[audionewbieyao]

Oh..
 
BSOD has never happened on my Xonar (D series to now Essence)
So you can see some people tends to blame the others for their own unstable system.
 
I've never used GX, simply because all my games doesn't support EAX at all, it's a technology of last century.
 
 
 
Remember, GX = soft shell to allow EAX games to continue use EAX in Win7/VISTA, if you games doesn't have EAX, why bother turn it on?

 

[Dalamar]

Eh, btw, my games that crashed from GX were buggy emulators and horrible MMOs... just fyi. Probably just as much the fault of the game as ASUS's half arsed drivers.
 
If you really feel a need for EAX->openal conversion, you'd best just get an Auzentech card, but imo it's not worth it, EAX should have already kicked the bucket, as should have Creative's gimmicky chipset.

 

[leeperry]

of course my system is rock stable w/ other soundcards, duh.
 
anyway, the drivers on the STX are prolly the worsts in the industry...you've been warned, look up the last pages of the STX threads and see for yourself. The latest ones have been in beta for 6 months now? the final version is expected through 2015. Of course, fanboys and ppl w/ commercial interests will tell you otherwise 

 

[Dalamar]

Really? They are pretty bad but I've had worse (Creative, onboard, and all the cheap cards in the old days). Onboard would crash the system when a video thumbnail was shown in explorer.
 
The hardware itself is superior... but they need to be coaxed into hiring some real driver devs. Wonder if a lawsuit can be filed?

 

[leeperry]

the soundcard industry is plagued by crappy drivers that never work as expected...Musiland also suck like you wouldn't believe, they release beta drivers every few weeks but they crash all over the place. Check the Musiland 01US thread, this thing gives a BSOD after a few mins in KS using Reclock.
 
My current transport doesn't need drivers, and it works perfectly fine...you can also see the Hiface drivers, it's a BSOD feast on W7 x64 and a glitch/pop party on XP.
 
Dogbert's CMI8768 drivers also work perfectly fine, too bad the jitter's horrid on this DSP and there's no pulse transformer on its coax output.

 

[nicolasete]

If i don't need an eax card (like the forte) and asus drivers are that bad, then wich card would you recommend for the interests i posted in the op?
 
Quote:

*     I'll be using the soundcard mainly as a source for my headphones (currently the CALs, maybe the DT150 in the future ^^)
**    I'm actually more interested in sound quality, immersion and overal "WOW" jaw-dropping sound than in milimetric positioning, while i still want a decent positioning to be there for some online shooters.

 
 
- My first concern is overall (game music and movie) sound quality and immersion. The WOW quality i said above.
- My second first concern would be the consecution (overall, but more gaming oriented) of an actual effect of "spacity" (does that word even exist?) an positioning. I don't just want to hear where the sound is coming from, i can already do that with onboard audio. I want the sound to feel like its a real something inside my room, i want to have to turn back my head and shiver if i feel something going down my back. I got that effect with onboard and binaural recordings, so i know my headphones are capable, and i want that effect for games too, and if posible, for movies and music.  I have already tested dolby headphone, it has its things, but it mainyl makes the sound feel more like an echo (and it has the drawback of nearly drowning the actor voice sometimes). Its not the real spacial positioning i got with binaurals, where i had even to scratch my back in some moments.
 
* I currently have only PCI slots available, but i could consider getting a new motherboard if PCI-E is the only decent option (i mean, if all the PCI or external cards fail completely or are too expensive)
 

 

[nicolasete]

double post, sorry.

 

[leeperry]

I'd advice something like the audinst, no drivers required, rollable opamps..it should be great for what you need
 
and you won't depend on some brain damaged drivers engineers.

 

[Dalamar]

Haven't heard any driver issues with HT Omega, but I haven't used their hardware either. Unfortunately they use same crappy cmedia dsp as ASUS, so I suspect they may have driver issues I've not heard about.
 
Could always get an external EMU0404.

 

[leeperry]

all the CMI8788 DSP based cards use the same crappy WDM drivers written by C-Media.
 
the 0404USB only provides bit-matched playback over ASIO, so for KS/WASAPI/DS you need to change the masterclock manually...I tell you, once you try a drivers-free audio interface, hell breaks loose ^^

 

[ROBSCIX]

Quote:

Oh..
 
BSOD has never happened on my Xonar (D series to now Essence)
So you can see some people tends to blame the others for their own unstable system.
 
I've never used GX, simply because all my games doesn't support EAX at all, it's a technology of last century.
 
 
 
Remember, GX = soft shell to allow EAX games to continue use EAX in Win7/VISTA, if you games doesn't have EAX, why bother turn it on?

Took the words right out of my mouth. I can't remember the last time I seen a BSOD with ANY soundcard.  I remember one guy was whining about the STX crashing when he was playing video, I set up the exact same system and it worked fine.  After this you find out the guys is running a bunch of junk and hacks on his system...Hmmm, could they have something to do with the instability?

 

[Dalamar]

That's what I thought, I wonder what stupidity causes cmedia to have to make the drivers on all the cards... closed-source proprietary bs

 

[ROBSCIX]

They build the chips so they write the drivers...simple stuff.
Creative does the same...

 

[KnightK]

I think Creative discontinued EAX in favor of EFX: http://connect.creativelabs.com/developer/Wiki/Introduction%20to%20EFX.aspx

Doesn't matter to me though because I was never a fan of those gimmicky effects.
 
In my experience with soundcards, I've had very good results with HT Omega, particularly the Striker and Claro. The drivers for Win7 x64, I've found, to be completely stable. (Their customer service, rocks, too, ie <1hour turnaround on most things.) The sound quality is also much better than comparably priced Creative and Asus cards.
 
But, soundcards have their limitations, too. I would say that most external DACs will kick a soundcard's butt, especially when coupled with a decent amp. My Musiland Monitor 02USD sounds vastly better as a DAC than my soundcard, so I use it nowadays. I've had no problems with it's drivers, either. I know this doesn't mean the drivers are stable for everyone, but it shows they can work flawlessly.

 

[ROBSCIX]

Quote:

I think Creative discontinued EAX in favor of EFX: http://connect.creativelabs.com/developer/Wiki/Introduction%20to%20EFX.aspx

Doesn't matter to me though because I was never a fan of those gimmicky effects.
 
In my experience with soundcards, I've had very good results with HT Omega, particularly the Striker and Claro. The drivers for Win7 x64, I've found, to be completely stable. (Their customer service, rocks, too, ie <1hour turnaround on most things.) The sound quality is also much better than comparably priced Creative and Asus cards.
 
But, soundcards have their limitations, too. I would say that most external DACs will kick a soundcard's butt, especially when coupled with a decent amp. My Musiland Monitor 02USD sounds vastly better as a DAC than my soundcard, so I use it nowadays. I've had no problems with it's drivers, either. I know this doesn't mean the drivers are stable for everyone, but it shows they can work flawlessly.

 
 

EFX is part of OpenAL which can also run many other effects sets such as EAX.  If EAX is fading out it is being replaced by OpenAL based effect routines.  Many new games also come with interal effects engines needing no external hardware.  These are features some want and some don't just depends on what you do with your system and what your needs are.  There is no perfect suggestions for everybody, some are better using DAC's some are better with soundcards and some use both!