[FatMom]

yeah.. send it to your receiver and have 5.1 surround.

I used both onboard sound and my claro halo xt for games in the last years and my opinion still stand, if you dont have a 5.1/7.1 speaker setup, dont care about dolby headphone/CMSS-3D and dont care about older games, you dont need a sound card.

Everyone in here will pretty much disagree with me but its alright.

 

[ROBSCIX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FatMom /img/forum/go_quote.gif yeah.. send it to your receiver and have 5.1 surround. I used both onboard sound and my claro halo xt for games in the last years and my opinion still stand, if you dont have a 5.1/7.1 speaker setup, dont care about dolby headphone/CMSS-3D and dont care about older games, you dont need a sound card. Everyone in here will pretty much disagree with me but its alright.

Well neither your onboard nor a Claro XT are considered any good for gaming in comparison the a Forte, Prelude, HTHD..or CL X-fi's.
What about OpenAL, that is still being put into brand new games. EAX has been used in games right up to just a little while ago as most manufacturers are moving to OpenAL.

Well you say you don't care about this nor that, or this...maybe it is just easier to say you don't care about sound for your games?
BTW, you are still using an onboard you just aren't using an add-in soundcard.
DDL is also lossy, so you are further hurting the sound qualty of your audio system.

Many think, Wow digital it has to sound the best however, that is just not the case. Unless you are using a very,very high priced receiver. A modern gaming soundcard will have higher quality DAC's then many mid-low grade and even some high grade receivers.

This has nothing to do with the sound quality of the receiver. It has to do with the digital input section on the receiver. It depends on the gear to some extent but seems is the case for many using receivers with their systems.
Your entitled to your opinion but something tells me you have never heard a good gaming audio system.

 

[FatMom]

I'm currently using the astro mixamp with my beyer DT150. I dont own a pc gaming rig anymore because most AAA games nowadays are just console ports and I was tired of video drivers issues with the games I was playing (TF2 and UT3) Valve and blizzard being the only exceptions to this rule as they are still making quality PC only games.

DDL is lossy so I am hurting sound quality... compared to what? dolby true hd and dts hd master? I thought we were talking about games in here, not movies.

And how OpenAl will make my games sounds better?

 

[hagatha]

I"m in the same boat, I want good high end audio card, and a really good set of Headphones to go with it... I don't want a "headset" if I need a mic I'll do a standalone.

I do mostly gaming... and want to hear the game or be able to listen to my music... while I play...

I have a set of Logitec Z-5500's (5.1) to me it is a really nice set...

Lets here some brands and models:

I was looking at this card: HT | OMEGA Claro Halo with a set of these cans:
Ultasone HFI-780. I've read alot these cans and they sound like what I'm looking for.

Is there a better card & cans for the money?

I'm listening

hagatha

 

[ROBSCIX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FatMom /img/forum/go_quote.gif I'm currently using the astro mixamp with my beyer DT150. I dont own a pc gaming rig anymore because most AAA games nowadays are just console ports and I was tired of video drivers issues with the games I was playing (TF2 and UT3) Valve and blizzard being the only exceptions to this rule as they are still making quality PC only games. DDL is lossy so I am hurting sound quality... compared to what? dolby true hd and dts hd master? I thought we were talking about games in here, not movies. And how OpenAl will make my games sounds better?

..compred to the same audio using plain analog connection. Nobody mentioned movies except for you.
S/Pdif was originally specs for stereo audio. To get 5.1 surround sound over the same brandwidth it requires compression and the compression is lossy. Lossy compressions routines damage your sound quality because they remove audible data just like MP3.
Your using a DDL decoder...again low quality components and sound. If that is what you think is good gaming sound more power to you.
The OP asked for the "best gaming PC audio card" and that is far from some cheap onboard running DDL.

 

[ROBSCIX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by hagatha /img/forum/go_quote.gif I"m in the same boat, I want good high end audio card, and a really good set of Headphones to go with it... I don't want a "headset" if I need a mic I'll do a standalone. I do mostly gaming... and want to hear the game or be able to listen to my music... while I play... I have a set of Logitec Z-5500's (5.1) to me it is a really nice set... Lets here some brands and models: I was looking at this card: HT | OMEGA Claro Halo with a set of these cans: Ultasone HFI-780. I've read alot these cans and they sound like what I'm looking for. Is there a better card & cans for the money? I'm listening hagatha

The Halo would have limited support for gaming. I would suggest a Forte 7.1 as it has a headphones amplifer built in if you need it. You can get them rather cheap refurbed if money is tight.
If you go with a nwer soundcards, use a analog connection to the speakers as the DAC in the Z-5500's is lower grade then the one in the card. Digital connection in such a system would give you noticable lower quality sound over the same system using analog connections. You can test out both but you will notice that digital is a downgrade in this situation.

 

[FatMom]

So plain old analog would sound better than using the digitial out with a receiver? Nver heard of this one before but I can't comment on this, if this is true then I was wrong. I will try to find someone with a decent loudspeaker setup...

 

[ROBSCIX]

Quote:

Originally Posted by FatMom /img/forum/go_quote.gif So plain old analog would sound better than using the digitial out with a receiver? Nver heard of this one before but I can't comment on this, if this is true then I was wrong. I will try to find someone with a decent loudspeaker setup...

No, that is not quite what I said. For your situation, using an onboard your pretty much limited no matter which way you go so provided your receiver is decent you will probably get better quality using DDL.
For people with modern soundcards, DDL is usually a downgrade as the card will have a higher quality DAC then what is available in the receivers S/Pdif input section. For what you have going though DDL makes sense. You have a cool little setup with some cans and a decoder that you can move from console to PC.
We are getting off topic though.

 

[FatMom]

I'm not using an onboard, I said that I used both onboard and my claro halo XT in the past, right now I game on consoles. I still have the sound card however, tried to sell it in the gear forum without any luck.

Well maybe consoles have onboard sound cards anyway

 

[ROBSCIX]

..point being for gaming there is much better audio to be had then an onboard using DDL

 

[Coupe]

Tell em ROB!

 

[ROBSCIX]

Just trying to help.