[sabag123]

thanks , updated my location.
 
titanium hd would cost 166$

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

thanks , updated my location.
 
Titanium HD would cost 166$

Not a bad price, here in the USA it would be about $150, including shipping.

 

[sabag123]

what sound card will be the best option?
that's what i think
Asus Xonar D1
creative x-fi xtreme audio
creative x-fi titanium 7.1
Asus Xonar D2X

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

what sound card will be the best option?
that's what i think
Asus Xonar D1
creative x-fi xtreme audio
creative x-fi titanium 7.1
Asus Xonar D2X

If you watch a lot of video, like movies (like DVDs or Blu-ray), then get the D1, as it' has Dolby surround sound and most movies use Dolby audio tracks.
I do come with a built in biased for Xonar sound cards.

 

[sabag123]

but i will feel a difference if i will buy new soundcard?

 

[NamelessPFG]

You'll definitely hear a difference with a good sound card.
 
As for which sound card?
 
-For gaming, I'm fairly insistent on X-Fi cards due to gaming feature support, but would generally advise a used XtremeMusic/XtremeGamer/Titanium under US$40-50 or a Titanium HD at around $100-120. Those prices are probably unrealistic for your country, though.
 
-For everything else (music and movies), it doesn't really matter what you buy as long as the analog output quality is good. X-Fi cards are competent at that, especially the Titanium HD, but so are all the C-Media cards from Asus and HT Omega.

 

[mbartelt]

Hi,
Quote:

-For everything else (music and movies), it doesn't really matter what you buy as long as the analog output quality is good.

 
I don't think so. Had several Creative sound cards and I'd heard a difference to my Asus Xonar D2X.  I play sometimes games, listen more music and sometimes look movies if my wife look TV in the living room. For music the D2X is the best card i ever had. And for all games that you can buy at the moment it also sounds great. Perhaps older titles from the time of Windows XP with EAX 5.0 may sound better on Creative cards. But now because Vista and Windows 7 doesn't support EAX this doesn't matter. So go out and buy a Asus Card like the D2X or better. You will love it.
 
Manfred

 

[cassull]

I've only ever tried one Creative sound card and it was pretty awful. I don't mean sound quality, as in it just did not work. The drivers did not work at all and even when I removed it, the drivers kept screwing with Windows. I think in general, Creative drivers are not very good, so I'd go with an Asus D1 or something similar. 

 

[sabag123]

so xonar d1 better than x-fi for music?
i'm not watching movies alot , the soundcard will be used for music mostly
 

 

[NamelessPFG]

Quote:

I don't think so. Had several Creative sound cards and I'd heard a difference to my Asus Xonar D2X.  I play sometimes games, listen more music and sometimes look movies if my wife look TV in the living room. For music the D2X is the best card i ever had. And for all games that you can buy at the moment it also sounds great. Perhaps older titles from the time of Windows XP with EAX 5.0 may sound better on Creative cards. But now because Vista and Windows 7 doesn't support EAX this doesn't matter. So go out and buy a Asus Card like the D2X or better. You will love it.

 
You do realize that it's only DirectSound3D that became unsupported and that OpenAL remains completely unaffected? Heck, this is why ALchemy, DS3DGX, and all those other DirectSound3D-to-OpenAL wrappers can restore hardware-accelerated audio under Vista/Win7 in the first place, and do so surprisingly well. That's why it still matters, at least to someone who still plays plenty of Thief, Unreal Tournament, Battlefield 1942/2, and numerous other PC classics. (All of which I'd say have better positional audio than any game released in the last five years with XAudio2 or FMOD Ex, especially the Thief series.)
 
Also, while CMSS-3D Headphone performs about as well as Dolby Headphone in positional audio terms with software-mixed games and virtual 5.1/7.1, throw some DS3D/OAL 3D positional audio data at it and it suddenly becomes binaural, with no hard panning, a sense of height, and generally feeling like you're actually in the game environment instead of a virtual speaker system trying to represent a game environment. That's the even bigger reason I insist on X-Fi cards for games with those APIs, EAX or not.
 
Thus, I always will recommend a proper X-Fi card whenever older PC games that use DirectSound3D and OpenAL are involved...unless somebody writes software like Rapture3D with excellent binaural audio mixing that also works with DirectSound3D games and handles EAX 5.0, maybe even A3D 2.0/3.0 too. Then I really could free myself from Creative hardware entirely and not worry about my favorite games not sounding like the developers intended.
 
Also, have you tried one of the higher-end cards like the Prelude, Forte, or Titanium HD? I didn't bother with any of the lower-end X-Fi hardware like the XtremeMusic or XtremeGamer, which likely would have sucked by comparison. All I know is that the Titanium HD is one sweet-sounding card with stable drivers (in my experience, at least), and I have no hesitation in recommending it when the situation best fits.
 

I've only ever tried one Creative sound card and it was pretty awful. I don't mean sound quality, as in it just did not work. The drivers did not work at all and even when I removed it, the drivers kept screwing with Windows. I think in general, Creative drivers are not very good, so I'd go with an Asus D1 or something similar. 

 
Maybe I'm just really lucky, but I haven't had too much trouble with my X-Fi cards not working over the last few years, especially the Titanium HD. The Auzentech-built X-Fi cards were a bit rougher around the edges driver-wise, I'll admit, but generally nothing show-stopping.
 
I've also heard complaints about Asus Xonar drivers too, like sudden ear-piercingly loud high-pitched noises out of nowhere. These driver packs wouldn't exist otherwise.
 
Every sound card is going to have abominable drivers for someone on this planet, I guess. About the only brand I haven't heard any complaints about is HT Omega, and that's only because nobody ever seems to talk about their cards when Asus gets all the C-Media-based sound card attention.

 

[sabag123]

asua xonar d1/x-fi has better options than this?

 

[PurpleAngel]

Quote:

asua xonar d1/x-fi has better options than this?

If you go to the Asus's website, you can download the manual for the Xonar D1, it should have picture/drawing of what the Xonar control panel looks like.

 

[sabag123]

ok i bought the creative x-fi titanium(non hd)
why i don't feel difference?

 

[NamelessPFG]

Differences in sound cards tend to be more subtle, if you're coming from decent integrated audio without any serious buzzing or hissing noises. The main exception, of course, would be games with hardware-accelerated audio effects.
 
If you want a more apparent change in sound, I'd suggest upgrading your headphones and/or speakers, or fiddling with the X-Fi's EQ to suit your tastes.