USB headsets hinder performance?

M

MikeZilla

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Joined
Mar 25, 2004
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I have a pair of Logitech premium USB headsets and a SBLive soundcard.
I heard that a good soundcard is important for gaming performance, so my question is, do usb headsets choke gaming performance? Would I be better off returning my usb headsets and getting a normal pair to plug into my SBLive?
 
From my personal experience I would say yes. In my last system (P3 1000, 384MB Ram) I was using a Plantronics 500 DSP USB headset. At the time, I only really played counterstrike and I got a pretty big hit in fps. I would say about 15 fps a second less. When they broke like 6 months later, I was amazed at how much my fps improved when I used my Santa Cruz again.
 
on my p3-933 i got noticeable perf degredation with the logitech usb headphones. I havent tried them on my new 3ghz, but i would expect the degredation to be much less noticeable.

I didnt really like the audio quality from the usb headphones, and bought a normal pair to go on my new comp.

the usb headphones dont use your soundcard at all, for anything, seperate drivers, etc. (so they might be handy on a usb capable system that doesnt otherwise have sound).
 
All the USB sound devices I've tried don't use your sound card (some do, I'm sure, just not the ones I've tried). Despite being really good quality, that's caused big performance hits, so I stay away from them.

Erik
 
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