Usb external soundcard.which one?

[darrensimmons]

I have made a new thread as I can't seem to find any other regarding these usb cards.
I have an onboard sound cards and no free slot due to sli and a mobo that doesnt offer enough room without modding.
I am a heavy gamer and hate the thought that I may be missing out in the souns dept.
Has anyone got any experience with these cards and will they take away fps in games? They seem like a good idea for people like myself but after reading reviews I cannot seem to pick one.

Thanks in advance.

[GenClaymore]

What are you planning to use headphones or 5.1 speakers? You can get a Audiotrak Prodigy Cube for cheap which is a good external dac with in-graded hp amp. I have a friend which enjoys his alot and he do game with it also http://www.audiotrack.net/products/PDCUBE/ I sure they ship to the uk.

Tho there are External sound cards that has gaming features like REcon3D external ver and the Usb X-Fi HD. But both put Gaming features first and sound quality last.

Then there are other affordable External Dacs like the prodigy Cube I mention like HRT music Streamer II if you using a 2.0/2.1 speaker setup since the HRT doesn't have a volume knob and it vol is done thru windows it self.

[darrensimmons]

Originally Posted by GenClaymore

What are you planning to use headphones or 5.1 speakers? You can get a Audiotrak Prodigy Cube for cheap which is a good external dac with in-graded hp amp. I have a friend which enjoys his alot and he do game with it also http://www.audiotrack.net/products/PDCUBE/ I sure they ship to the uk.

Tho there are External sound cards that has gaming features like REcon3D external ver and the Usb X-Fi HD. But both put Gaming features first and sound quality last.

Then there are other affordable External Dacs like the prodigy Cube I mention like HRT music Streamer II if you using a 2.0/2.1 speaker setup since the HRT doesn't have a volume knob and it vol is done thru windows it self.

Thank's for all the info. It's only gaming I'm looking at so I will check out some of the above.
Thanks again.

[sykozis]

I've got the Recon3D USB myself....and honestly, it sounds considerably better than my X-Fi Titanium.

I've also got the older X-Fi Go! which sounds decent at low volume but starts to distort audio at higher volume.

I only have a few sound cards, so I'm far from an expert here....but I've never seen a framerate loss with any card....
X-Fi XtremeAudio
X-Fi XtremeGamer
X-Fi Titanium
X-Fi Go!
Recon3D USB
XonarDG
Logitech USB Audio
SB Live 24bit
Those are the audio cards/adapters I own.... Unless you're looking for audiophile quality sound....they all work fine

Windows7 does not support hardware accelerated audio without the use of Creative's Alchemy software

[darrensimmons]

Originally Posted by sykozis

I've got the Recon3D USB myself....and honestly, it sounds considerably better than my X-Fi Titanium.

I've also got the older X-Fi Go! which sounds decent at low volume but starts to distort audio at higher volume.

I only have a few sound cards, so I'm far from an expert here....but I've never seen a framerate loss with any card....
X-Fi XtremeAudio
X-Fi XtremeGamer
X-Fi Titanium
X-Fi Go!
Recon3D USB
XonarDG
Logitech USB Audio
SB Live 24bit
Those are the audio cards/adapters I own.... Unless you're looking for audiophile quality sound....they all work fine

Windows7 does not support hardware accelerated audio without the use of Creative's Alchemy software

Thanks. So does this mean if I go with the Recon I will need to install the creative software?
edit.Sorry, just found out recon is creative.

[sykozis]

You'll have to install the Creative software if you want it to work at all....lol.

The Recon3D series uses completely different software than the X-Fi or even the SB Live cards. The software is much cleaner and easier to work with.

[darrensimmons]

Originally Posted by sykozis

You'll have to install the Creative software if you want it to work at all....lol.

The Recon3D series uses completely different software than the X-Fi or even the SB Live cards. The software is much cleaner and easier to work with.

Yeah, I think I'll go for the recon. Thanks for your help guys.

[ROBSCIX]

Originally Posted by sykozis

Windows7 does not support hardware accelerated audio without the use of Creative's Alchemy software

That is not accurate. WIn 7 does not support DirectSound based hardware acceleration without Alchemy wrapping.

Win7 supports OpenAL based hardware acceleration perfectly fine.

[sykozis]

Originally Posted by ROBSCIX

That is not accurate. WIn 7 does not support DirectSound based hardware acceleration without Alchemy wrapping.

Win7 supports OpenAL based hardware acceleration perfectly fine.

OpenAL is 3rd party and not supported by most games.

[ROBSCIX]

Originally Posted by sykozis

OpenAL is 3rd party and not supported by most games.

..Of course it is 3rd party but it still is fully supported through hardware in Windows 7.
What do you think ALchemy is?
A wrapper that takes DS calls and wraps them to OpenAL effect calls so they can be processed by the hardware again.

People seem to misunderstand this all the time, they think because the DS HAL was removed that hardware based audio effects have also been removed and that is just not accurate.

[sykozis]

Without the use of 3rd party software, there is no hardware accelerated audio in Windows7...and few games actually support OpenAL.

So, I guess my statement should have been more along the lines of "Windows7 does not support hardware accelerated audio without the use of 3rd party software/APIs".

[ROBSCIX]

Originally Posted by sykozis

Without the use of 3rd party software, there is no hardware accelerated audio in Windows7...and few games actually support OpenAL.

Without 3rd party software no OS ever supported hardware accelerated sound. Yes I know few games support OpenAL and few games support EAX either...however, that is not the point. The point is hardware accelerated audio works just fine in Windows 7. Provided you have a game that supports EAX or OpenAL..etc and the hardware. So I guess not much has changed in that respect just the API.

Originally Posted by sykozis

So, I guess my statement should have been more along the lines of "Windows7 does not support hardware accelerated audio without the use of 3rd party software/APIs".

That has always been true.
EAX, OpenAL...etc is all 3rd party...Although 1 is an effect set and the other is an API.
MS removed the DS HAL, so originally the EAX effect set used that layer to access the cards DSP hardware.
Once removed the game/software has no route to communicate with the hardware. OpenAL still functions in the Win7 as it always did in older OS'd which is why CL just wrote a simple wrapper, the EAX calls are wrapped to swap API's from Direct Sound to OpenAL.
So in Win XP we had:
Directsound:->EAX 1,2,3,4,5
in Windows 7 we have:
OpenAL, which can be used with many effects sets including EAX.
Make sense?

To note, that wrapper idea is sort of how the GX works on ASUS cards also. Effect calls meant for other hardware are "intercepted" and wrapped to allow the ASUS cards software effect engine to produce effect.

[GenClaymore]

Actual OpenAL is still being used as a API, along side Xaudio2 and Fmod. Some games uses a combination of fmod+openAL. But openal is very much alive and well. I bought a game recently that had openAL support in the game engine.

DS hal is really the only thing that is dead.

[ROBSCIX]

Yes, I have to explain these points so often I think I may just have to make a sticky to clarify the situation.