what's the solution for people that want to use external DAC/Amps from, erm, more reputable parties than Creative and ASUS? You still have to buy an internal Creative soundcard and then use that as the binaural DSP which then sends the (still digital) signal to the USB DAC/Amp?
 
May 10, 2012 at 6:44 PM Post #423 of 4,147
Quote:
bcpk said:
So what's the solution for people that want to use external DAC/Amps from, erm, more reputable parties than Creative and ASUS?
Click to expand...

 
The DAC on a good sound card can actually perform well enough to be transparent, so there is not necessarily much point replacing it with an external one, unless there is some real audible problem (e.g. noise) that needs to be fixed.
 
May 10, 2012 at 7:07 PM Post #424 of 4,147
Quote:
bcpk said:
So what's the solution for people that want to use external DAC/Amps from, erm, more reputable parties than Creative and ASUS? You still have to buy an internal Creative soundcard and then use that as the binaural DSP which then sends the (still digital) signal to the USB DAC/Amp?
Click to expand...

Get an Xonar DX sound card and get any (analog input) external headphone amplifier of your pick.
Used Xonar DXs sell for around $50.
 
May 21, 2012 at 4:20 PM Post #427 of 4,147
Quote:
sofgr said:
how about this one ? 
 
http://www.asus.com/Multimedia/Audio_Cards/Xonar_U3/
Click to expand...

I have a U3.  I like it a lot.  It works great for games (and Skype), and does DH really well.  It would not be my choice for critical music listening, although it is an upgrade to my onboard sound (Alienware M17x R2). I used to have an X-Fi Go! Pro, which was terrible in just about every way.  No problems whatsoever with the Asus U3.
 
May 23, 2012 at 2:38 AM Post #429 of 4,147
Does anyone know if there's a way to prioritize EAX_Wrappers unter Windows 7? I want to test the Titanium HD vs. the STX but I can't get Alchemy working as long as the STX is installed. I can add games and install the dlls but when I start them EAX is greyed out, like in FEAR, Guild Wars 1 etc. If start those with the STX EAX is available through GX.
 
OpenAL only games like Geas of War work of course, just not originally for DS3D made games that need Alchemy.
 
May 23, 2012 at 2:25 PM Post #430 of 4,147
Quote:
fegefeuer said:
Does anyone know if there's a way to prioritize EAX_Wrappers unter Windows 7? I want to test the Titanium HD vs. the STX but I can't get Alchemy working as long as the STX is installed. I can add games and install the dlls but when I start them EAX is greyed out, like in FEAR, Guild Wars 1 etc. If start those with the STX EAX is available through GX.
 
OpenAL only games like Geas of War work of course, just not originally for DS3D made games that need Alchemy.
Click to expand...

 
From what I've heard about the way DS3DGX (and possibly Xear3D on other C-Media cards) works, it drops a dsound.dll right into one of the Windows system folders, so you don't have to manually set it for every game like ALchemy (which instead copies the dsound.dll wrapper file right into the game executable directory for each and every game). This may mean that it's prioritizing the one in the Windows system folder.
 
I wish I could help out more, but I don't have any Xonar or other C-Media cards around to experiment with. Good luck with your testing.
 
(Oh, and could you be sure to test out Battlefield 2 or 2142 on the Essence STX? They use OpenAL, but the best sound settings are tailored to the X-Fi DSP, and it appears to use EAX 5 as opposed to EFX.)
 
Quote:
migi06 said:
My experimental settings... Xonar DG Optical/SPDIF --> X-Fi HD USB & Dolby headphone works great 
beyersmile.png
I´m using unified drivers and with this settings I don't have annoying DG headphone amp hissing/white/static/whatever noise 
 
The myth is busted:
-Myth: Sound card DSP effects for gaming do not carry through S/PDIF.

-Fact: They do go through S/PDIF. I've tested it myself with RightMark 3DSound's positional audio test (uses DirectSound3D, so be sure to point ALchemy or other wrappers to the installation directory). This makes the combination of a sound card as a DSP and an external DAC with S/PDIF input a plausible upgrade option, as the sound card's lesser analog circuitry is still bypassed.


However, arbitrary driver decisions may prevent some DSP features from working over S/PDIF anyway, such as Dolby Headphone on Xonar cards. This does not apply to all cards; X-Fi cards allow CMSS-3D Headphone output over S/PDIF.
Click to expand...

 
I can't believe I didn't see this in over a week...I've updated that part of the guide to point to your post.
 
Jun 5, 2012 at 1:28 PM Post #431 of 4,147
Hi, I'm looking to purchase a soundcard for my newly built gaming pc, and I will be using the audio technica ath-ad700 for both gaming and music. My budget is around $100. Could anyone recommend me a soundcard for both gaming and music? Thanks in advance
 
Jun 5, 2012 at 2:38 PM Post #432 of 4,147
Quote:
jdmkicks94 said:
Hi, I'm looking to purchase a soundcard for my newly built gaming pc, and I will be using the audio technica ath-ad700 for both gaming and music. My budget is around $100. Could anyone recommend me a soundcard for both gaming and music? Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

Asus Xonar DG or DGX. way under your budget.
 
Jun 5, 2012 at 6:46 PM Post #433 of 4,147
Quote:
jdmkicks94 said:
Hi, I'm looking to purchase a soundcard for my newly built gaming pc, and I will be using the audio technica ath-ad700 for both gaming and music. My budget is around $100. Could anyone recommend me a soundcard for both gaming and music? Thanks in advance
Click to expand...

 
Xonar DG or a cheap, used X-Fi card (NOT the XtremeAudio, though).
 
What games do you play?
 
Jun 5, 2012 at 7:45 PM Post #435 of 4,147
Quote:
jdmkicks94 said:
Skyrim, diablo 3, minecraft mostly, and some battlefield 3. Also what would you recomend between the ATH-AD700's and the HD-558's?
Edit: and I can stretch my budget, I just want to know what the best choice is, as I'm pretty new to this lol.
Click to expand...

I own both the ATH-AD700 and the HD558s, I way prefer the HD558 (decent bass).
 
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