Sound Card Recommendations

italianranma

Here are my specs:
Hi, I'm building my first computer ever. I've got a book, Building the Perfect PC (2nd Edition), and I bought components from newegg based on the recommendations in the computer build sticky thread. Here are the components:

ASUS P5Q Pro LGA 775 Intel P45 ATX Intel Motherboard

Intel Core 2 Duo E8400

G.SKILL 4GB (2 x 2GB) 240-Pin DDR2 SDRAM DDR2 1000

CORSAIR CMPSU-750TX 750W ATX12V / EPS12V Power Supply

VisionTek 900244 Radeon HD 4870 512MB

Seagate Barracuda 7200.11 ST3500320AS 500GB 7200 RPM 32MB

COOLER MASTER Centurion 5

And 2 x LG GH22LP20 DVD burner

I'm having trouble running both a headset and my speakers. After some trawling, I read that a dedicated sound card will improve my gaming performance, and fix my headset problem.

The headset problem is that when I connect a headset, the computer won't play sound through any other speaker system. Not through the ones built into the monitor, or the plug in ones: The computer thinks it's playing sound, but it's really not. Anyway I did update the drives, but the problem happened again as soon as I plugged in the headset.

I'm not sweating the money for the sound card, but I'm not designing music or anything like that either. What card meets me needs? Thanks PAA!

exoplasm

There should be a program in your system tray that lets you configure how headphones work. Some of them, like the Realtek ones, by default will divert all sound to headphones when they are plugged in. Sometimes this doesn't work too well.

italianranma

exoplasm wrote: »

There should be a program in your system tray that lets you configure how headphones work. Some of them, like the Realtek ones, by default will divert all sound to headphones when they are plugged in. Sometimes this doesn't work too well.

Oh, yeah. I'm all over that system tray. The problem is that while the computer thinks that it's sending sounds to the speakers, it just isn't. Even with the headphones unplugged, and the default set to the speakers, there is no volume. The speakers work fine on the laptop, so it's not them either.

1ddqd

What kind of headset are we talking about - is it USB or mini-RCA like speakers/headphones normally are?

Shorn Scrotum Man

If you have Vista or anything 64-bit, for the love of god avoid Creative.

Krikee

Shorn Scrotum Man wrote: »

If you have Vista or anything 64-bit, for the love of god avoid Creative.

What alternatives does this leave? Creative kind of monopolized the gaming market with their stranglehold on EAX and the disappearance of the competing A3D.

Scrublet

Krikee wrote: »

Shorn Scrotum Man wrote: »

If you have Vista or anything 64-bit, for the love of god avoid Creative.

What alternatives does this leave? Creative kind of monopolized the gaming market with their stranglehold on EAX and the disappearance of the competing A3D.

One alternative is to get the Creative stuff and try the custom Daniel_K drivers that they took such issue with. These drivers, if you can find them, improve support as well as re-enable features the Creative mysteriously took away.

The whole Creative/Vista/64-bit thing is the definition of YMMV. Some people will plug these cards into a 64-bit Vista system and have the best gaming they've ever had. Other people still report having issues with the infamous snap-crackle-pop problem that plagued the original X-Fis (especially on nForce boards). Other people can't even seem to install the card. If you want to try your luck, the Titanium Fatal1ty X-Fi can be found at newegg for $125. If you go that direction I would love to hear your results, as I plan on trying that card when I build around Christmas, unless some major development usurps X-Fi before then.

The one thing I would not do is make/not-make a purchase based on customer reviews you see in Newegg.

Edit: Regarding OP - I'm not convinced buying a sound card is going to address your problem anyways. Most users would never want both their headphones and their speakers playing at the same time. I'm not sure even the Creative X-Fis will let you do that. It's definitely an option you would have to go find and turn on.

Spinjump

The solution to the OP's problem is actually extremely simple:

Get one of these:
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829128004
(or any number of other similar products with identical functionality).

This will allow you to set the usb audio ports up as a separate sound device in the sound and devices control panel, as well as various programs.

Example: Set all sound the computer plays to come out of your normal sound card / onboard audio / whatever you normally use, and then set Ventrilo (or whatever it is you want to use with the headset) to use the USB device. If your headset is a USB headset you can probably do this already without the need for the above purchase.

Dr_Keenbean

I just got a 360 wireless adapter for PC. When I connect my wireless headset it sees it as independent sound hardware, so I tell windows that voice in/out defaults to it and general sound defaults to my sound card.

Works great for GFWL games and ventrilo.

Ego

Is there much point in going with a sound blaster nowadays given that Vista more or less kills off hardware audio acceleration?

Scrublet

Ego wrote: »

Is there much point in going with a sound blaster nowadays given that Vista more or less kills off hardware audio acceleration?

The answer is yes and no. Here's the issue: Vista moved all its audio processing to the software stack. That means DirectSound and EAX calls are getting pushed here and lost. It is impossible for a game to use an EAX or DirectSound instruction to directly access hardware ever again. Fortunately, awhile back something called OpenAL was developed to handle some of these issues. At the time it was developed to be cross-platform, and that just happens to work here. You may have noticed this as a sound option in some games and ignored it, but this is now the standard for Vista and beyond. When using OpenAL, all EAX and positional-audio effects can still be implemented.

Here's the catch: both the hardware and software must implement OpenAL. It is very unlikely that a developer is going to find it worth their time to completely implement OpenAL in a game if they haven't already. So if you want to play some of the older games with EAX (or in some cases even surround sound), you either need to preserve an XP system or look into VM-gaming.

tl;dr, Yes a SoundBlaster X-Fi may have a point for current, future, and recent gaming. An X-Fi will have absolutely no point for playing older games with Vista/Windows 7.

References:
A simple common-terms explanation of what happened with Vista
Creative's more detailed explanation of what happened with Vista. Note they do not dwell on you being fucked for older games at all.
A list of OpenAL-compatible games. I am unsure how comprehensive this list is. Fortunately the last couple id and Unreal engines supported this.

RandomEngy

I have a super-simple setup for running both a headset and speakers. Buy a simple 3.5mm stereo Y-splitter, then output your sound to both your speakers and your headset.

And you can use your onboard sound, too. And you can switch from speakers/headset whenever you want rather than screwing with default audio devices.

Scrublet

RandomEngy wrote: »

I have a super-simple setup for running both a headset and speakers. Buy a simple 3.5mm stereo Y-splitter, then output your sound to both your speakers and your headset.

And you can use your onboard sound, too. And you can switch from speakers/headset whenever you want rather than screwing with default audio devices.

This can split the signal strength, causing both volumes to be lower. This may or may not be an issue for the OP depending on what he aims to achieve.

RandomEngy

I've never heard any volume or clarity drop with the splitter, which I've been using for years.

Shorn Scrotum Man

Scrublet wrote: »

Other people still report having issues with the infamous snap-crackle-pop problem that plagued the original X-Fis (especially on nForce boards).

This was exactly my situation. The best was when it would occasionally just stop producing any noise and the only way to get it working again was a reboot.

Thank goodness my motherboard has decent built in audio with support for 5.1 surround.