[RPGWiZaRD]

Err, I explained to you only when watching the recorded ingame videos in UT3 I lose those particular sounds (ofc I hear them when I'm normally playing), it's not due to speakermode and no I haven't used 5.1 speakermode all the time, the UT3 video was taken with stereo mode as OpenAL sounds best then. I actually try what settings (ingame speaker mode and windows speakermode for example) sound the best with both cards and go with that before recording.
 
I'm just suprised to see Titanium HD doesn't deliver better results than it does compared to the Audigy 2 ZS, I thought it would provide AT LEAST as great results in all games and better in most but so far it hasn't been the case, it's ranged from a bit worse to about same to a bit better. So an Audigy 2 ZS is a great gaming card even in 2011.

 

[Gustoo]

@RPGWiZaRD
 
I take it you tried it out, from your description that it was an overall thin sound on UT3, and therefore less SQ? or was it something else you was referring to, got a bit confused there :-/..
 
This is just what I think but shouldn't this software work, as it is supposed to just deliver the sound as it was meant to be... without any filtering and such... so in that case, if the audio is really crap then one can either: use stuff like EAX to make it sound "better" or some other form filtering layer over the audio.
 
I get the feeling that it is so.. for example. if you get BF3 when it comes out, you will get the sound as it was intended only that you can use myears software to get it in 3d audio.. and thats that...
But hey, I don't know for sure though..
Also, i reckon it is better to use this with newer games that dont depend on stuff like EAX and the likes.. It could even be that it perhaps is best matched with FMOD games.... agh..
 
If this stuff could just work, dammit!
 
 
 

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Well it doesn't matter what games you use really as the impact on SQ it has can be heard with whatever you play, also when you try listening to music through that playback device which sounds a little funny with the extra positioning, a bit like using dolby headphone but with an even greater hit in sound quality (for me dolby headphone only affects frequency balance negatively which can be EQ'd out but this is more severe and EQing out the change won't fix it).
 
Also I just noticed I didn't use my optimal kX Audio settings (some settings with how the different channels are routed with surrounder+ plugin and I was using another playback device) in BioShock 2 and possibly UT3 it seems so I could probably get a little better result in them if I rerecorded with the better settings, at least from the quick test in BioShock 2 it sounded almost as good now especially at the part some talk is heard the positioning when turning around was better defined.

 

[Roller]

Basically, as long as you feed content with the exact format the Audigy 2 ZS was meant to play, then the card will perform quite alright, but anything other than 48KHz and it will be chaos, so it's a good thing so many games have 48KHz audio. For everything else, below and above, you have the infamous hardware resampler issue to deal with.
 
Anyway, I guess you'll be making further testing, but I'm certainly curious about impressions on each audio area.

 

[genclaymore]

I tried that my ears my self tho its annoying trying to set up. So i In up not even trying it in games.  I use a method I used along time ago when I had a prelude. I set it to 2.1 speakers, Then I find the THX.ini that is created when you open up the THX console. I edit the front L and R speaker positions changing them to 90 Degrees so the positions is facing your ears. Then I save it as read only so it doesn't get change back since this beyond the settings the program will let you set. Then I use CMSS3D for 2.1.  This works better for me them CMSS3D headphone since headphone mode it self kills my sound stage. I used this same config back when I had a AD700.  I suggested this to another friend years ago with his AD700 and it made him happy over using CMSS3D headphone.
 
It still give me the below and above sound, it just doesn't kill my sound stage like headphone mode does. Games do not need to be set to 5.1 neither does the windows control panel.
 
I have UT3 as well tho I dont get your grainy issue with UT3 and I play with openAL on. But then I did change the channel settings for UT3 to 128 from the default 32 in its engine.ini thats in my documents folder\UT3 folder. By default the game is set to use 32 voices.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Well I reuploaded the UT3 vid with better volume levels and possibly a bit different kX Audio driver settings. Should be better now and slightly easier to hear a difference between OpenAL on/off.
 

 
Bioshock 2 vid
 

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Portal 2.
 

 
Will do Left 4 Dead next but I can already say it's very difficult to pick out from which directions the zombies come from on Titanium HD compared to Audigy 2 ZS. It's like I can completely rely on the sound with Audigy 2 ZS and don't have to turn around to check if there's zombies running behind me as I can hear when they are incoming from behind in that case.

 

[Roller]

Quote:

Portal 2.
 
 
 
Will do Left 4 Dead next but I can already say it's very difficult to pick out from which directions the zombies come from on Titanium HD compared to Audigy 2 ZS. It's like I can completely rely on the sound with Audigy 2 ZS and don't have to turn around to check if there's zombies running behind me as I can hear when they are incoming from behind in that case.

Start specifying game settings and ALchemy usage/settings.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Well here's Left 4 Dead video.
 

 
Interestingly CMSS-3D sounds quite good and different in this game. I still prefer Audigy 2 ZS because it seems to have a better soundstage thanks to the Surrounder+ plugin. I remember I was shocked how great it worked in this particular game when I used to play it. EAX seems to work rather poor for this game.

 

[Roller]

So you're not specifying in-game and ALchemy settings used? Ok.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Alchemy not needed for this game. Ingame settings were 2 channels/speaker mode for both as it seemed to work best (headphone mode colored the sound a little and hurt soundstage slightly). Why can't you believe kX Audio drivers actually might be as great I've kept saying they are.

 

[Roller]

Quote:

Alchemy not needed for this game. Ingame settings were 2 channels/speaker mode for both as it seemed to work best (headphone mode colored the sound a little and hurt soundstage slightly). Why can't you believe kX Audio drivers actually might be as great I've kept saying they are.

kX drivers are fine, specially since they change settings through as little layers as possible. Although, a horrendous hardware resampler as the one found on the Audigy 2 ZS is not.
 
EDIT: I hope that OpenAL issue you've had with kX drivers was on a single game, because lack of OpenAL support is not acceptable, and certainly lowers my opinion of kX drivers, considering that stock Creative drivers enable full OpenAL support.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

The hardware resampler on Audigy 2 ZS isn't that horrible, Audigy 1 cards however were really horrible in this regard and a huge difference can be heard if comparing the two. Even most of my music is in 44.1kHz and I can't hear the difference between using Titanium HD set to 24bit / 44.1kHz playback and Audigy 2 ZS which is locked at 48kHz in Windows 7 with these drivers. I can hear bigger difference comparing 192 kbps mp3 vs 320 kbps mp3 than 44.1kHz vs 48kHz for example or changing cables .
 
What other games use OpenAL so I could test it, not like it would be a big deal to me as I don't really like the impact on SQ, I'd rather prefer no SQ impact at all and Surrounder+ is what brings the virtual 3D surround in kX Audio drivers so using that will bring some kind of surround sound to any game and can be used instead of OpenAL and I think this is what makes it so great in games because it improves the positional cues / soundstage and have absolutely no sound quality impact whatsoever unlike CMSS-3D/OpenAL etc.

 

[Roller]

The hardware resampler is bad enough to warrant people avoiding that card at all costs if they plan on playing back any content that has a sampling rate other than 48KHz. Now, if people are ok with resampling, such as using it on foobar2000 or some acceptable quality software resampler, then that's perfectly ok. I mean, before getting a X-Fi, I wouldn't mind one bit, and would actually go for a Audigy 2 ZS specifically, but at this time and date, resampling issues of the severity found on Audigy cards (both 1, 2 and 4) are not acceptable, as resampling is meant to be as transparent as possible, which doesn't happen on those cards.
 
CMSS3D and OpenAL are entirely different things, effects and renderers are nothing alike. But then again, there is no point in arguing this matter with you because I don't use surround emulation features and you do. Which actually leads me to the whole concept of emulation (which is exactly what CMSS3D/Surrounder+/DH are), which in computer terms means mimmicking an existing platform, which in practical terms always results in sub-par performance, no matter the fact that parallel features can even surpass the original system, the overall performance presentation will always be of lower quality. And yes, I'm yet to see a 100% accurate emulation of any system without any issues of note.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Seems like other people also have had problems with OpenAL in UT3 http://forums.epicgames.com/showthread.php?t=605550 (I remember replying in a thread in the forums once ). Besides not working I've also read about crashing issues with it enabled.
 
Surrounder+ for me has worked great so far with no issues but it's not a night and day change exactly, it works better with some games than others based on sound engine but I can't even name one game where it would cause issues/worse results than not using it though. Also for music it sounds better as well as it improves soundstage as well as adding more clear positioning similar to dolby headphone but not as severe change. My principle is it doesn't matter how it's done, it's the result that counts. I go with the ears only, if I can't hear the difference for myself, it's not a useful feature to me and I prefer validating it this way, the theoretical part that might say it's supposed to work like this and that is not interesting to me, meaning I don't think I get better sound if I can't hear it so things like "bit-perfect" playback hasn't mattered to me one bit while others are hypocritical about it for example, I don't get fooled psysiologically by "thinking" I get better result because the paper said it would!