Looking for basic advice on audio devices for gaming&recording

[jaime74]

Hi all

 

I'd be glad about some basic advice about what sound device to buy. I am currently using a simple onboard Realtek High Definition Audio card that has several limits.

This is why I want to upgrade to a more powerful device.

 

As I am quite a noob in terms of audio hardware, I have only slight ideas about what might suit my needs.

What I'd like to have is a card that provides a good compromise between gaming on the one hand (especially Oblivion, and (future) Skyrim) and music recording on the other.

 

My requirements for both of these purposes are not really professional, but there are some specific features that I'd like to have, such as:

 

• real EAX support (i.e. without having to install complicated patches like the "3DSoundBack" beta tool for my current Realtek, which doesn't really work for Oblivion)
  
• PCIEE socket
  
• a decently small latency for recording
  

I guess that my choice should be something like Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi, especially because of the EAX support. But if so, which one of them? There are several versions like "Titanium", "XTreme", "Surround" etc. And are there any non-Creative alternatives?

As a noob, I am a bit lost, so I'd be happy about some good hints.

 

Thanks in advance! :)

[Illiad86]

For some non Creative alternatives, you can check out ASUS, Auzentech, or HT Omega.

 

Personally, I have an older XFi Soundblaster XtremeGamer card. I haven't done recording in ages...so I don't know how well this would perform for that. People complain about the drivers...but I didn't have a problem installing them. Being kinda old, Windows 7 installed the drivers, I just had to get the Console Launcher off of Creative's site. I don't know too much about the newer ones. The console launcher though, does have a very nice recording feature on it :)

 

What are you recording the music from?

Edited April 24, 2011 by Illiad86

[jaime74]

For some non Creative alternatives, you can check out ASUS, Auzentech, or HT Omega.

 

Personally, I have an older XFi Soundblaster XtremeGamer card. I haven't done recording in ages...so I don't know how well this would perform for that. People complain about the drivers...but I didn't have a problem installing them. Being kinda old, Windows 7 installed the drivers, I just had to get the Console Launcher off of Creative's site. I don't know too much about the newer ones. The console launcher though, does have a very nice recording feature on it :)

 

What are you recording the music from?

 

Thanks for the feedback, Illiad!

I'll have a look at the alternatives asap.

 

Concerning the recording: I am doing some music recording (e.g. with Logic Audio or Ableton) from time to time, mainly analogous instrumental tracks (such as guitars, vocals etc.) rather than synthesizers or sound programming. That's why I need a device with a latency that is small enough to allow exact in-time recording (you don't want your beats to appear half a second later than they were actually played).

 

I have the impression that (at least for non- or semi-professional home recording) most gamer audio cards out there nowadays are probably fast enough to deal with that, though I am not sure. As a noob, I only know that an audio device should support ASIO drivers for recording, because these drivers offer the best latency behaviour. It's likely that a modern Creative gamer card will well suffice for that, but I don't really know. That's one reason why I am looking for other people's experience.

 

My other problem is the EAX: As long as I was playing TES IV with my onboard Realtek sound card on Win XP, I had no problems getting e.g. side777's EAX sound effects to run. But now, on Windows 7, it won't work anymore. I learned quickly by some web research that this is a well-known problem: As of Windows Vista, several Direct3D sound functionalities (on which EAX sound effects are based) have been removed, and it is said that the only audio cards that still support that natively are those from Creative. Well, there's a beta patch from Realtek, but I can't get it to work without crashing my Oblivion.

[Vecna6667]

I have had a question about this for a while. I had been thinking about a video podcast with games and what would be more important for a clear voice, a studio mixer and microphone, or a top end sound card?

[jaime74]

Just a little new input. I did some research an found that many people consider the following audio cards common alternatives for gaming and music (and partially also recording):

• Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium (or alternatively, Titanium Fatal1ty)
  
• Asus Xonar DX 7.1 (or alternatively, D2X 7.1)
  

Both devices support EAX!

Both are inside the same price range, roughly.

The (mere) Titanium and the DX seem to be the "simple" versions, whereas the "Fatal1ty" and the "DX2" apparently offer more high-end functionality.

 

Here's some more detailed information I found:

 

Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium

A very simple "Pros and Cons" overview": http://www.productwiki.com/creative-sound-blaster-x-fi-titanium/

The Titanium is generally said to be built for low latency, though user reports often differ from marketing statements, e.g. here.

A detailed list of user reviews for Creative Soundblaster X-Fi "Elite Pro" (unfortunately, I don't know the difference to Titanium) can be found here: http://alatest.com/reviews/sound-card-reviews/creative-sound-blaster-x-fi-elite-pro/po3-15264872,93/.

I have the impression, that the Soundblaster is generally rated from "sufficient" to "good" for recording use, though not really convincing (there are several reports related to latency and click/pop noise issues).

In addition, lots of people complain about the driver installation, which seems to be somewhat tedious.

 

Asus Xonar DX 7.1

A test review of the "basic" DX version can be found here: http://www.tigerdirect.com/applications/SearchTools/item-details.asp?EdpNo=3759080.

I had no time to search more detailed reviews for the Asus, but my quick impression was that many people are rating both the EAX and the music quality better that for the Creative.

Also the driver installation ist told to be much easier.

 

I am still uncertain about the latency, however...

 

The hardest part is to get an averview about the difference between all the variations of the sound cards. I am still quite confused... :wacko:

[Illiad86]

Hmm well atleast you could find some reviews :) Have you tried techpowerup.com, andandtech.com, or tomshardware.com?

 

I know of some cards that are excellent for recording, M-Audio. Had one of those beasties back in the day, but they are meant solely for semi/pro recording.

 

I don't know, I've heard people complain and complain about Creative's drivers and they were quite easy to install even back on Windows XP. They do use quite a bit of RAM for audio drivers though.

 

I've heard many good things about the ASUS cards. A lot of people don't like Creative and they have made a good card for competition. But, I've never tried one out.

 

I've had onboard audio forever lol and thought it was just peachy. But, my buddy gave me this card a few years ago for Christmas and there is a HUGE difference. Games don't seem to run any better, but you can hear so many more sounds that you could on the old Realtek. Plus, the simulated 3D and EAX make it sound like I have a 5.1 system when I only have a high end 2.0. Music sounds crisper, but Creative has that nice Crystalizer ;) Having higher end speakers helps with that too quite a bit, but still.

[jaime74]

I know of some cards that are excellent for recording, M-Audio. Had one of those beasties back in the day, but they are meant solely for semi/pro recording.

Thanks, the techpowerup.com hint helped a lot!

 

And yes, M-Audio are quite a standard for recording. But I already have a good old Alesis i|o2 (external USB), which does a really good job as well (in fact, I have used it for my recent mod voice acting). My only problem with it are the really outdated drivers that cause some nasty conflicts (e.g. with Logitech's webcam drivers). And the vendor told me that no updates are planned. So I have to live with that Dinosaur, but it's still working fine (since I chose a non-Logitech cam).

 

Alas, by your pointing out M-Audio, you have brought me to the conclusion that I already have a device that is perfect for recording! ;) So I should rather focus on EAX and 3D (i.e gaming) features than on latency.

 

In the meantime, I decided that it will probably be the Creative SoundBlaster Titanium Fatal1ty. After hours of reading, I have the impression, that most people consider it more reliable in terms of gaming than Asus or Auzentech cards (although the latter receive slightly better ratings in terms of audio quality).

 

Interesting enough, I found one forum post (lost the link unfortunatley) that stated that especially Oblivion and some other games (including Fallout) are told to have severe problems with running EAX on an Asus device! I don't know whether this is really true, but it gave me the final motivation to opt for Creative.

 

Let's see if I'll be happy with it! :)

[Illiad86]

Ya, techpowerup is an awesome site. They used to be a lot better back in the day though. I swear they just give their "Techpowerup approved" to everything they review now...

 

I'm sure you will be :) Have fun :D

Edited April 28, 2011 by Illiad86

[jaime74]

Well well,... after a long time of thinking and running to the computer shop, I finally decided to afford even the Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champions Edition (that's the model with the fancy Front Panel included).

The main reason for this was that I was unsure whether the "simple" Pro edition would support my onboard Front Panel. So I finally decided to be on the safe side by buying the somewhat more expensive version.

 

I guess it might be helpful for others to post my experience:

 

Sound quality:

I must say that it took me some time (much more than I had expected) to set it up quite properly.

In the beginning, my first sound impression was definitely NOT nearly as good as everybody describes it (in fact, my onboard Realtek had sounded MUCH better than the Soundbaster's default settings). For instance, I quickly learned that I don't really like Creatives "Crystalizer" and "X-CMXX-3D" surround presets (they are completely overdone for my taste, as I prefer clean and flat natural sounds over "bulky" bass and presence explosions that seem to be designed mainly for action shooter games). But after lots of fumbling with the EQ (and disabling of presets), I got it working acceptably.

 

EAX:

Then I had severe problems getting ALchemy and EAX to work for Oblivion. Luckily, this turned out to be caused by my own misunderstanding (ALchemy needs Game Mode to work properly), but I think it could also be better documented by the vendor (see this thread).

 

Other aspects:

Third, I found that Creative's "AutoMode Switcher" tools does not only seem to cause problems with Oblivion, but it even tends to blast/hang up my audio card completely (so I had to disable it, which is a pity).

 

Conclusion:

Altogether, I got it working finally, though it was tough work (more than 6 hours of trying, installing/reinstalling and research). And I haven't experienced THE "big improvement" so far that would justify the money I invested (except for the new EAX of course, which wasn't supported by my old Realtek). But I think I can live with it.

 

The only issue that now remains (if I say "the only", I neglect that it's a really ugly one) is that I am facing strange hissing noise issues!

But this seems to be a problem which is NOT caused by the Creative card (I had it with my old card, too, though not as bad).

I believe that it has neither to do with the audio device nor with EAX, but probably with my Mainboard/CPU or with the graphics card. So I posted it separately (maybe someone is interested).

 

Hope this reports will help others!

And thanks again for your feedback on my question! :)