[Roller]

Indeed. And the best way to listen to as little difference as possible is to play content which both cards can handle in a very similar way. Which is why I say that Audigy 2 ZS is a card that can perform admirably on specific scenarios, but thinking of it as versatile enough to do all kinds of audio is a wrong decision. That's basically what I'm saying.

 

[Scytus]

Hey RPG, did you ever try using ALchemy settings? I'm sure you're attached to the Kx audio drivers, and for good reason, but why not explore all avenue's of the Titanium HD and its settings before disregarding the card entirely?
 
I personally think if you're happier with your Audigy, and it costs less, then you're set. But for an individual like myself(also a gamer), with only an onboard soundcard and trying to decide between the Titanium HD & Xonar D2X, I'm assuming the HD might be the right choice.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

Yes I've used them. The fact that it needs Alchemy and specific settings for specific games is a bit inconvenient comparing to using kX Audio drivers where one setting I've spent a lot of time tweaking for sure but then again these settings works great for all purposes and no need to change settings depending on what game or what task I'm about to do. After a format I simply load my optimal config and I'm all set for the best possible experience I can get with this card/driver at least. I'm sure Creative could solve this and wouldn't have to use Alchemy but it's just lack of competition IMO that keeps Creative being able to have the system they use and get away with it as there's not many alternatives. With more competition people could be like hey this system is a PITA I go to another company which won't need it which would force them to do something about it.
 
For most people probably the Titanium HD is a good choice still there's a small chance that there is some kind of preferences that you have or due to we all prioritize things different, there's a risk that this factor  or factors would cause you to like the Xonar card more. I've read about people prefering ASUS over Titanium HD too even with gaming in mind but others would be of the complete opposite opinion. Only by trying for yourself you'll get the definitive answer IMO.
 
 

 

[Roller]

Basically, the Titanium HD is the card to get, and puny Xonar cards can't touch it. And this is just simple facts. Xonar cards are a joke when it comes to gaming, as even a $50 X-Fi card can beat the most expensive Xonar card.
 
Though, I totally agree that Creative needs real competition to step up their game, just like improving API calls conversion. Another reason why a single config doesn't work is because different games need different settings, there is no universal solution, and that's where issues arise.
 
And I can never stop finding amusing that you're so bugged about tweaking a one time config for a game that you never need to adjust again, yet you spend countless hours fiddling with DH wrapper settings and such. So, that's breaking the pattern of nitpicking, which I find that nitpicking (read, tweaking) is quite valuable.

 

[Scytus]

 
Quote:

Yes I've used them. The fact that it needs Alchemy and specific settings for specific games is a bit inconvenient comparing to using kX Audio drivers where one setting I've spent a lot of time tweaking for sure but then again these settings works great for all purposes and no need to change settings depending on what game or what task I'm about to do. After a format I simply load my optimal config and I'm all set for the best possible experience I can get with this card/driver at least. I'm sure Creative could solve this and wouldn't have to use Alchemy but it's just lack of competition IMO that keeps Creative being able to have the system they use and get away with it as there's not many alternatives. With more competition people could be like hey this system is a PITA I go to another company which won't need it which would force them to do something about it.
 
For most people probably the Titanium HD is a good choice still there's a small chance that there is some kind of preferences that you have or due to we all prioritize things different, there's a risk that this factor  or factors would cause you to like the Xonar card more. I've read about people prefering ASUS over Titanium HD too even with gaming in mind but others would be of the complete opposite opinion. Only by trying for yourself you'll get the definitive answer IMO.
 
 

Alchemy requires specific settings per game? there's no universal setting?
 
that seems... strange
 
Quote:

And I can never stop finding amusing that you're so bugged about tweaking a one time config for a game that you never need to adjust again, yet you spend countless hours fiddling with DH wrapper settings and such. So, that's breaking the pattern of nitpicking, which I find that nitpicking (read, tweaking) is quite valuable.

Well he does have a point, if it's the way it seems to be, it seems quite inefficient. I really rather not adjust Alchemy setting for each game I play specifically, as with 200+ games on my system (with more being constantly added, **** you steam sales). A universal setting would seem kind of like a no-brainer.
 

 

[Roller]

Quote:

 

Alchemy requires specific settings per game? there's no universal setting?
 
that seems... strange
 
Well he does have a point, if it's the way it seems to be, it seems quite inefficient. I really rather not adjust Alchemy setting for each game I play specifically, as with 200+ games on my system (with more being constantly added, **** you steam sales). A universal setting would seem kind of like a no-brainer.
 

A universal setting should have been set by default from the beginning, as of now the user just needs to add the specified game to the list, which adds the required libraries with the settings within. The default settings work on many cases, but a few require tweaking to perform optimally. Still, the configurations are tweakable, unlike Asus GX solution that uses a set of settings that fail horrendously on quite some games, and on others it just changes sound in a very odd way, which doesn't happen on neither Creative or software emulations available. Keep in mind that Creative doesn't emulate anything, things are processed in hardware once the API is converted.
 
With all this, I say go Asus, release a X-Fi killer, Creative needs it to open their eyes, and the customers need those battles, but real ones, unlike the petty fake advertisement of Asus that claimed to have EAX 5 when they don't have anything above EAX 2, which led them to a nice lawsuit.

 

[NamelessPFG]

I actually think it's a good thing that you have to manually copy the dsound.dll and dsound.ini for ALchemy into the game folders (which is exactly what the ALchemy interface does) instead of just chucking them into the System32 or SysWOW64 folders for ALchemy, which would likely be required for a default setting. Why? A Glide wrapper I tried at one point did just that (installing in System32/SysWOW64), and it ended up making one of my older games perform horribly because it decided to render in Glide (now wrapped into OpenGL or Direct3D) instead of straight OpenGL or Direct3D, without actually providing a choice. Uninstalling it cleared that up nicely.
 
Personally, I don't think it's that much trouble to just add an extra two files into the directory of every game that uses DirectSound3D (obviously, there's no point in adding the ALchemy wrapper to games that don't use it because they're already native OpenAL or software-based with FMOD or XAudio2 or so forth), and possibly tweaking the dsound.ini file a bit. Then again, I do a lot of tweaking with games in general (especially controls), knowing that once I finally get everything in place, I won't have to change anything afterward and can just play away. 
 
Anyway, Creative really does need more competition...but ever since they ate up Aureal, there hasn't really been any competition since that I am aware of, at least not in the field of gaming audio. Instead, gaming audio has REGRESSED. How sad.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

I played around with Realtek onboard's Dolby Headphone the other day a bit more and came to similar conclusions as before. While on a 360 degree perspective, it does a really great job at pinpointing the direction on a 2D-level. But when it comes to height and distance DH is less impressive. The distance definition can be relatively unsmooth at times and sometimes when hearing sounds a bit above it can sound like almost coming from the same level. The impact on SQ is very little though as it can be EQ'd out quite easily for a very minor SQ hit. Especially Portal 2 sounded really great with it and even started to have some kind of distance definition to sounds (without anything used all ingame speech are like very upfront and difficult to say if it comes from 2 meters or like 5 - 7 meters away. But suprisingly it didn't do much for Left 4 Dead for example despite both games are from Valve. It sure can be explained as more of an immersive/entertaining filter than analytical/detailed. Now I've read in several threads about Realtek's implementation of it seems a bit dodgy and may not work as great as it does with ASUS that allows you to select many more options. With Realtek I can only use it with 2 channels/stereo while on ASUS I can use it with up to 8 channels and different speaker modes selected. According to my own testing when listening to music it performs best when Windows speaker mode is set to 5.1 which I'm unable to test with Realtek outside foobar2000 but at least I think music sounds the best when I use the Dolby Headphone dll files for foobar2000 and have it set to 5.1 speakers in windows/the drivers for Realtek (they are linked). Wish I was able to test how it sounds like with 5.1 speakers with DH activated in games. In music the difference between using stereo and 5.1 with it is that in stereo, it gets a lot more "forward",  in-your-face sounding while with 5.1 the sounds are like more separated and not as centered which to me sounds a little more natural to me and also have better separation between front and behind which creates a better sense of depth, I'd also say it has slightly less of an impact on sound quality like this.
 

 
For those with a Realtek onboard chip on their motherboard could try it out for themselves and see what they think, you actually get sound outputted from all the channels if using 5.1 speakers and set the plugged in device as headphone for best results, if you do a channel test there in the same page it'll output sound from all speakers except the sub and it sounds like they are coming from the right direction too in that test, back channels really sounds like coming from behind and center channel like coming in front of you etc. Aprox like this:
 

 
You can grab for example my Dolby Headphone config for foobar2000 for testing purposes from here http://www.head-fi.org/forum/thread/555263/foobar2000-dolby-headphone-config-comment-discuss

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

doublepost

 

[Roller]

Portal 2 and Left 4 Dead might be both from Valve, but they're quite different engines.

 

[Bill1202]

I just bought this card and even though you only connect on mini cable, the drivers and software congifure the 5.1 expereince for you.  In fact, I think you can conifg the software to deliver 7.1.  Awesome high qualty card in my opinion and worth every penny of the $149.00 I spent plus tax...  You will not be unhappy if you buy the Titanium HD!

 

[Tacoboy]

I've used about 4 or 5 CL (Creative Labs) sound cards (upgraded about every two years), last one I used was the CL Titanium (non HD).
Each CL card model required it's own driver installation CD, if I misplaced my CL install CD, it would take me forever to find the correct ISO to download and make a new install CD.
Even if I seem to be download the correct ISO, CL installation would come back with "incorrect installation disk".
And there is usually 10 separate parts for downloading the CL updates.
For one reason or another I would reinstall my OS (Win95.Win96, Win Me, Win XP, etc.) once or twice a year and sometime it took me a few days getting the CL driver finally done.
I would switch in CL control panel a lot from speakers to headphones, which sometimes screw up the CL software, So I would have to reinstall.
 
With the Xonar cards, everything is one simple download, it usually never takes more then a few minutes reinstall or update Xonar software.
So that's why I'm a Xonar fan.

 

[RPGWiZaRD]

I bought an ASUS D2 today so we'll see how it turns out. I'm very sceptical but heh it's worth a try, was quite nice offer for this card, 80 EUR when it normall costs like 130 EUR+ here.

 

[Scytus]

Quote:

I bought an ASUS D2 today so we'll see how it turns out. I'm very sceptical but heh it's worth a try, was quite nice offer for this card, 80 EUR when it normall costs like 130 EUR+ here.

Let me know how that compares to the Titanium HD in terms of positional audio in games, I hope you still have the other card so you can directly compare

 

[Roller]

Quote:

I've used about 4 or 5 CL (Creative Labs) sound cards (upgraded about every two years), last one I used was the CL Titanium (non HD).
Each CL card model required it's own driver installation CD, if I misplaced my CL install CD, it would take me forever to find the correct ISO to download and make a new install CD.
Even if I seem to be download the correct ISO, CL installation would come back with "incorrect installation disk".
And there is usually 10 separate parts for downloading the CL updates.
For one reason or another I would reinstall my OS (Win95.Win96, Win Me, Win XP, etc.) once or twice a year and sometime it took me a few days getting the CL driver finally done.
I would switch in CL control panel a lot from speakers to headphones, which sometimes screw up the CL software, So I would have to reinstall.
 
With the Xonar cards, everything is one simple download, it usually never takes more then a few minutes reinstall or update Xonar software.
So that's why I'm a Xonar fan.

Been using Creative cards for many years and drivers are to be kept securily, it's the owner's responsability. Updates came in single files, so I'm not sure where you were getting those updates. Installing and configuring a Creative soundcard takes quite less than an hour, no fuss there. I'll repeat, I've never had a single issue with installing or updating drivers, this on multiple computers with significantly different hardware setups.
 
BTW, did the 44.1KHz buzzing issue with the Asus Xonar Essence STX finally got fixed or the latest drivers (official or modded) still have that issue?
 
Another thing Creative has going for them is having adjustment granularity, rather than the on/off or 1-2-3 switches that Asus Xonar cards' control panels have.