xbox360 and asus xonar d2x

C

chrcoluk

[H]ard|Gawd
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Jul 7, 2008
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ok this is a new question regarding my new soundcard.

currently the x-fi is back in because of the following issue which was a showstopper.

my current xbox360 setup uses a special cable i got that connects to the analogue port on my dell 2209wa and it has a audio output on the same cable which i plug into an attachment that converts the 2 output cables to one jack that goes in the line in on my soundcard, or alternatively mic can be used but I use line in. On the x-fi this works quite good, not perfect sound but is good enough. I wasnt expecting what happened on the xonar dx2 with its price point. Basically when using line in on that card it sounds like a dodgy radio, low volume with lots of crackles and pops. It also has sound lag. So it seems on a very basic feature the xonar fails?

If so is there an alternative such as using digital sound output to he xonar? if so can someone please give me a step by step on what to do and what to buy to achieve it thanks.

The xonar for me, is far superior on movies, its software appears to work properly for the most part, ie eax affects working properly whilst on the x-fi I had a lot of trouble with the apps which were great in XP but very buggy in win7, however music in my headphones is slightly better on the x-fi for sure although tuning the various options in the software may fix that and of course the mentioned xbox360 issue.
 
whenever you run through the line in you get processing delay, with any consumer sound card. optical might have slightly lower kernel/driver latency, give it a shot. the d2x has a optical input

does that cable your using give line-level output? line-in is different from analog in/out
 
yeah I got it working thankfully, luckily the cable and adaptor required comes with the d2x. The difference is huge from the line in, and is slightly better than the line in on the x-fi. I find it hard to believe the line in is that bad by design. The issue left now is that DSP seems to not work on the optical in sound.
 
line in serves another purpose. Analog in/out is up to 5v peak to peak. Line in is I think 1.5v if I remember right

Those "adapters" were intended for connecting to a sterio/speakers not used as input. Try microphone in instead if you must

You got sound out using optical?

Oh btw you were noticing/complaining initially about dsp/processing delay. Optical bypasses the dsp/adc
 
sound out is analogue and is a 5.1 setup. although thats irrelevant it seems because using optical in the speaker mode has no affect.

unfortenatly I cant use the mic socket unless I move the sound card or get a tool to remove part of my case or find another adaptor thats longer because the d2x is in bottom slot so the adaptor I use to convert the 2 audio out cable to a mic/line in is too wide to fit, the line in is also diffilcult and when I tested with that I had to sacrifice front out whilst testing.

the motherboard design doesnt suit have a large soundcard in a pci-e slot.

The large weakness is the pci-e 1x slot is its so small that the card is in fact not that secure, it can flex down a lot on the end of the card, a pci slot has the advantage it secures much of the bottom part of the card in place. so I got 3 pci-e 1x slots, one either side of my graphics card, to me that compromised airflow to the gfx card too much if I used either, if I used the top side slot then in addition to airflow issues the ease at which the card can move allowed it to touch the gfx card way too easy for my liking, a cable resting on it could have been enough to cause a short circuit. I was considerng the 2nd pci-e big slot 4x/16x on my board which apparently can take 1x cards, that slot would have no physical issues but shares an IRQ lane with my gfx card in the first big pci-e 16x slot which put me off. I am old school so I still see irq sharing as a no no when possible. So the slot I used has created the jack in problem for line in and mic.

DSP features I would find handy are defenitly SVN, just about every movie/game out there has issues with some sounds been too loud and others too quiet, so SVN is essential for that, equaliser controls would be nice as well.
 
Dsp will ad processing delay as it needs to run off a (small) buffer. Vid capture cards get around it by having same delay for video as audio but for consoles that delay would be unacceptable
 
well DSP was fine on my x-fi whatever delay there was wasnt noticeble, in all honesty that is probably not the reason for the lag on the line-in as it doesnt change on that no matter what dsp features are enabled.

So to me its bizarre that spdif in is forcefully DSP disabled.
 
ok an update, took a long time as the company on amazon took ages to ship the cable.

I finally got a cable instead of plastic adaptor which converts 2 RCA inputs to the 3.5mm jack so can plug in fine now. The issue I reported on the line in is gone on both the mic and line in so is possible I actually damaged my adaptor when trying to force it in last time at an angle. Is some slight pops on line in but otherwise sounds fairly decent with SVN working as it should. To me mic is lower quality with high pitched sounds sounding way off plus not all DSP functions work on the mic input whilst they do on the line in.

So for quality tos optical is best but has a lack of DSP, then line in and then mic. On the x-fi I have no optical in socket so have only ever used line in or mic on that and on the x-fi there was bass distortion which doesnt happen on the xonar. However I think the DSP is better on the x-fi after using this card for a while, reverb on this card is too powerful and my headphones dont sound as good sound as the x-fi outputted, speakers sound ok tho. So am not convinced I will stick this card out yet, as some things are better on but others better on the x-fi.

Incidently my mic input is now broken I believe, on every reboot I hear a clicking noise which is apparently a mechanical part on the card, this clicks on reboots, shutdowns, startups and when switching input modes. After one of the reboots earlier today the mic sound stopped working so I can only assume this mechanical part has failed somewhat, line in still works and optical in still works luckily.

On the delay I cant say its noticeable and I am using it on a xbox360.
 
Some of the Xonar cards are known for the sound you are hearing. That is a relay on the card itself causing the noise, and is normal with that model of card.
 
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