X-Fi for gaming

I

IntelOwnz

Gawd
Joined
Oct 29, 2006
Messages
710
Is there any evidence that shows X-FI sound cards actually increase your performance in gaming?

I mean, how much performance do you lose by not having a dedicated sound card?
I only have a 2.1 system but will be doing some heavy gaming
 
Yes, since most newer games will use OpenAL (right now only Creative supports in hardware), there will be a noticable drop in performance on other sound cards (about 15% so far).

Or you could take alg7_munif's solution and just spend a grand on a new 8800GTX and Conroe to confiscate for the lost performance and forget about EAX HD support :rolleyes: ...
 
Well here is my future setup:

E6300
Gigabyte DS3
2GB DDR2800
2x WD360ADFD R-0
8800GTS


Just curious if I should buy an X-Fi sound card and use Hardware Acceleration, or should I save myself an extra $100 and just use the onboard audio?


I didn't really see a clear answer in any of those posts?
 
IntelOwnz said:
Well here is my future setup:

E6300
Gigabyte DS3
2GB DDR2800
2x WD360ADFD R-0
8800GTS


Just curious if I should buy an X-Fi sound card and use Hardware Acceleration, or should I save myself an extra $100 and just use the onboard audio?


I didn't really see a clear answer in any of those posts?
Click to expand...

If you have the money, yes; the difference should be apparent. Alg and I were more or less continuing a debate about higher quality sound cards (in your setup, you shouldn't worry about). I think even he will agree that the a basic X-Fi would be a noticeable step up from onboard.
 
IntelOwnz said:
Well here is my future setup:

E6300
Gigabyte DS3
2GB DDR2800
2x WD360ADFD R-0
8800GTS


Just curious if I should buy an X-Fi sound card and use Hardware Acceleration, or should I save myself an extra $100 and just use the onboard audio?


I didn't really see a clear answer in any of those posts?
Click to expand...
If you only have a cheap low quality speaker, you can save your money, if you want a better sound, at least buy the XtremeGamer and you will notice the difference on a decent speaker, I don't think it will help you much in performance but you will get an improvement for sound, in games or in musics.
 
i went from a Audigy 2zs to X-Fi xtreme gamer and noticed a difference in sound and performace in games as well as my movies and music.

if your going to be gaming period, i would always recommend getting a dedicated sound card.
 
BF2 sounds soooo much sweeter with sound quality cranked up to "ultra" on a good 5.1 setup. All without a performance hit. So, yes, it helps.
 
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