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Sound Card

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J

JellyBelly

Member
Apr 3, 2006
13
2
#1
Hello everyone,
I have read that RO 2 has excellent sound, unfortuantly i have not heard it, yet, as i only had a set of cheap headphones and a motherboard sound card.

I just bought a set of Sennheiser PC 360 headphones, but it feels like having a Ferrari with out wheels.

So I was wondering what sound card to get that would let me hear all of the hard work that was put into the audio for this game. As this is going to be the game that I will play the most, what sound cards would work well and which sound cards would be excellent.

Intel Core X2600 3.4 GHz
Gigabite GA- P67A-UD4 motherboard
Corsair Vengence 8GB 1600MHz
OCZ RevoDrive 120GB PCI-E SSD
Corsair CMPSU -750 W Gold AX power supply
Windows 7 Home premium 64 Bit
 
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#3
I am a Xonar Essence STX user with a pair of sennheiser hd598s and this game sounds INCREDIBLE. The developers deserve some serious credit for how amazing this game sounds. If you aren't an audio nut like me, I can see something like a cheaper end xonar card being just fine, but please for the love of god stay the hell away from creative.
 
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#4
Thanks for the reply.

Is theXonar Essence STX easy to install and use/set up, as I am not really skilled at computer stuff. I just want to play games, but not console games.

I read that creative sound cards have bloated drivers that use alot of system resources and also cause problems because of bugs. Creative does not release patches in a timely manner.

Does Asus have a better record updating their drivers.

I was also considering a Auzentech X-Fi™ Forte its cheaper than the Essence STX, but I am woried about driver support for an older card plus it uses creatives technology.
 
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#5
As the former user of multiple Creative cards, I can say with certainty that the driver support for them is awful... I dealt multiple times with the card not being detected or conflicting directly with windows. Asus is much better about updating drivers, but even more importantly, Asus cards ship with relatively stable drivers out of the box. It is something that creative has never been able to say. I've heard that Auzentech is better about their drivers, but if you want the best desktop sound card available, go with the STX, you won't regret it (it's not just good for games, either - fire up a favorite album and you will be blown away by how impressive the Xonar STX really sounds.) Again, if you aren't a crazy audiophile like me, one of the lower end Xonar cards might be plenty.
 
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#7
But if you really want 1, I think I would pick this card (just out)
http://uk.store.creative.com/sound-blaster/sound-blaster-recon3d-pcie/1-20885.aspx

Otherwise a cheap asus, like the Asus Xonar DG (which got a headphone amplifier).
Got that card as well, but can't use it anymore since my mATX and recently bought second videocard no space but as I said, these days the difference between onboard or seperate soundcard are minimal.
 
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#8
Having used both Creative and Asus cards I can say there is not that much difference between them for drivers any more.

There were issues when Vista was first released, and again with Win 7, but now the drivers are stable for both manufactures, so not much to compare in that regard.

A lot would depend on how much use you are going to get from your card, that really depends on you. But if you are just going to use it manly for gaming, and the odd time listening to music there is no real need to go overboard with the card you buy, especially if the main use will be through headphones and not attached to a decent set of 5.1 or 7.1 speakers

The other thing you need to take into consideration is what free expansion slots you have on your Motherboard. Whether you will be buying a PCI card or a PCI-E 1 to go into your system

Personally I think you will be fine with any of the low end cards from either company, I still find that the creative cards have better hardware, but the layout of the ports on the Asus cards are better, it is much easier to get the front panel on your case (headphone and mic socket) to work with an Asus card, and easier to match 5.1 or 7.1 speakers, Creative use a stupid system on their jacks that does not truly match what most other manufactures use

Either of the manufactures card will work fine out of the box for you and both sets of drivers will work fine, neither of them are bloated unless your are installing all the unused (for the majority) software, soundbank fonts ect.

Recommended would be the Xonar DX
 
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#10
Slecht said:
Sound card doesn't matter much anymore since vista (no hardware acceleration/directx support). So the difference between sound quality is hardly there, but sure a soundcard is better but if it's worth the money, in most cases no.
Click to expand...

This is true. As far as I know all the sound processing is done on the cpu in windows 7, so a dedicated sound card won't improve your sound quality much, if at all. The only exception to that is if you're hearing interference from the motherboard in the audio.

If a RO developer could confirm this that would be great.
 
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#12
Since the dying of EAX etc there is no longer such thing as hardware processing of placing objects in a 3D audio space. All sounds are made ​​at software level, either by own code of the game programmer, or engines or with standard audio API 's. Eventually the sound such as 5.1 streams to the hardware layer, ready by the supplied sound card.

In the year 2011 there is no such thing as quality differences in terms of placement or 3D sound. They are in fact in all cases exactly the same software layer calculated. The only difference in quality is still there, are things like signal / noise ratio.

(translation from a dutch site..)
 
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#14
xidio said:
Xonar Essence STX. It has Headphone amp.
If you want a cheaper one without headphone amp go for Xonar DX.

But the game atm doesnt allow you to use more than 32 sounds which sucks.
Click to expand...


Xidio - If you update the MaxChannels=32 in the ROEngine.ini to MaxChannels=64, it will work at 64 (and even show 64 in the settings screen). There are three locations in the ini file to update, so just make sure you update all three. Doesn't support 128 at this point though from my understanding.
 
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#15
xidio said:
Xonar Essence STX. It has Headphone amp.
If you want a cheaper one without headphone amp go for Xonar DX.

But the game atm doesnt allow you to use more than 32 sounds which sucks.
Click to expand...


Xidio - If you update the MaxChannels=32 in the ROEngine.ini to MaxChannels=64, it will work at 64 (and even show 64 in the settings screen). There are three locations in the ini file to update, so just make sure you update all three. Doesn't support 128 at this point though from my understanding.
 
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#16
Slecht said:
Since the dying of EAX etc there is no longer such thing as hardware processing of placing objects in a 3D audio space. All sounds are made ​​at software level, either by own code of the game programmer, or engines or with standard audio API 's. Eventually the sound such as 5.1 streams to the hardware layer, ready by the supplied sound card.

In the year 2011 there is no such thing as quality differences in terms of placement or 3D sound. They are in fact in all cases exactly the same software layer calculated. The only difference in quality is still there, are things like signal / noise ratio.

(translation from a dutch site..)
Click to expand...
The one who wrote that has no knowledge of the subject, because that isnt true.

Actually that is so bollocks that I dont even want to bother start explaining why that isnt true.
 
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#19
Razorman01 said:
Soundcards take a huge load OFF of your cpu if you are running built in sound on your mobo, GET a good souncard & watch your performance improve.

A lot of performance issues in RO2 would be solved if people used them.

That is all.
Click to expand...

Yesterday I tested my asus soundcard and compared it with my my onboard 1, no difference in fps, but somehow I even liked my onboard more with my 5.1 headset sound wise.
 
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