[PurpleAngel]

That's not exactly what happened. Before Vista, audio subsystem in Windows was created in a similar way to graphics subsystem, meaning the sound card handled all sound related calculations and not the cpu. Then Vista came and from that point on the sound calculations are handled by the CPU abd only then sent to sound card for final tweaks such as virtual surround.

 
Did not Alchemy allow the Creative cards to again deal more directly with audio?

 

[3rdAmigo]

Yes that makes complete sense purple angel! Thank you very much for that info!
 
What a crying shame though! They would make more money if they brought that tech back into the card to offload the cpu. Not going to happen though I suspect.
 
Yethal I have a Turtle Beach DSS 7.1 original that I am going to pput on ebay when I get around to it. It is in very good condition and works very well for positional sound. I no longer have a console so its pretty useless to me. I did however own the X41 phones for a while and can tell you the DSS 7.1 does a great job.

 

[Yethal]

Did not Alchemy allow the Creative cards to again deal more directly with audio?

Yup but only for games that were written for openal in the first place.

 

[mysteryfruit]

Hello
 
I need some help in regards to what i should do. I only care for audio in competitive games specifically CSGO. For the last 3-4 years I've been using pc360 and xonar essence stx, now either my ears are ****ed up or i need some new gear. Because i feel like i miss out on sounds in-game that e.g. my friends with pc350 and only on-board sound card can pin point.
 
So first of all, what settings should i be using in the STX audio center to make this situation optimal?
Currently i have:
Audio channels: 2
Sample Rate PCM: 44.1Khz
Analog out: Headphone
 
And not touched anything else.
 
Secondly if i should spend money and get some new gear, what would be the best possible setup for competitive games where directional sounds and "where people are stuff" is the only thing that matters to me.
 
I've been trying to find suggestions to this on here, but there's so many and I'm going nuts trying to figure out whats the best
 
So far I've gathered that these have been recommended a lot for this use case:
AD700x
K612 pro
Fidelio x2
HD558
HD598
 
As far as AMPs go I've seen the Fiio E10K, E11K and E09K recommended.
But i have no clue which headphones needs one.
 
Have i missed any?
Which one is best for my use case in CSGO, and if i need what AMP should i get?

 

[Fegefeuer]

Yup but only for games that were written for openal in the first place.

 
No, Alchemy uses a wrapper for DirectSound3D -> OpenAL Commands. Via OpenAL hardware access is enabled again.

 

[conquerator2]

HEK gaming -> :OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO
Life is Stramge never sounded better I bet

 

[Yethal]

No, Alchemy uses a wrapper for DirectSound3D -> OpenAL Commands. Via OpenAL hardware access is enabled again.

Interesting, I might test that later.

 

[PurpleAngel]

  Yes that makes complete sense purple angel! Thank you very much for that info!
 
What a crying shame though! They would make more money if they brought that tech back into the card to offload the cpu. Not going to happen though I suspect.
 
Yethal I have a Turtle Beach DSS 7.1 original that I am going to pput on ebay when I get around to it. It is in very good condition and works very well for positional sound. I no longer have a console so its pretty useless to me. I did however own the X41 phones for a while and can tell you the DSS 7.1 does a great job.

 
With the history of Creative sound cards, I'm really making guesses about what Creative did and why they did it.
I would assume Realtek, C-Media, VIA, etc, all try to off load work to the main CPU.
To me it just makes good business sense (for any company) to off load as much audio processing as possible, on to the main CPU, it's like free horse power.

 

[Yethal]

   
With the history of Creative sound cards, I'm really making guesses about what Creative did and why they did it.
I would assume Realtek, C-Media, VIA, etc, all try to off load work to the main CPU.
To me it just makes good business sense (for any company) to off load as much audio processing as possible, on to the main CPU, it's like free horse power.

They didn't do it. Microsoft did. Unified Sound Architecture forces CPU to perform sound related computations even when a dedicated soundcard is detected.

 

[Evshrug]

I need some help in regards to what i should do. I only care for audio in competitive games specifically CSGO. For the last 3-4 years I've been using pc360 and xonar essence stx, now either my ears are ****ed up or i need some new gear.

Currently i have:
Audio channels: 2
Sample Rate PCM: 44.1Khz
Analog out: Headphone

I've been trying to find suggestions to this on here, but there's so many and I'm going nuts trying to figure out whats the best

So far I've gathered that these have been recommended a lot for this use case:
AD700x
K612 pro
Fidelio x2
HD558
HD598

First of all, the PC360 is a pretty good headphone. If you've had it for years, some new pads might restore some original performance, but CS:GO has harsh sounds and with enough volume and time it's entirely possible that you've lost some hearing. I'd recommend new pads... AD700x might be a bit more clear with a bit more separation, but it's not going to be a huge change.

One significant change would be utilizing the surround functions of the very good Asus STX. Check out NamelessPFG's thread on PC gaming surround to find out more about turning on surround processing, which might better help you distinguish between front/back sounds rather than sound just being a general "alert." The STX has a built-in amp about equal to the FiiO E09k (maybe tuned a bit differently, but they use the same main headphone amp chip actually).

They didn't do it. Microsoft did. Unified Sound Architecture forces CPU to perform sound related computations even when a dedicated soundcard is detected.

That's why there is a PC Surround gaming thread, and this thread is mostly about the headphones. It's better for organization, because there is A LOT to get jumbled up.

 

[Yethal]

That's why there is a PC Surround gaming thread, and this thread is mostly about the headphones. It's better for organization, because there is A LOT to get jumbled up.

I'm not going there, there are crazy people in this thread.

 

[Evshrug]

LOL can't disagree! Haven't been a PC user for awhile, so I haven't been over there for a few months.

 

[Yethal]

I'll let King Arthur sum up my feelings on that thread.

 

[mysteryfruit]

AD700x might be a bit more clear with a bit more separation, but it's not going to be a huge change.

One significant change would be utilizing the surround functions of the very good Asus STX. Check out NamelessPFG's thread on PC gaming surround to find out more about turning on surround processing, which might better help you distinguish between front/back sounds rather than sound just being a general "alert." The STX has a built-in amp about equal to the FiiO E09k (maybe tuned a bit differently, but they use the same main headphone amp chip actually).

 
Thanks, good to know.
I will do some testing with the surround options and see if it helps.
 
And btw I found this earlier in this thread:
 
Quote:

Sounds like one of your settings is dead wrong. Volume at 100 should blow the drivers out of the game zero. make sure the volume control on the actual headset is turned up. There IS a volume wheel on the Game Zero's ear cup IIRC. That has to be maxed out, and then adjust the volume settings on your PC. I'm certian this is the problem. The problem tends to be something simple.

I do fear how your software settings are though. It's not exactly plug and play to get the proper experience.

Sennheiser headset volume maxed out
Windows sound set to 5.1 speakers
STX settings set to dolby headphone ON

etc. I don't have the STX, but if any one of these things is incorrect, you're not going to get proper surround for gaming. Then you have to turn OFF the surround if you're listening to stereo stuff like Youtube videos, music, that isn't properly giving out surround.

This is why I don't deal with PC audio questions normally. Too many things that can go wrong.

 
I've been using maxed out volume setting in windows \ STX audio center and only a bit below middle of the volume knob on the headphones. Could this actually have damaged the headphones?
Instead i should turn windows down and headphones to max all the time?
 
And finally i saw in the guide thread for STX that the HP advance setting was important, so if anyone here knows what it should be set to with my headphones pc360 that would be great.
Ive been using the default: Normal Gain or for <64ohms headsets, the other choices would be "High Gain or for 64~300ohms" and "High Gain or for 300~600ohms".
 
 

 

[bavinck]

Ps4 is selling record numbers, xbone not too far behind. That's a big install base. Why can creative not design a SBX lossless (HDMI( surround device for them that sounds better than the mixamp? Seems like a no brainer to me.