Soundcard newbie

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y ?

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Had an inclination that might be the case, when i play music or play a game, the sounds is actually quite good.

Just films.............

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xonar is made with a focus for headphones, creative in general is overrated and the titanium version is a pretty good example why (second only to the fatality edition). Furthermore both of these cards are made with gaming in mind, not movies.

I would highly suggest something from Auzentech - the Forte combines all the benefits of the best X-Fi cards with features found in other companies top range cards, improves them, and has custom drivers for a pretty reasonable price (in fact it costs about the same as the creative x-fi cards). If you arn't looking to spend quite that much, or do not have a pci-e slot there are still many other options from Auzen and other companies.

If you play games, stick with an auzen forte or prelude. If it's just for music and video get a cheaper auzen or a good quality card from another company. Stay away from any other company's gaming cards.

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Good speakers and a good soundcard WILL help with sound isolation... how much? Well that depends on your ears and the media being played. I can tell you first hand that the realtek 97 isnt the best card in the world and I can hear a huge improvement from quality dedicated cards over it. That said it's not a horrible card either and it's more than adequate for basic use.

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Im just using a basic 3.5 jack from the front of the micro system to the green coloured connection on the onboard audio. I know there is 6 colours in total, im guessing for front 2 rear 2, subwoofer and digital.

Is it possible to buy a 3.5 jack to digital.

Apologies if my terms are wrong, im not up to date with the audio side of things.

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The original x-Fi cards were great... but they're pretty aged now. The "new" X-Fi cards are exactly the same as the old ones with new names and gimmicks and pretty high prices. That said the real problem with the X-Fi cards is not the hardware - Its the software. Creative is well known for releasing poor drivers and having abysmal customer support. This is particularly true with X-Fi cards who's drivers really ONLY work in windows XP and even then are inefficient bloated resource hogs which can slow your system in the best case and cause system instability, BSODs, registry errors, drive corruption, and overall hell for your computer in the worst case. In anything other than XP (2000, vista, 7beta...) all the previous problems exist plus creative deliberately disabled most of the X-Fi's features reducing it to little more than a Creative Live! 24bit with crystalizer (a feature which is purly software and could in theory be enabled on ANY card, even a realtek97).

If, like me, you absolutly need EAX for your games, buy an Auzentech version of an X-Fi instead. These have all the features of Creative X-Fi cards without any of the problems and have some nice new features and are built to a higher quality for about the same price.

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I do not believe there would be any benefit to a 3.5-digital converter regardless of if they exist (that I am not sure about but I'd be willing to bet SOMEONE makes one)

3.5 should be just fine though.. oh and the 6th hole is for a microphone

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louder? yes. Excessively so? not so often. Good sound card (and if possible speakers) will make a difference over the realtek 97 he is using. the 97 simply does not offer good frequency isolation.

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the 3.5 to digital will not make the signal any better cause its still an analog output.

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thanks a lot. i guess i havent really looked at sound cards since the first X-fi were out. im liking what i hear about auzentech or the asus cards... but i need gaming AND movie performance. im only running a 2.1 speakers setup right now, and headphones for games. i need better speakers and headphones, but thats a diff thread.

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the PCIe sound shouldnt affect graphics. sound doesnt use near the bandwidth that graphics does.

i have the same questions on brands, what is good for games and music and movies, etc.

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Not at all, and the doubled bandwidth may even prove useful in some situations.

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The ASUS cards are of good quality but are optimized specifically for headphones. Furthermore they lack EAX which is the reason for their poor gaming reviews.

The Auzen Prelude and Forte are both built around X-Fi audio processors and therefore include all the X-Fi abilities (including EAX). The Prelude is essentially a higher quality version of the original X-Fi Platinum with custom drivers which are NOT bloated, will NOT slow your system or cause instability, and DO work on Vista. The Forte is an upgrade from the Prelude, offering an even higher grade build pci-e bus type, and some new features borrowed from other high end cards which cant be found on ANY creative products. I highly recommend the Forte if you have an extra pci-e slot available as it offers audio quality and frequency isolation similar to other high end audio cards while retaining the gaming-centric features exclusive to creative cards, with a few extra bells and whistles and with better drivers. Additionally, the Forte has been shown to greatly offload processors during gaming, giving a noticeable FPS increase over ANY other card. Over all this is the best card you can get for both gaming and movies/music. If pci-e is not an option, consider the prelude.

If gaming is not part of the equation it is possible to find higher quality cards (although they approach the point of diminishing return outside of professional sound studios) or cheaper cards which will offer the same quality audio. Hope this helps.

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Its a Liteon external blue-ray player that im using, but as i said previous, games, music or say a video on you tube i can hear no prob. The problem is when i attempt to watch a film at nite, and the wife is giving me the verbal becuase iv woke her.