ApocalypseeI know, that is the sad thing about environmental audio in game there's no technology or any sort of traction to move it forward like graphics did because most people alright with 'it sounded ok enough', and audio is pretty much subjective. I still impressed by environmental audio in Doom3 with EAX4, F.E.A.R with EAX4 and Battlefield 2 using EAX5.0 when you play it you know it's something special about the audio that no other game got. Replaying these games without EAX just isn't the same.

chrcolukCreative needs a competitor, and onboard realtek isnt it. Most motherboards still ship with the really old low end realtek, I still havent tested the higher spec version thats on my old 9900k board, but when I tried the one on this board I am using now it was junk.

Was using a asus xonar d2x for ages, but its drivers are from Windows 8 era, and was starting to get issues with it, so replaced with an AE9, although I think the AE7 would have been a better purchase for me.

Did consider external before buying the AE9 as so many people recommend them now, but I just have too much clutter around my PC so had to be internal.

Still I am thankful Creative have persisted, without them PC audio would have been very grim.

ypsylonCreative should really close up shop. Their software is atrocious. Their USB DACs suffer from plethora of issues, especially with WInblows11.

Shame a lot of motherboards lost internal slots for x1 internal sound cards, but at this moment in time I think that ship has sailed.

Getting quality DAC is the only way forward and Creative is certainly not on that list - to go vendors. Recently FiiO K13 R2R is all the rage, waiting to compare it to K17 I've ordered.

tsunami2311Yah Creative labs driver are hot shit, it wh I dumped them for onboard even if not near the same qaulity it still much less of hassle.

Sadly these days I still need Optical out still need Dobly Home Theater (encoding) or there is no way to get DD out of PC. even I had HDMI ACR which I dont,. see ARC from TV to AVR which is HDMI enable when I test it did not result in DD of anykind. Infact PC in general refuse to send DD of 5.1 of any kind to TV yet every other device Dish box, Ps3,ps4 blueray will all give DD 5.1 to my tv and the tv will state it DD. it just PC hdmi from gpu refuse to send DD to tv. I not about to run 2 15foot hdmi cables get DD out of my PC one from GPU to AVR and nother back to TV arc to fix that. would reqiure to start moving thing around which I not about to do

Which basically means I stuck with Realtek and Modified drivers or Creative labs X4 or Pure plus (internal) as options and the Creative option is hit or miss more miss though The X5 and G8 look nice but lack Dolby Home Theater from what I can see.

ZeDestructorThe trick I found with my SoudBlaster X4 is that once it's switched into "PC Mode", it no longer needs the drivers at all and just presents as a generic USB Audio Class 2 device with the various IO and such. As someone still doing 7.1 from PC in 2025, it's a very clean and elegant way to get 7.1 output out of a modern PC without resorting to an AVR.

tsunami2311yes but with out said drivers cause Dolby Home Theater be enable with said drivers? which I would think it wont. Only reason I look at anything creative is cause they still support Dolby Home Theater. and I tired of modify realtek drivers to get

ypsylonCreative should really close up shop. Their software is atrocious. Their USB DACs suffer from plethora of issues, especially with WInblows11.

Shame a lot of motherboards lost internal slots for x1 internal sound cards, but at this moment in time I think that ship has sailed.

Getting quality DAC is the only way forward and Creative is certainly not on that list - to go vendors. Recently FiiO K13 R2R is all the rage, waiting to compare it to K17 I've ordered.

chrcolukouch £300 for that, and never heard of it plus its external so is clutter.

It will be a sad day when Creative goes. If it becomes a choice of realtek or external clutter I wont be happy.

There is a reason is still many people using really old creative cards.

tsunami2311Main reason why I dont want external dac is I dont need or want the clutter. and like said only reason why I just use realtek onboard is I got tired of dealing with Creative labs drivers that sucked and that has not really changed from all I read

tsunami2311Main reason why I dont want external dac is I dont need or want the clutter. and like said only reason why I just use realtek onboard is I got tired of dealing with Creative labs drivers that sucked and that has not really changed from all I read

dyonoctisPC audio is grim because demand is low; mainstream brands have tried but have pulled out. Seems like more people are looking for something that's functionally simple, but feels well-built. Driverless CNC-machined DAC/Amp with a High-end chip from AKM/Cirrus Logic/ESS, with a stereo setup.

Not the plastic shell and lack of transparency about the components used, that seems to be the strategy of mainstream brands :D. And external, because PCIe in this day and age is a niche within a niche.

At that point, Creative is doing a bit of fan service with their High-end internal cards. Major PC components retailers in France stopped buying them. I don't see who would dare to get into that market

tsunami2311it only way I can get DD out of Optical out cable. I set 5.1 on optical nothing will use Dolby Digital with out Dolby Home Theater. to this day only way I even been able to get DD out my pc is the Windows format "tests" for DD/DTS out side that no game ever use DD even when I know it supported. That and I like using DHT on Optical out for my mp3 libray it turn then all in 5.1 and sound way better then my AVR doing it

tsunami2311HDMI is not option for me

To my knowledge DDL decodes it and DHT encodes it or atlest that how I see it cause with DHT DDL(5.1) never works my understanding of this only from my experience.

I mean if I can actual get DD 5.1 from X5 or even G8 with simply connect the optical out to my AVR with all my games and everything else that i know support it without the need for DHT then great.

I mean I cant even get my 1070ti to output DD to my TV which would make using the arc out to AVR that actual support HDMI arc moot cause last I tried that with my hdmi enable avr it only ever saw stereo cause that all the tv saw. if it was connected to avr direct it saw 5.1 and it worked. but again HDMI route it not option

Vayra86PC audio is grim because audio in general has been abused into the ground. The amount of smoke and mirrors in this market is ridiculous, when in fact, for 95% of all listeners a general purpose audio setup that you can just hook up to any analog or digital hole in any device is all they ever needed and all they will ever need.

Honestly the A/V world is the absolute champion of screwing up its own perception and sales opportunities. And that includes the content, too, look at the entertainment biz and how it failed into the internet age.

PC audio was somehow segmented to 'PC audio' for the supposed reason of delivering more specialized audio for it... but has instead become a moniker for ultra-budget milk cartons with a tiny magnet in some rattling plastic case to place next to your monitor. Even Creative barely escaped that paradigm - its the whole reason they're almost dead now while real audio brands like Edifier or Teufel still sell. Their best audio sets still smell and feel decivisely plasticky and PC/gamery, even if the sound is OK, which it was, at best. The vast majority of sets though, from all PC oriented audio brands, is just utter junk compared to any midrange receiver with a regular passive speaker set. It falls in the exact same category as all that tacky boutique gamur junk does today.

ZeDestructorI disagree. PC audio is in a better place these days with plenty of external DACs (including multichannel ones) and AVRs (over HDMI) that you can use to feed generic high quality speakers. You can use onboard and PCIe audio too, but the electrical noise inside the PC case will be the eternal limiter of sound quality compared to anything external... even compared to something as cheap as a 9 USD Apple USB-C dongle.

IMO the real crime is the software side where things have not changed since when MS rebuilt the Windows Audio stack in Vista and you have to suffer the ignomy if 200+ms of latency in a world where you can go from mouse to pixel in under 4ms. And that's before we even get into the absolute shitshow that is 3D/environmental audio which has been a straight up regression compared to XP!

ZeDestructorHDMI can send native, uncompressed raw PCM in 7.1 24bit 192kHx and doesn't need DD/DTS encoding in the first place (and has been available since HDMI 1.0, no less)! Instead, you decode the DD/DTS track from your DVD on the PC and send that uncompressed signal directly to the TV/receiver. Dolby Atmos and DTS:X you typically send as a raw bitsream that your AVR decodes, but if your AVR doesn't support them, you can still decode the "core" 7.1 component of the Dolby Atmos/DTS:X into uncompressed 7.1 PCM and send that to the AVR.

You not being able to output DD to your TV over HDMI is entirely by design: the raw PCM option is higher quality, simpler and doesn't have require the TV manufacturer to pay Dolby for a decoder license.

ARC is a bit more complex, but tl;dr is that with ARC 1.0 your TV encodes whatever stream you sent it thrugh a non-AVR HDMI port into DD/DTS 5.1 or PCM 2.0 and ships that "backwards" to your AVR, while eARC/ARC 2.0 you send uncompressed 7.1 or raw bitstreams.

ZeDestructorIMO the real crime is the software side where things have not changed since when MS rebuilt the Windows Audio stack in Vista and you have to suffer the ignomy if 200+ms of latency in a world where you can go from mouse to pixel in under 4ms. And that's before we even get into the absolute shitshow that is 3D/environmental audio which has been a straight up regression compared to XP!