[ivantoar]

Alright, no problem. I'll keep my E10 for portable purposes then.
 
Sadly Newegg won't ship internationally, and so some sellers on Amazon/E-bay. I gotta buy it from a local retailer. If I can't find X-Fi Titanium anywhere, I'll just go with Xonar D1 then.
 
Thanks guys! You've been very helpful

 

[NamelessPFG]

Whoops, overlooked that you lived in Singapore! I hate to admit it, but it seems like Creative only has reasonably-priced products in the US.
 
But since Creative itself is based in Singapore, maybe you could get a good deal somewhere locally.

 

[ivantoar]

Standard retail price for X-Fi Titanium is S$136 which is approximately US$ 108 and Xonar DX (PCIe version of D1 if I'm not mistaken) is S$125 which is approximately US$100. Do you think that it's a good idea (price to quality ratio) to grab the X-Fi Titanium?

Or should I just go with even cheaper card such as Xonar DGX? Prices here is quite a pain.

 

[NamelessPFG]

Between those two, I'd pay up the slight extra for the X-Fi Titanium just for the better gaming audio support, especially if you're still into titles that have hardware-accelerated audio like I am.
 
How much cheaper is the Xonar DG(X) over there?

 

[ivantoar]

Here's prices that I quoted prices from a local retailer.
 
Asus Xonar DGX - S$77 (approx US$ 61.72)
Asus Xonar DX - S$125 (approx US$ 100)
Creative X-Fi Titanium  - S$132 (approx US$ 105.81)
Asus Xonar Essence STX - S$245 (approx US$196)
 
May I know what specific game titles that you're talking about?

 

[NamelessPFG]

Hmmm...almost half the price. Still expensive by US standards, but there's not much I can do about that.
 
As for what games I'm talking about?
 
-Unreal Tournament 1999/2004/UT3
-- by extension, anything based on UnrealEngine1 or 2 such as Deus Ex, Killing Floor and Red Orchestra 1
-Battlefield 1942/Vietnam/BF2/2142 (but NOT BF:BC2 or BF3, those have software-mixed audio)
-Source engine games such as CS:S, TF2, L4D, etc. with snd_legacy_surround 1 and ALchemy
 
There are several other games I could mention, as the full list of DirectSound3D and OpenAL titles is too vast for me to keep track of, but those are the big ones I'm most likely to play.

 

[ivantoar]

How can I know for sure what game using what audio engine? Some games don't have anything stated.
 
I'll just go get the amp first. It's very good to know that JDS Lab can ship its O2 to Singapore. I won't get the E9 as retailers here selling Fiio E9 for almost US$132, it's more logical to me to get the O2 instead of E9.

 

[NamelessPFG]

Here are some of the signs you can look for to determine what APIs or middleware a given game uses:
 
-OpenAL32.dll or Mss32.dll in the game directory (the latter indicates the use of the Miles Sound System, which has DirectSound3D passthroughs, though the Source engine hides it with the snd_legacy_surround console variable)
--by contrast, fmodex.dll means software-processed audio
-any mentions of hardware sound acceleration or EAX in the game option menus
-carefully listening to the way the audio is positioned with CMSS-3D Headphone (You need an X-Fi card in the first place to be able to do this, but it's quite distinct when it's getting DS3D/OAL 3D positional data and when it's just working with pre-mixed 5.1/7.1.)
 
Hope that helps.

 

[ivantoar]

None of my games have those dlls you mentioned. Weird, huh? The only game I know that can use D3D/EAX is my Counter-Strike, both 1.6 and Source because you mentioned it. I'm not sure what CS:GO beta uses, but I assume it the same as CS:S.
 
Will I benefit from gaming sound card then?

 

[NamelessPFG]

For those titles, at least, yes. (At least after you point ALchemy toward their directories.)
 
Other games with software-mixed surround sound would also benefit from CMSS-3D Headphone to an extent, but the X-Fi cards lose their gaming advantage over the C-Media cards (Asus, HT Omega, Auzentech non-X-Fi) when their DSPs aren't being used, and more specifically, CMSS-3D Headphone loses its positional advantage over Dolby Headphone because now they're both doing just virtual 5.1/7.1, instead of one offering a 3D binaural mix while the other still just uses virtual 5.1/7.1.
 
If I could look through your entire game library, I could probably tell you what supports what. I have a knack for this sort of thing.
 
Also, note that the .dll files aren't always in the root of the game folder. You certainly would have noticed the Mss32.dll in every Source engine game folder, CS:S included, if you look in the "bin" subfolder.
 
Still, the DLL-checking is not a surefire method. The surefire method is to check the game's settings for any mentions of hardware sound acceleration and/or EAX.

 

[ivantoar]

I have COD: MW3, CS 1.6, CS:S, CS:GO, Dirt 3 (I know it's using Rapture 3D sound thingy but I don't know what's that), GTA 4, Mafia 2, Max Payne 3, Red Orchestra 2 Heroes of Stalingrad, NFS Shift 2 Unleashed, and Sleeping Dogs installed currently.
 
If CMSS-3D doesn't offer positioning advantage over Dolby then it should be indifferent between Asus and Creative for me.
 
Anyway, what do you think of this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9ApNLMmeAs ? I'd say they're both great for me. I don't know for most guys out here.

 

[NamelessPFG]

DiRT 3 uses OpenAL, so X-Fi cards have the edge there...if you don't use Rapture3D in its place.
 
Rapture3D is a software OpenAL device that actually works pretty well for OpenAL games that use EFX in place of EAX for reverb/chorus/occlusion effects and provides binaural mixing with six different HRTFs to choose from, but it unfortunately does not work at all for non-OpenAL games (including DirectSound3D games, because it has no wrapper like ALchemy). At least Codemasters was nice enough to bundle a basic version of Rapture3D with the DiRT titles.
 
The other games you mentioned, aside from the Counter-Strike titles, most likely use XAudio2 + X3DAudio and/or FMOD Ex, so software-mixed 7.1 is all you get.
 
As for the Crysis 2 demonstration video, I can tell you that they're both performing on roughly the same level because CryENGINE 2/3 has software-mixed audio, and that it's generally more revealing of the sound coloration differences between the two rather than the positioning. (Basically, CMSS-3D Headphone is more treble-emphasized, Dolby Headphone is bassier.)
 
Maybe if I could get into Counter-Strike for once, I'd whip up a comparison video just for you...