Anyone have a decent sound card? I never thought much about sound quality until recently, but now I'm about to get an external Creative X-Fi for my laptop. I was going to get an older model until I started really looking into it. From what I can tell there is a pretty big difference in technology and hopefully sound quality with the X-Fi. Not really looking for buying advice just having a discussion about sound cards if anyone is interested.
Sound Card Upgrade
- Thread starter stogiedude
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Is this a USB or PCMCIA X-Fi? I dont know if they make one or the other or both, just curious (and lazy). Upgrading to a offboard sound card and disabling the onboard sound usually offloads the CPU as well as being higher quality. I dont remeber the number I determined, but I got a noticable and solid boost in framerates when I went to offboard sound on another computer a couple years ago.
I have a SoundBlaster Xi-Fi PCI card. It has made me way more interested in the sounds than the graphics when playing games. It's superb. If you play any kind of online shooter, a card like this really gives you an edge. You can pinpoint gunfire, footsteps, and other sounds perfectly.
Well, to answer your question Onmo, there are both PCMCIA and USB. I have both on the way. One is for my daughter's computer. Her sound card mysteriously stopped working recently. I'm tempted to get a PCI card for my desktop too. First I'm going to try the ones I ordered and see how they work. In reading about them I was pleased to find out some of the gaming improvements that Jethro mentions and I'm looking forward to hearing the difference. I can't wait to try my new toys out.
My old computer had the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz sound card. It was way better than the cheap one that came with my computer. I'm no computer gamer but you should get a nice set of speakers to go along with that sound card. It makes no sense to have a good sound card and use cheap speakers, just my opinion.
I use a really good pair of studio headphones because my wife always has the TV blaring. The Xi-Fi card has a special modes for when you're using headphones, whether they are stereo or 5.1. You won't miss out on any of the 3D positioning effects.
Well, the USB model arrived and it definitely improves the sound quality and it seems the volume too. You need decent speakers though. I have one small pair of powered Altec Lansing computer speakers and they never sounded better. Music with windows media player sounds really good and clear. I have another pair of smaller junky speakers and they don't sound very good but what can you expect.
The unit is super simple, one knob for volume and two small slide switches for two different effects. You plug it into the USB port and it installs itself-you don't have to install any software or drivers.
The true test comes when I get the chance to hook it up to my mixer/amp and run that through some sweet Yamaha speakers that I just bought. Since my powered mixer just fried I won't be able to do that for a few days until the replacement arrives. This is fun stuff.
The unit is super simple, one knob for volume and two small slide switches for two different effects. You plug it into the USB port and it installs itself-you don't have to install any software or drivers.
The true test comes when I get the chance to hook it up to my mixer/amp and run that through some sweet Yamaha speakers that I just bought. Since my powered mixer just fried I won't be able to do that for a few days until the replacement arrives. This is fun stuff.
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