Best sound card for games?

[fraya713]

Title says it all, I am looking to buy a sound card for playing games. I'm not worried about prices, though lower prices are always nice

maybe two groups, one group "The best sound card available"

and then the "Best bang for your buck sound card" group

thanks a lot guys, appreciate your input

 

[B1gg3stN00b]

Go for Creative or M-Audio.

Had nothing but quality stuff from them.

 

[philbrown23]

I bought a razor barracudah and it's kick ass!!!

 

[Cold Storm]

I have This AuzenTech card and changed all the opamps so I get better base... All ways good to be able to Mod ANYTHING you buy! lmao..

 

[happita]

Creative X-Fi Fatality Professional is great. I have it and it rocks.

 

[imperialreign]

really depends on what OS you're running . . .

if Vista, go for the Razer Barracuda AC-1, or the Xonar D2


If you're still on XP, go for either the X-Fi Fatal1ty (although, you might want to wait until the Titaniums are released), or the Barracuda AC-1. Fatal1ty gets my vote moreso than the Razer.

 

[wolf2009]

i have creative x-fi xtreme music, and music and games sound gr8. Music has never sounded this good with all the software sound enhancing plugins i have tried.

In racing games u can feal the positional audio and make out where the car behind u is trying to pass through. Then there is doom 3 and farcry, in which u can hear the footsteps of enemies coming from a certain direction and face that way.

 

[panchoman]

asus xonar d2x pwns x-fi

 

[ktr]

For gaming, anything with EAX 4.0 or 5.0 is what you should look for. So the X-Fi Music (a bit hard to find) or Fatal1ty (recommended) are great cards. Also the older Audigy 2 ZS or Audigy 4 Pro are other great cards. The RAZER Barracuda and Asus Xonar are good, but it has EAX 2.0, which is too old for current games, including so older great titles.

 

[flashstar]

The Xonar now supports EAX 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0. Since this support is through software, it isn't quite as polished as Creative's version but the quality is nearly the same. Definitely go with the Xonar D2, DX2, or DX. I believe that the D2 is around $70.

 

[allen337]

you guys need to read this post before buying creative ever again ~~ http://forums.techpowerup.com/showthread.php?t=62366 .

 

[NinkobEi]

I havent had any problems with my Auzentech Prelude...aside from it not working in linux at all...but that could just be my linux newbieness. Auzen gets the best of both worlds, X-Fi for eax + OPAMPS for upgraded sound quality.

 

[intel igent]

if your'e still on Xp i can reccomend you the audigy2zs it's a great card for the money, very versatile (IMO) and haven't had a problem with it for the 4 or 5yrs that i've owned it

 

[ktr]

The Xonar now supports EAX 3.0, 4.0, and 5.0. Since this support is through software, it isn't quite as polished as Creative's version but the quality is nearly the same. Definitely go with the Xonar D2, DX2, or DX. I believe that the D2 is around $70.

Yea, I have read about that. Asus uses a EAX 5.0 hack which takes EAX 5.0 calls, and coverts them to its own engine, but its no where perfect, for there are many functionalities that are lost (reverb and filtering, etc.).

 

[NinkobEi]

if you are using software EAX then that is using up CPU processing, thus hindering your game performance. albeit probably not by much unless the game you are running is a cpu hog. (MMO's)

 

[lemonadesoda]

Before you rush out and buy a creative card, just check the other forum posts about creative and their compatibility with your OS. It might be important.

IMO, if you are running stereo speakers, you will find no difference between, e.g. "Mile Fast Audio" and "Creative Hardware DX"... in which case... dont be taken in by too much marketing.

The most important factors are: cheap is nasty. Especially when it comes to speakers. No matter how good your soundcard, a paid of cheap speakers (or surround) will mean nothing compared to a quality stereo pair.

 

[DanishDevil]

Auzentech X-Fi Prelude is awesome! Real-time Dolby Digital Live encoding kicks ass!

 

[imperialreign]

Before you rush out and buy a creative card, just check the other forum posts about creative and their compatibility with your OS. It might be important.

IMO, if you are running stereo speakers, you will find no difference between, e.g. "Mile Fast Audio" and "Creative Hardware DX"... in which case... dont be taken in by too much marketing.

The most important factors are: cheap is nasty. Especially when it comes to speakers. No matter how good your soundcard, a paid of cheap speakers (or surround) will mean nothing compared to a quality stereo pair.

100% agreed at that post, even more so on that statement.

If you're running Vista, my recommendation is to stay away from Creative (although the Auzen Prelude is still fair game). Their cards are way too buggy in Vista currently, and besides, due to the OS design, you're not getting everything that you'd pay for. Sure, there's workarounds to the audio barriers, but that introduces a lot of software latency, and considering the X-Fis were designed for gaming performance, you're kinda defeating the purpose having to jump through hoops for full functionality.