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Sound Card

Decent motherboards have very decent onboard sound.

I wouldn't bother with a soundcard, unless you're doing some awesome surround.


Mine even does 5.1 very decently, with no big loss to quality or performance, and my motherboard is 3 years old.

If you're running a simple audio setup, or are not an audiophile, having a soundcard is a waste.
 
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A good soundcard CAN improve the performance as it may take load off the CPU. However - we are talking about a small percentage here (5-10% max). Also taking this load off the CPU does not automatically improve the game-performance by the same amount as it depends on the specific system what the limiting factor of that system is (i.e. CPU, GPU, RAM). And even if we assume that we can gain 10% overall performance we are looking at improving the FPS by maybe 5 frames - which surely does not fix all the performance issues the game has.

In terms of sound-quality a good soundcard can make a difference - combined with a nice set of speakers or headphones. The main difference is that the onboard-sound mainly is a single do-it-all-chip while a good soundcard will have separate analogue and digital sections - ideally decoupled for best SNR and to avoid pickup of noise off the PCs power- and ground-rails. Most people who are happy with music coming from their MP3-players won't care.
 
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Nice, because you can't explain.

That guy who wrote that is a hardware specialist, testing soundcards is 1 of them..
I dont believe you, I want to see the source. And if he really is this "hardware sound specialist", he's just plain terrible at his job and should get fired immediately.

Maybe then I just have a supernatural computer since it does the things he claims to be impossible:rolleyes:
 
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Decent motherboards have very decent onboard sound.

I wouldn't bother with a soundcard, unless you're doing some awesome surround.


Mine even does 5.1 very decently, with no big loss to quality or performance, and my motherboard is 3 years old.

If you're running a simple audio setup, or are not an audiophile, having a soundcard is a waste.

I don't do decent, i want Awsome, i use a Fatality soundcard by Soundblaster, i get Awsome 7.1.

That is all.
 
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A good sound card REQUIRES good speakers.

1. Crap speakers = crap sound.
2. Good speakers = can hear the imperfections of basic audio hardware
3. Good sound card + good speakers = very clean sounds + more spectrum so you can hear more the highs and lows. Movies give the biggest differences.

Primarily though you want good speakers. See #1.
 
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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


Well this thread appears to have gone way off topic.

To answer the OP's post:

If you don't want to spend alot of money on one of these expensive soundcards with extra features that you'll never use, I would recommend a Xonar DG as it's really geared towards those of us who only use headphones.
It's got a built in headphone amp which is really beefs up the sound compared to onboard and Dolby Headphone support for the virtual surround. For
 
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I dont believe you, I want to see the source. And if he really is this "hardware sound specialist", he's just plain terrible at his job and should get fired immediately.

Maybe then I just have a supernatural computer since it does the things he claims to be impossible:rolleyes:

So try your onboard (if you got a decent 1), I wonder if (at least when honest) if you notice any difference. I got an ASUS DG, also had a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCI Express Sound Card (also used in this computer), in games I don't notice any difference, though my onboard on my Asus maximus gene III seems a bit nicer with my 5.1 headset (Tritton PC510 HDa Gaming Headset).

The source is: http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/1978/11-geluidskaarten-review

Maybe use google site translator.

And that comments is made by Koen Crijns (founder of hardware.info) see in comments:
http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/1978/19/11-geluidskaarten-review-conclusie#comments

IMO it's almost like HDMI cables, a cheap 1 from €5 gives the same quality as a cable from €100 since it are just 1/0 (digital information). I said almost.. not that it's the same with soundcards but general speaking most won't hear any difference (if you got a decent onboard).
 
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So try your onboard (if you got a decent 1), I wonder if (at least when honest) if you notice any difference. I got an ASUS DG, also had a Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium PCI Express Sound Card (also used in this computer), in games I don't notice any difference, though my onboard on my Asus maximus gene III seems a bit nicer with my 5.1 headset (Tritton PC510 HDa Gaming Headset).

The source is: http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/1978/11-geluidskaarten-reviewhttp://nl.hardware.info/reviews/1978/11-geluidskaarten-review

Maybe use google site translator.

And that comments is made by Koen Crijns (founder of hardware.info) see in comments:
http://nl.hardware.info/reviews/1978/19/11-geluidskaarten-review-conclusie#commentshttp://nl.hardware.info/reviews/1978/19/11-geluidskaarten-review-conclusie#comments

IMO it's almost like HDMI cables, a cheap 1 from €5 gives the same quality as a cable from €100 since it are just 1/0 (digital information). I said almost.. not that it's the same with soundcards but general speaking most won't hear any difference (if you got a decent onboard).
I notice a huge difference between my onboard soundcard and my separate soundcard, its Huge. And that is only the general sound quality, when we take all the features my separate soundcard has (e.g. hardware accelerated sound in games) the difference is even bigger, not to mention the offloaded sound processing from the CPU and the resulting framerate gains.

That's why we have these (among others) threads on these forums:

http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?p=823890#post823890http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?p=823890#post823890

http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=58356http://forums.tripwireinteractive.com/showthread.php?t=58356

Anyway your motherboard already has an X-Fi chip so I can understand that you dont hear a difference :p The both cards use X-Fi chips.
Also I'm not sure if your headphones are very good regarding sound quality

I should also add that if you dont know what you are doing with your computer software/hardware, you wont get optimal results from anything, including audio performance.
 
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Hardware accelerated sound in games isn't there anymore since vista. :IS2:

Got all my X-Fi stuff on off btw, no need for games and 5.1

My headset: http://www.eteknix.com/peripherals/tritton-pc510-hda-gaming-headset-review-1384/page4

We were very impressed with the sub speaker which could certainly a pack a punch while having a nice warmth and depth to it. The frequency response of this is headset is quoted at 20Hz-30KHz which is very interesting as the human ear can't hear much over 20kHZ (depending on age etc) but its a shame they didn't manage to push the sub speaker down a little bit more as it then gives a bit more life to classical musical or gunshots (two randomly chosen examples!). That said, no other headset on the market has a better frequency range.
 
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Hardware accelerated sound in games isn't there anymore since vista. :IS2:

Got all my X-Fi stuff on off btw, no need for games and 5.1

My headset: http://www.eteknix.com/peripherals/tritton-pc510-hda-gaming-headset-review-1384/page4
It is, how many times do I need to say it is. Please do some research on the subject before you practically lie to others.

The only hardware accelerated sound that was dropped in Vista was hardware acceleration for D3D, and still you can achieve hardware accelerated audio in D3D games with e.g. ALchemy.

Also, btw that review isnt a good review and I wouldnt judge a piece of hardware based on that.
 
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It is, how many times do I need to say it is. Please do some research on the subject before you practically lie to others.

The only hardware accelerated sound that was dropped in Vista was hardware acceleration for D3D, and still you can achieve hardware accelerated audio in D3D games with e.g. ALchemy.

Also, btw that review isnt a good review and I wouldnt judge a piece of hardware based on that.

But AEX is basicly dead, don't think this game is using that for example?

When people are happy with an expensive soundcard, fine with me :)

''It's all between the ears''.

Funny also that you said in 1 of those links you gave:
So it looks like (ro2)) isnt using the sound card to process the sounds
, as most these days it seems. Not saying that's a good thing though..

At least the processors these days have enough power for whatever.
 
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Funny also that you said in 1 of those links you gave: , as most these days it seems. Not saying that's a good thing though..

At least the processors these days have enough power for whatever.
Guess why they are in the bug section?:rolleyes:

And it doesnt sound like they have enough processing power since the game performance takes a serious hit between using OpenAL and XAudio2
 
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Guess why they are in the bug section?:rolleyes:

And it doesnt sound like they have enough processing power since the game performance takes a serious hit between using OpenAL and XAudio2

It's in the bug section because someone put it there, doenst mean it's really a bug, probaly it's using directx (software sollution).
 
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U-S-E-R,

Leave it m8, too many underdevolped minds here, they do not comprehend.

Dont waste the energy.

Even more funny since you 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.

Seems RO2 isnt using hardware sound, read above. And no I don't see any perfomance gain between my normal soundcard or my onboard soundcard with RO2. Do you really?
 
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Even more funny since you said:



Seems RO2 isnt using hardware sound, read above. And no I don't see any perfomance gain between my normal soundcard or my onboard soundcard with RO2. Do you really?

It's not just RO2, it's well known by the people that know, dedicated soundcards far outperform onboard cpu driven sound, i care not about the new onboard dedicated chips, i know because i know, i know because i have realtime experience, i know because i've been doing it for 20 years, i know because i know way more than u about wtf i am talking about.

There is a plethora of information availabe using your friend google, if you care to use it as well.

Thank you.
 
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It's not just RO2, it's well known by the people that know, dedicated soundcards far outperform onboard cpu driven sound, i care not about the new onboard dedicated chips, i know because i know, i know because i have realtime experience, i know because i've been doing it for 20 years, i know because i know way more than u about wtf i am talking about.

There is a plethora of information availabe using your friend google, if you care to use it as well.

Thank you.

Yes soundcards where much more important with xp and before since creative made hardware eax directional sound and when games where using that you could see some fps improvements + that you had single cores as well.

At least we don't have those hardware conflicts anymore, remember?
 
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Yes soundcards where much more important with xp and before since creative made hardware eax directional sound and when games where using that you could see some fps improvements + that you had single cores as well.

At least we don't have those hardware conflicts anymore, remember?


Remember?

Perhaps not so well as i used to young Skywalker. ;)
 
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