[Herra Tohtori]

As far as I know they make their own customized UI frontend for the drivers. They're creative's hardware, so undoubtedly it follows that the drivers must also be pretty much the same.

What Auzentech does is sort of how GPU manufacturers compete in making the same products with slightly different PCB, cooler, and clock speeds, but they all end up using the same driver (even if the manufacturer has their own drivers, the unified drivers released by the chip manufacturer are usually recommended).

This of course applies to Xonars, too. They use C-Media something audio chip, and on Linux my Xonar DX actually identifies as C-Media audio device (and, notably, work perfectly aside from many of the fancy gizmos like the spatialization effects.


Now, I don't know how much stabler the Auzentech drivers can be than Creative's own. I would say it depends on the depth at which the problems of Creative drivers are located - are they core functionality issues with the chip, or are they superficial, user interface based issues? Or has Creative allowed Auzentech engineers full access to the source code or specification of their X-Fi chips? I really doubt the latter, so I have to assume that any fundamental driver issues with Creative X-Fi cards would be present with Auzentech X-Fi cards too.

Or maybe, just maybe, Creative are just full of fail and manage to sabotage their products' stability and useability with just the interface frontend stuff they slap on top of the actual driver that interfaces the chip with the operating system.


I wouldn't actually be surprised at this, but make of this what you will. Don't have any personal experience using a proper X-Fi chip, either Creative or Auzentech branded, so I can't say what exactly is the case here...

[Nuke]

Frankly unless you *don't* have an S/PDIF on your on-board chipset, a soundcard is a waste of money. Even then, unless you're a musician who need MIDI capabilities (though nowadays things have moded to softsynths) you just want a basic card with an S/PDIF out.

Why? Because if you want a good sound system you're going to need a proper amplifier. Any modern amplifier will accept digital input at which point the D-A properties of your PC are absolutely moot. If all you have is a couple of low quality gaming speakers than getting a sound card won't make any difference. (...and frankly even the D-A quality of on-board chipsets are good enough for most people).

ive done this before and it works quite well. it also keeps the signal digital till its clear out of the computer.

[Al-Rik]

I use a X-Fi Gamer.
It's great in older Games which use EAX well like Battlefield 2 or Battlefield 2142.
But nowadays most Games don't support EAX any more (blame it to X-Box and PS3) so I wouldn't buy a internal Soundcard any more.

An alternative would be a good USB Headset from Creative - maybe wireless, because:

Also, you can do great things with Creative's CMSS 3d function. If you have stereo headphones, but tell windows itself and every game and just about everything but the Creative sound driver that you have 7.1 speakers, you get excellent positional sound everywhere. With stereo headphones. Which is great.

It's amazing - in BF 2142 First Strike I'm able to locate a TIE Fighter only by it's sound.

[Nuke]

i own an old pci xfi xtreme music, but i really dont use it. onboard works fine for me and i use an ancient stereo amp that i got out of the dumpster, and $2 full range speakers from a thrift store. besides using top notch **** isnt kvlt.

[Klaustrophobia]

As far as I know they make their own customized UI frontend for the drivers. They're creative's hardware, so undoubtedly it follows that the drivers must also be pretty much the same.

What Auzentech does is sort of how GPU manufacturers compete in making the same products with slightly different PCB, cooler, and clock speeds, but they all end up using the same driver (even if the manufacturer has their own drivers, the unified drivers released by the chip manufacturer are usually recommended).

This of course applies to Xonars, too. They use C-Media something audio chip, and on Linux my Xonar DX actually identifies as C-Media audio device (and, notably, work perfectly aside from many of the fancy gizmos like the spatialization effects.


Now, I don't know how much stabler the Auzentech drivers can be than Creative's own. I would say it depends on the depth at which the problems of Creative drivers are located - are they core functionality issues with the chip, or are they superficial, user interface based issues? Or has Creative allowed Auzentech engineers full access to the source code or specification of their X-Fi chips? I really doubt the latter, so I have to assume that any fundamental driver issues with Creative X-Fi cards would be present with Auzentech X-Fi cards too.

Or maybe, just maybe, Creative are just full of fail and manage to sabotage their products' stability and useability with just the interface frontend stuff they slap on top of the actual driver that interfaces the chip with the operating system.


I wouldn't actually be surprised at this, but make of this what you will. Don't have any personal experience using a proper X-Fi chip, either Creative or Auzentech branded, so I can't say what exactly is the case here...

what i called creative's driver problems is really the frontend.  the card works fine and sounds amazing, the problem is that creative just doesn't give a rat's ass about delivering a superior product all around.  they are quite content to pump out the good hardware and leave the users to suffer from the half-assed frontends lacking in features you'd expect for the price you paid for the hardware (i can't even adjust channel volume independently, the closest i can come is using the fade slider to boost the rear speakers), and then the whole business we went through when they up and refused to make their drivers/software/whatever compatible with vista.  even NOW they are still relying on the alchemy quick kludge fix to support win7.

[Nuke]

yea thats another reason i dont use my x-fi. well that and my video card blocks a pci slot and my wi-fi card takes up the other. i do have a pcie 1x slot but cant move anything to it because all my cards are old skool pci. i had intended to get a pcie wifi card and use the xfi but it was too expensive and i dropped it from my build.

[MP-Ryan]

what i called creative's driver problems is really the frontend.  the card works fine and sounds amazing, the problem is that creative just doesn't give a rat's ass about delivering a superior product all around.  they are quite content to pump out the good hardware and leave the users to suffer from the half-assed frontends lacking in features you'd expect for the price you paid for the hardware (i can't even adjust channel volume independently, the closest i can come is using the fade slider to boost the rear speakers), and then the whole business we went through when they up and refused to make their drivers/software/whatever compatible with vista.  even NOW they are still relying on the alchemy quick kludge fix to support win7.

And this is where Auzentech's stuff simply shines.  I've never had any trouble with it, and it's quite feature-rich.

In fact, I recall a while back that Auzentech temporarily locked their driver downloads because some users were downloading them to run their Creative cards.  No idea if you can still do that or not.

[rev_posix]

yea thats another reason i dont use my x-fi. well that and my video card blocks a pci slot and my wi-fi card takes up the other. i do have a pcie 1x slot but cant move anything to it because all my cards are old skool pci. i had intended to get a pcie wifi card and use the xfi but it was too expensive and i dropped it from my build.

"Old skool"?  Man you are making me feel old.  ISA is old school to me.   

(Sorry, had to toss that in)

[CP5670]

I use an older X-fi xtrememusic and Creative drivers have generally been okay, but on XP loading EAX 4/5 games often breaks the global reverb effects I use for music. This is par for the course, as every Creative card I've had since 2000 had this exact same issue in some form or another. Apparently it happens if the game does not "close" the EAX hooks properly, and the only way to fix it is to reboot. In some ways it's a good thing that EAX no longer works on Windows 7, as I don't have to deal with this hassle anymore. Although EAX did sound better than the audio in modern games, at least in the few games that were fully designed around it.

Whether a sound card is needed or not depends a lot on what you're listening to it through. I use good headphones and it's a massive improvement over onboard sound, especially at the extreme ends of the frequency range and with some of the card's processing features enabled. I notice the difference all the time when I listen to music off my laptop at work, although it's more worthwhile for music than games. It's a good thing we have alternatives to Creative today.

[Nuke]

yea thats another reason i dont use my x-fi. well that and my video card blocks a pci slot and my wi-fi card takes up the other. i do have a pcie 1x slot but cant move anything to it because all my cards are old skool pci. i had intended to get a pcie wifi card and use the xfi but it was too expensive and i dropped it from my build.

"Old skool"?  Man you are making me feel old.  ISA is old school to me.   

(Sorry, had to toss that in)

thats just how i differentiate traditional pci from pci express. i remember isa too, but thats a different story.

[Klaustrophobia]

nuke, if you listen to music via your PC i would highly recommend trying to squeeze that card in somehow (do you really need the wifi in a desktop?).  it really is an amazing improvement over onboard for music, especially after fine-tuning the EQ and various x-fi features.  for games only though, yeah, probably not worth it.  i've almost always found gaming sound to be limited by the quality of the audio files of the game itself, not the hardware playing it back.

[Flaser]

Frankly unless you *don't* have an S/PDIF on your on-board chipset, a soundcard is a waste of money.

Not quite. Onboard sound card still cannot achieve the audio quality and number of concurrent sounds that a discrete sound card can.

How? If you've got an S/PDIF then a digital signal is sent to the amplifier. Talking about "audio quality" at that point is utter BULL****. Number of concurrent sounds? Could you back that up in any shape or form? We're not living in the '90 anymore, games' polyphony is no longer sound-card limited.

[Redstreblo]

NEW vote option:

ASUS Xonar D2X

[Fury]

If you've got an S/PDIF then a digital signal is sent to the amplifier.

Actually, you do raise a good point.

When using analog output, onboard sound card falls far behind a discrete card in number of concurrent sounds produced. In some games those sound quality settings affects exactly that in addition of increasing audio khz. Limits of concurrent sound effects produced can be (or at least should be) found in chipset technical specifications.

While you did mention S/PDIF, do remember that most home computer speaker setups still today use analog inputs. Only the surround sound setups generally use S/PDIF, but not 2.0 and 2.1 which are far more common. However, when using S/PDIF I actually do not know if those concurrent sound limits apply anymore. My knowledge of S/PDIFs and amplifiers is shaky at best because I've never owned a speaker setup with S/PDIF or any other kind of digital input. If when S/PDIF is used, all audio is processed by an amplifier, then I guess the concurrent sound limit doesn't apply. But if the onboard sound chip still does some of the processing, it just may apply. I have no interest in looking into the matter though because I do not own S/PDIF setup.

[LHN91]

Also bear in mind that, while you might not notice on lower end speaker systems, you are fairly likely to hear the difference on any half decent set of headphones running off the analog outputs. I know, myself, that while the difference isn't that great on my cobbled-together speaker system (2.1 Altec lansing set on the front-speaker outputs, mid-80s Scott amplifier into Sanyo tower speakers on the rear-speaker outputs - making it a 4.1 system), I did notice the difference on my good headphones before I wore them out.

[Herra Tohtori]

Concurrent sound limits still apply. That's the amount of digital sound samples that the sound card can mix into one signal on-the-fly.

S/PDIF only means that the digital signal is sent directly to the speaker hardware through digital connection, where the on-board amplifier does the conversion from digital to analog and plays it through the speakers.


With analog speakers the signal is first converted to analog on the sound card itself and then simply given to the analog speakers to handle.


Here's the rub: DAC quality matters quite a bit with digital audio. So basically if you are looking for ideal sound, you would probably want to optimize the digital to analog conversion quality.


If you are using analog speakers and on-board HD audio chip, what happens is that the onboard DAC will have to do the digital-to-analog conversion, and it usually doesn't do half as good a work as the DAC in-built in a speaker setup that has S/PDIF input, and definitely nowhere near the DAC quality of a dedicated soundcard.

That means that you will definitely get better sound quality if you use a dedicated sound card with analog speakers, or with headphones - because the DAC quality in a dedicated soundcard is typically very much superior to onboard audio chips'.


However if you happen to have digital speaker setup (like home stereo), and you choose to use that input option, then the digital to analog conversion is done in the speaker amp hardware itself. What this means is, quality-wise it doesn't matter whether the digital audio signal comes from onboard HD audio chip or a dedicated sound card. Digital signal is digital, so as long as the onboard card is capable of producing the same digital audio data, the output from the speakers will be identical.

Where you can have differences, then, is what the actual stuff in the digital audio signal can have, if you're comparing onboard HD audio chips with a dedicated sound card. Typically, like Fury mentioned, dedicated sound cards have more processing power and can handle more bit depth, higher sample rates, more concurrent samples (which is quite important in gaming) and they also usually have better support for things such as speaker virtualization (downmixing surround sound to headphones so that it still sounds like surround, for example).


So, dedicated sound card can still give you better sound in some cases even with digital speakers, but if you for example play CD audio (44kHz16bit stereo PCM wav) through your onboard sound card and dedicated sound card, and you use digital speakers - then there should not be any difference at all.



...except for the fact that if you use something like ASIO instead of Windows Audio Service, you'll get better sound quality, because windows audio service doesn't preserve the waveform, while ASIO does it exactly bit-wise until conversion to analog signal. And if your sound card supports ASIO (or equivalent bit-wise playback mode) you don't need to dick around with workarounds to get that working (ASIO4ALL works on pretty much all sound solutions but is somewhat more fiddly than driver level supported ASIO).



Also something to note: If your dedicated sound card has a better DAC than your digital speakers, you might actually get better audio quality by letting your sound card do the digital-to-analog conversion, and using analog cables to output the signal to your speaker setup.

Yes, digital signal is practically immune to interference. Yes, technically you should want to keep the signal digital as long as possible. However, I for one wouldn't automatically trust that the DAC built in the speakers can do as good a job as the sound card on my PC, so I would probably at least test things with S/PDIF as well as analog cables. If there's no palpable difference, then the digital cable is (obviously) a lot more convenient.



Also, with the advent of HDMI cables, most GPU's these days also double as sound cards. Granted they probably don't have very glorious list of options, but they definitely are HD audio devices, and they output the sound via HDMI connection so if you are looking for the most reduced amounts of cable hell, that would probably be your pick...

[Bob-san]

Frankly unless you *don't* have an S/PDIF on your on-board chipset, a soundcard is a waste of money. Even then, unless you're a musician who need MIDI capabilities (though nowadays things have moded to softsynths) you just want a basic card with an S/PDIF out.

Why? Because if you want a good sound system you're going to need a proper amplifier. Any modern amplifier will accept digital input at which point the D-A properties of your PC are absolutely moot. If all you have is a couple of low quality gaming speakers than getting a sound card won't make any difference. (...and frankly even the D-A quality of on-board chipsets are good enough for most people).

Not quite. Using a A/V receiver, most from the last 2 decades have S/PDIF Coax or Optical inputs. Most computers also have at least one S/PDIF output--but the majority of the time the output is limited to 2 channel PCM; your sound chip (integrated included) as well as receiver must have compatible encoding schemes to do 5.1 or 7.1, usually via DTS or Dolby Digital.

Now then, a modern AVR is a compendium of 3 distinct components: a surround processor (a D/A converter that can decompress DTS, Dolby Digital, AC3, etc.), a preamplifier (to control volume & source), and an amplifier (to actually drive unpowered loudspeakers). The headphone output is usually overlooked because they're meant for use in a cheap home theater and manufacturers like Sony, Pioneer, Onkyo, NAD, and others know that using them at your desktop computer with headphones is very uncommon.

I personally use a standalone DAC, headphone amp, and headphones with my computer. I don't even have cheap computer speakers hooked up (though I am considering buying some, if just for Netflix).

[Nuke]

nuke, if you listen to music via your PC i would highly recommend trying to squeeze that card in somehow (do you really need the wifi in a desktop?).  it really is an amazing improvement over onboard for music, especially after fine-tuning the EQ and various x-fi features.  for games only though, yeah, probably not worth it.  i've almost always found gaming sound to be limited by the quality of the audio files of the game itself, not the hardware playing it back.

well i absolutely need wifi, router is upstairs (thats where the dsl line comes in for some reason) my computer is downstairs, theres no way of running cable between them. i really have 2 options here, get a pcie sound card, or get a pcie wifi card. the later would be the cheaper solution. but i have zero income right now.

*edit*
after thumbing through my mobo manual  was wrong about the number of pci slots i had, seems i only have one, and 2 pcie-1x slots (one of which is obscured by the video card). though this still gives me the same options as before. and il have to give up my e-sata bracket too but its worth putting on my get list anyway.

[KyadCK]

I've got an x-fi titanium and I like it. I can run my amp to full without getting blasting (but then my speakers are rated higher then the amp, so ya...) where as my onboard has to stop at about 70% due to blasting. There -IS- a diference, even at low sound levels.

Don't bother with this fata1ty crap, it's nothing more then a brand logo and a fancy pastic cover for the card, and certainly not worth the extra it cost. If you're going to get an x-fi titanium, save a few bucks and get the normal one (with black PCB, the blue ones suck)

NOTE: No sound card takes more then a x1 slot. Do NOT waste a x8 on it as that will probably mean your vid card in the x16 will have to now become an x8 as well (unless you have a high end board).

Frankly unless you *don't* have an S/PDIF on your on-board chipset, a soundcard is a waste of money. Even then, unless you're a musician who need MIDI capabilities (though nowadays things have moded to softsynths) you just want a basic card with an S/PDIF out.

Why? Because if you want a good sound system you're going to need a proper amplifier. Any modern amplifier will accept digital input at which point the D-A properties of your PC are absolutely moot. If all you have is a couple of low quality gaming speakers than getting a sound card won't make any difference. (...and frankly even the D-A quality of on-board chipsets are good enough for most people).

Not quite. Using a A/V receiver, most from the last 2 decades have S/PDIF Coax or Optical inputs. Most computers also have at least one S/PDIF output--but the majority of the time the output is limited to 2 channel PCM; your sound chip (integrated included) as well as receiver must have compatible encoding schemes to do 5.1 or 7.1, usually via DTS or Dolby Digital.

Now then, a modern AVR is a compendium of 3 distinct components: a surround processor (a D/A converter that can decompress DTS, Dolby Digital, AC3, etc.), a preamplifier (to control volume & source), and an amplifier (to actually drive unpowered loudspeakers). The headphone output is usually overlooked because they're meant for use in a cheap home theater and manufacturers like Sony, Pioneer, Onkyo, NAD, and others know that using them at your desktop computer with headphones is very uncommon.

I personally use a standalone DAC, headphone amp, and headphones with my computer. I don't even have cheap computer speakers hooked up (though I am considering buying some, if just for Netflix).

The majority of onboard chips are Realtek which not only have optical, but can do 7.1. This is labeled on every single motherboard box you can find at a computer store.

Also, I use my Tactic Sigmas through the amp, just like with speakers it makes a huge difference compared to playing them through a normal 3.5 jack as well. Just about every receiver I've seen has a 6.3mm headphone jack in front, or at least every Yamaha, and a 6.3 to 3.5 converter is not that expensive.

[Bob-san]

Frankly unless you *don't* have an S/PDIF on your on-board chipset, a soundcard is a waste of money. Even then, unless you're a musician who need MIDI capabilities (though nowadays things have moded to softsynths) you just want a basic card with an S/PDIF out.

Why? Because if you want a good sound system you're going to need a proper amplifier. Any modern amplifier will accept digital input at which point the D-A properties of your PC are absolutely moot. If all you have is a couple of low quality gaming speakers than getting a sound card won't make any difference. (...and frankly even the D-A quality of on-board chipsets are good enough for most people).

Not quite. Using a A/V receiver, most from the last 2 decades have S/PDIF Coax or Optical inputs. Most computers also have at least one S/PDIF output--but the majority of the time the output is limited to 2 channel PCM; your sound chip (integrated included) as well as receiver must have compatible encoding schemes to do 5.1 or 7.1, usually via DTS or Dolby Digital.

Now then, a modern AVR is a compendium of 3 distinct components: a surround processor (a D/A converter that can decompress DTS, Dolby Digital, AC3, etc.), a preamplifier (to control volume & source), and an amplifier (to actually drive unpowered loudspeakers). The headphone output is usually overlooked because they're meant for use in a cheap home theater and manufacturers like Sony, Pioneer, Onkyo, NAD, and others know that using them at your desktop computer with headphones is very uncommon.

I personally use a standalone DAC, headphone amp, and headphones with my computer. I don't even have cheap computer speakers hooked up (though I am considering buying some, if just for Netflix).

The majority of onboard chips are Realtek which not only have optical, but can do 7.1. This is labeled on every single motherboard box you can find at a computer store.

Also, I use my Tactic Sigmas through the amp, just like with speakers it makes a huge difference compared to playing them through a normal 3.5 jack as well. Just about every receiver I've seen has a 6.3mm headphone jack in front, or at least every Yamaha, and a 6.3 to 3.5 converter is not that expensive.

The problem then being how the 6.3mm jack is powered. A half-decent $100 headphone amp will beat almost any preamp, amp, or receiver up to about the $5000 mark. Thus my suggestion in all of this would probably be a Asus Xonar DX ($85) and a standalone headphone amplifier ($80-200). Or just the DX & whatever other equipment the OP wants to run for loudspeakers.