Audio Card Recommendations?

[JukingMaster48]

Hello there,

I'm relatively new to the forums, so excuse me if I seem rather naive or vague towards things. I recently built a pretty good system..But, don't have sound for whatever reason. My onboard is not being picked up by Windows or whatever. It's enabled in BIOS and all of that..Tried a mutitude of solutions, all of which failed. Hence, Im probably just going to purchase a sound card. I was intending on getting one from Creative..Maybe the X-Fi Xtreme Audio for 65 dollars or so? Maybe this model:

Audigy ?

Im not really certain what to purchase; however, I don't really want to drop a ton of money, as I already did on my desktop. I was hoping to get a remote or some kind of device which allowed for easily accessible volume adjustments. Any advice or recommendations? Im kind of weary towards some of these because I've heard from others that the software side of things is kind of poor. I don't have much experience with audio devices though. Maybe a diagnosis of my integrated audio conflict? I appreciate the time. Thank you.

 

[hortus]

You might want to give a bit more information. What are you going to use it for. Are you a big gamer, or do you use it as the family theater PC. Knowing what your usage is will help to target a recommendation.

If you play alot of games, something in the Creative line is going to probably be your choice. The drivers can be a bit cumbersome to work with. If you have more use for listening to music and watching DVD's, there are several other good options to choose from.

I will say this, you would be well served to figure out what is going wrong with your onbaord sound. What kind of motherboard are you dealing with, and what have you already tried. Sorry I cannot be of more help to you at this time, but as you supply more info I am sure someone will be able to quickly get you on the right path.

 

[4BwlNvvHufcy]

This might rub some people the wrong way, but DO NOT buy a Creative card. The shitty drivers and software, IMO, are not worth dealing with at all.

Yes, on any other card, you won't get EAX 3, 4, and 5 support.... but so what? EAX is just environment presets... eg. if you are inside a pipe, apply this amount of reverb and whatnot to the sound. Yes, some of the hardcore gamers are going to disagree with me.... but I used to be a hardcore gamer, I've had an SBLive and an Audigy. Terrible, terrible drivers and support. I just tried my brothers X-Fi out for the past few days, and they still have not improved on the software.

Currently I run my Audigy on the kX project drivers: http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/


I'm going to recommend checking out the Bluegears b-enspirer, or the Auzentech X-Meridian. (soon to be released in the next couple of weeks, I think.)

b-enspirer: http://www.bluegears.com/b-Enspirer.html

X-Meridian: http://www.auzentech.com/products_xmeridian.html


I'll be getting one of those two in the next month or so... I'd like to see what the general consensus is on the X-Meridian before I make my decision.

Bottom line? [we don't want this thread to turn into an anti creative rant is the bottom line ---- magnetik]

 

[Redshirt #24]

Just speaking for myself here: from a gaming standpoint, the sound card pecking order generally goes like this:

Creative > everybody else

For everything else (movies, music, etc.), with one exception, it goes like this:

everybody else > Creative

The exception (well, the one I know of) is the card I have now, the Audigy 4 Pro, which brute-force does both tasks extremely well. Don't really care about the EAX factor, though it's admittedly a perk, but the card is built well and carries some of the best DACs--which are great for overall sound quality--that you'll find on a consumer-grade (albeit the high end of consumer-grade, even now) sound card.

There's a but coming up, though, that applies to any card: if you have crappy speakers, a high-quality card won't help you that much.

Honestly? If you really don't give a flip about games, get a nice Envy24-based sound card--albeit one with regular driver updates--and party on. They're pretty straightforward, dirt-cheap, and usually of decent quality.

 

[hortus]

Im not really certain what to purchase; however, I don't really want to drop a ton of money, as I already did on my desktop..

You might want to look into the X-Mystique by Auzentech. They are dirt cheap now, and the sound is pretty decent. No remote, but I think you can work aruond that.

 

[Zero82z]

I have an Audigy 2 ZS, and it's excellent for gaming. The music quality is also very good(DACs are almost as good as the ones on the Audigy 4 Pro). The current driver package for my card is very light and works very well, and I greatly prefer it to the drivers I used with my old SBLive! 5.1. If you're a gamer, the best option would be an Audigy 2 ZS or an X-Fi Xtreme Music(from a price/performance perspective). If you just want to listen to music and watch movies, then you'd be better off with a card based on the VIA Envy24 or one of C-Media's chips. I'm not too familiar with non-Creative cards, but there are tons of threads in this forum that you can take a look at to get an idea of what you should get.

 

[Moofasa~]

Yes, some of the hardcore gamers are going to disagree with me....

The problem isn't the lack of support for EAX HD (EAX 3/4/5) on cards that are based on the C-Media chipset (the b-enspirer and the X-Meridian); it is the lack of supporting DirectSound3D through hardware acceleration (and the complete lack of OpenAL support altogether) makes these cards worthless for any gamer.

If you think Creative has poor driver support, you are in a rude awakening for C-Media drivers. I used to have to reset my speaker configuration to 5.1 every single time I restarted Windows (the drivers would reset to 2.1 speaker configuration after reboot) and it took them over four months to fix. Or how about the bug that makes using a microphone almost useless (voice is way too soft) that they still haven't fixed (it't been eighteen+ months and four card revisions). How about the fact that it doesn't have bit-perfect playback when it has the capabilities to have bit-perfect playback (drivers resample 44.1kHz material to 44.1kHz makes 44.1kHz DTS-CD's worthless; also been a bug since the release of the card).

You keep posting to everyone how these cards are the greatest gift to man when you don't even own it. Please don't give advice if you haven't had first hand experience with the product, thanks.

 

[phide]

Yes, on any other card, you won't get EAX 3, 4, and 5 support.... but so what? EAX is just environment presets... eg. if you are inside a pipe, apply this amount of reverb and whatnot to the sound.

To be fair, EAX has, technically, become far more than reverbs, though I've yet to experience the more advanced DSP, as game support is typically particularly poor. The DSP has improved over the years, though, so reverb on later CL cards is relatively pleasing sounding.

As it stands today, Moofasa is right on about OpenAL. Because of the nature of Vista, future titles that wish to have EAX capability are going to be required to operate on OpenAL. I was blind to this facet not too long ago, but OpenAL is soon to become the predominant audio API for future games, and OpenAL support for C-Media cards will likely continue to be lacking for the next six months at the very least. It's unfortunate as hell, because with true OpenAL support, these cards would be excellent alternatives to the Creative Labs unethical mega-monopoly.

I'm hoping Sondigo will turn things around, however, as it's the company that has the most potential for growth in this market. Crossing fingers here.

EDIT: Oh, and also keep in mind that EAX 1.0/2.0 support on C-Media chipsets is, according to CL (for whatever that's worth), not up to snuff.

 

[4BwlNvvHufcy]

The problem isn't the lack of support for EAX HD (EAX 3/4/5) on cards that are based on the C-Media chipset (the b-enspirer and the X-Meridian); it is the lack of supporting DirectSound3D through hardware acceleration (and the complete lack of OpenAL support altogether) makes these cards worthless for any gamer.

If you think Creative has poor driver support, you are in a rude awakening for C-Media drivers. I used to have to reset my speaker configuration to 5.1 every single time I restarted Windows (the drivers would reset to 2.1 speaker configuration after reboot) and it took them over four months to fix. Or how about the bug that makes using a microphone almost useless (voice is way too soft) that they still haven't fixed (it't been eighteen+ months and four card revisions). How about the fact that it doesn't have bit-perfect playback when it has the capabilities to have bit-perfect playback (drivers resample 44.1kHz material to 44.1kHz makes 44.1kHz DTS-CD's worthless; also been a bug since the release of the card).

You keep posting to everyone how these cards are the greatest gift to man when you don't even own it. Please don't give advice if you haven't had first hand experience with the product, thanks.

I don't believe I've been posting that these cards are the greatest gift to man anywhere. I've asked some questions in some other threads, and I recommended checking them out in this one.


I was aware of these cards not supporting DirectSound3D and OpenAL in hardware. While that may be of some concern now, it appears that Vista drops hardware audio acceleration all together. Something to keep in mind when compaing these cards.


I wasn't aware of the microphone problem. And you say that instead of passing a bit-perfect signal, it is (redundantly) resampling a 44.1kHz signal to 44.1kHz? That is the first time I've heard of that, so I appreciate you metioning it. Good discussion on these cards is few and far between, whether it is this forum, avsforum, head-fi, anadtech or whatnot. Which only makes settling on a card harder to do.

While this chipset, the C-Media 8788 lacks support for OpenAL (and this is an open question to anyone), do you see this being written into the drivers/featured in upcoming cards? Actually, can anyone explain the relationship of OpenAL to hardware? Is OpenAL all done in software, and the drivers work to interact with the card (for example, I know the latest X-Fi drivers support OpenAL), or is there actually hardware on the card that is specific for OpenAL? I've had a hard time finding out the answer to this question.

Cheers, and thanks in advance for any information.

 

[Moofasa~]

it appears that Vista drops hardware audio acceleration all together. Something to keep in mind when compaing these cards.

Windows XP was suppose to drop hardware acceleration for DirectSound3D too; we all knew how that turned out. Even if Creative doesn't find a way to support DirectSound3D in hardware for Vista, OpenAL will always be supported in hardware (in any version of Windows, Vista included; that's why Creative has been pushing OpenAL for new games).

do you see this being written into the drivers/featured in upcoming cards?

C-Media should be able to support OpenAL with new drivers; though not in hardware. I am not sure if they are willing to invest resources into OpenAL right now though (their driver team is fairly slow, they have been promising native ASIO support for awhile and it still has not been delivered). It's not that big of an issue right now, cards that don't support OpenAL have to use an OpenAL -> DirectSound3D wrapper which eats up quite a bit of CPU. It's not that these cards can't support OpenAL games, they just cause a great performance decrease.

 

[4BwlNvvHufcy]

There's just one thing I'm not so clear on. Do the X-Fi boards have OpenAL hardware, or is it just a matter of having the drivers written the right way for OpenAL?

For example, if C-Media were to release OpenAL drivers, would they be on par with Creative's offering? Or is there something more they would have to integrate into the physical chip?

EDIT: It seems to me that it is driver only, being that this is an open-source format. That each vendor would write its own OpenAL drivers that tell the format how to interact with the hardware. Right?

 

[Moofasa~]

There's just one thing I'm not so clear on. Do the X-Fi boards have OpenAL hardware, or is it just a matter of having the drivers written the right way for OpenAL?

For example, if C-Media were to release OpenAL drivers, would they be on par with Creative's offering? Or is there something more they would have to integrate into the physical chip?

EDIT: It seems to me that it is driver only, being that this is an open-source format. That each vendor would write its own OpenAL drivers that tell the format how to interact with the hardware. Right?

Yes they could just add OpenAL support through an driver update, but it would be software only (still better than using a OpenAL -> DirectSound3D wrapper). If they wanted to support hardware acceleration with OpenAL they would have to add support on the card's DSP (so current cards would not be on par with Creative's offering performance wise, but perhaps C-Media will dedicate transistors for OpenAL on a later card, but probably not anytime soon).