[Nemesis6]

Someone please spill the beans on this stuff, because I can't make heads or tails of it. All I know is that Vista buried EAX by disabling hardware acceleration of DirectSound. Now there's the OpenAL framework, which Creative is apparently endorsing. From my experience, all games that use OpenAL have been absolutely nothing special as far as audio goes.

I don't it - Why did Microsoft do this? What's the point?

[Herra Tohtori]

They wanted to prevent faulty audio drivers getting access to kernel, which they say caused "majority" (or at least a large part) of BSOD crashes. So they axed DirectSound HW acceleration, which EAX technology depended on.

Except, their precious WHQL had signed most of those drivers anyway, so I dunno, maybe they just shouldn't have given those to crappy drivers in the first place. They also could have dealt with that feature removal with much earlier announcement, for example.

There's not really any reason why OpenAL wouldn't be capable of the same things that EAX or other spatial audio engines are. It just hasn't been implemented quite as heavily yet.

[Nuke]

buying fancy sound cards theese days is kinda pointless. the on board ones are usually good enough, and have digital outs so your better off spending your money on a good receiver and a good set of speakers.

[Klaustrophobia]

onboard sound HAS come a long way.  for gaming, i agree, onboard is plenty (if you have a decent motherboard).  however, i got an x-fi music (found one in a Staples that had been sitting there god knows how long) and the difference in music playback is insane.  not that onboard was bad, but i nearly jizzed myself the first time i pumped Shinedown through that card and my 5.1 logitech (cheap, but not bad) speakers.  now if only creative could do something other than just the hardware right... the drivers and feature offerings are utter ****e.  my onboard had WAY better software. 

[Herra Tohtori]

I pretty much agree. Especially with good headphones I really do notice a difference between onboard Intel HD Audio based solutions (not to mention ancient AC'97 based solutions). The signal to noise ratio is one such thing, another is interference from other components that onboard audio devices often suffer from.

I have used the following audio solutions:

-Realtek AC'97 on my first PC's motherboard audio solution. It was crap. However, it had good driver support on Linux.

-Creative SoundBlaster 24bit Live! USB External sound card. It was actually a huge leap from the onboard sound, but it was a bit of a pain to use, both driver and hardware wise. Linux support sucked.

-Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI, or in other words a re-branded Audigy SE. Nevertheless it was better than the earlier card, however 7.1 support for analog speakers sucked since you would have needed special plugs instead of standard RCA 3.5mm plugs, because it had four connections (IIRC, rear and side speakers) in one single plug, so I just used 5.1 setup with it. Linux support still sucked.

-Terratec Aureon 7.1 PCI. Not as many bells and whistles technically as the X-Fi Xtreme Audio, but as a whole a better card. It's still installed in my other PC. Much better driver support on Linux.

-Onboard HD Audio on Asus motherboard on this computer. Didn't much like it, so I used the X-Fi card for a while.

However, the X-Fi card had something go wrong in it, and I got fed up with it since it started entering "screech mode" when ever it was using more than two channels and EAX effects at the same time. In other words it started emitting a very loud single pitched sine wave in these situations, so I cashed out an...

-Asus Xonar DX-XD. Awesome in a can, best audio quality I ever heard from my computer, great 3D sound virtualization options for headphone use, excellent game support, in same price range as Creative's low end X-Fi cards. I hear it has good Linux support too, though I have not tried it really in Linux yet. Just be aware that it has some strange hardware/driver incompatibilities with some NVidia motherboard chipsets...


However.

Before you have any chance to actually benefit from having a good sound card, you have to have good speakers or headphones first. Cheapo headphones and speakers will not benefit from higher source signal quality at all due to their inherent limitations. I can recommend Sennheiser's HD series of headphones. As to speakers, I myself have jury rigged my old Sony ministereo speakers into conjunction with a Creative's 2.1 sound system with a subwoofer and they work as my front speakers in the 7.1 setup, then I have another 5.1 Creative system that works as center, side and rear speakers with the default Creative satellites. It works fairly well, and having a dedicated subwoofer connected to front speakers as well as the entire 7.1 system is rather nice.

[Fury]

I would also suggest looking at USB headphones and speakers. For example Logitech G35 (headphones) and Logitech Z Cinema 2.1 (2.1 speakers). I suppose there'll be 5.1 and 7.1 set too coming later. Those do not need any audio device, onboard or otherwise to be used as they have their own and use USB.

[Herra Tohtori]

I would also suggest looking at USB headphones and speakers. For example Logitech G35 (headphones) and Logitech Z Cinema 2.1 (2.1 speakers). I suppose there'll be 5.1 and 7.1 set too coming later. Those do not need any audio device, onboard or otherwise to be used as they have their own and use USB.

However they also are a drag on CPU and USB bandwidth, and probably lack many of the more sophisticated options that a good sound card usually has.

They do have the advantage of digital connection to the computer, but basically they are external sound cards like my old USB sound blaster live!24bit.

[Fury]

However they also are a drag on CPU and USB bandwidth

Both of which are under normal circumstances not an issue. For CPU to be a bottleneck, it'd have to be really old. Most people don't have nowhere enough USB devices to clog USB bandwidth either, and each USB hub have their own bandwidth anyway. If for example you have two or more devices that use lots of USB bandwidth, just plug them into different USB hubs. You can monitor USB resource usage from Windows device manager.

I use Logitech G35 myself and it's great.

Personally I believe that USB headphones and speakers will become mainstream, taking over onboard audio. Modern PC's shrug off any CPU usage from USB audio devices and USB3 will add even more bandwidth.

[CP5670]

I have used Creative sound cards for several years mainly because of the global reverb effects. I find that they greatly improve music quality on headphones. Creative's support for this feature is extremely spotty though, and certain games often "break" the feature and require you to reboot to get it again. All the Creative cards I've used since the Windows 98 days have had this problem to varying degrees. The ingame EAX sounds good when it works, but I have never been quite as impressed by it as I was by A3D back in the day. I use it on XP though and don't have much experience with it on Vista or 7.

As for USB headphones, I don't like how they need drivers and software to work. I like being able to plug my analog headphones into pretty much anything and just having them work.

[Klaustrophobia]

for a quick headset solution or mild upgrade from a poor onboard chip, i can see USB being decent.  but for high quality, i doubt USB will ever touch the power of a dedicated sound card.

[Fury]

As for USB headphones, I don't like how they need drivers and software to work. I like being able to plug my analog headphones into pretty much anything and just having them work.

They don't. My G35's work as standard stereo headphones without any drivers or software installed. Only product specific features need drivers/software. Think of them like mice or keyboards. Those too work without any additional drivers/software as standard devices.

i doubt USB will ever touch the power of a dedicated sound card.

All that requires is for USB device to have audio chip equal to dedicated sound-card, which for the record is possible. See Logitech G35 and Z Cinema reviews how well those two compare.

[Nemesis6]

I have used Creative sound cards for several years mainly because of the global reverb effects. I find that they greatly improve music quality on headphones. Creative's support for this feature is extremely spotty though, and certain games often "break" the feature and require you to reboot to get it again. All the Creative cards I've used since the Windows 98 days have had this problem to varying degrees. The ingame EAX sounds good when it works, but I have never been quite as impressed by it as I was by A3D back in the day. I use it on XP though and don't have much experience with it on Vista or 7.

I remember A3D, it was supposed to be real-time calculation of echo and stuff, as opposed to EAX which simulated it. In other words, one was "real" sound while another one was fancy, "fake" sound. If I remember correctly, Creative actually acquired this technology and worked it into EAX.

[blackhole]

Someone please spill the beans on this stuff, because I can't make heads or tails of it. All I know is that Vista buried EAX by disabling hardware acceleration of DirectSound. Now there's the OpenAL framework, which Creative is apparently endorsing. From my experience, all games that use OpenAL have been absolutely nothing special as far as audio goes.

I don't it - Why did Microsoft do this? What's the point?

I really have to point out that OpenAL itself is amazing and has nothing to do with games not having anything "special" audio-wise. Those games are just lazy. OpenAL is rapidly becoming the new standard and will likely replace directsound (for the most part) in coming years.

[jr2]

onboard sound HAS come a long way.  for gaming, i agree, onboard is plenty (if you have a decent motherboard).  however, i got an x-fi music (found one in a Staples that had been sitting there god knows how long) and the difference in music playback is insane.  not that onboard was bad, but i nearly jizzed myself the first time i pumped Shinedown through that card and my 5.1 logitech (cheap, but not bad) speakers.  now if only creative could do something other than just the hardware right... the drivers and feature offerings are utter ****e.  my onboard had WAY better software. 

Youp-pax drivers?  (search for 'em)

http://translate.google.com/translate?js=y&prev=_t&hl=en&ie=UTF-8&layout=1&eotf=1&u=http://www.youp-pax.com.cn/bbs/&sl=auto&tl=en