First of all, I enjoy D2X audio quality quite a lot, installed a few and used one for quite some time, very nice sound quality, and superior to all creative soundcards, except the pair of new HD creatives that were launched, one internal, another external. And that's where it's qualities end. I'm not going to touch the driver issues that still plague it, mics not being properly recognized, etc. And please tell me you're joking when you claim to see any gain in sound when it comes to gaming. Well, I do believe you might have heard a noticeable step... only for worse. The best scenario for any Xonar is to get almost as close as the worst scenario for, let's say, a plain x-fi titanium. Be it implementation, or what not, but it is a known fact, both by myself and just about anyone who game, that creative still holds its sway when it comes to gaming. From the start that I always said it was their selling point, and still is for the time being.
The argument that modded drivers exist because stock ones aren't good is just plain wrong. But that's ok, as adding features doesn't seem to be on your book. Fine. That aside, I do agree that creative has been doing a not so good job with drivers for quite some years, and their marketing is spiraling down as well. Refrain from using "fan" or any bs like that here. 90% of the games sound downright awful with their creative EAX-clone DS3D GX, while the remaining 10% just sound worse than what a creative can do. With alchemy, creative can play virtually all games that run on directsound and directsound3d with full hardware acceleration, surround, etc. But even with native openal games, the sound performance is still better. Oh, and let's not forget that so far, creative soundcards still offload the audio pipeline better than the competition, meaning more fps for creative owners. If creative has vested interests in the whole EAX thing? Of course. But the fact remains that they fully accelerate those effects in hardware (again, in vista/7 ds3d gets converted to openal), while what do others do? They process it all through cpu, so less cpu cycles free and memory as well, hence lower fps. I'm sorry, I'm still laughing at the "mighty" 192KHz sample rate. For an audiophile, you should really get your facts straight about that, as ideal sampling rate is much lower, but that's steering away from the computer discussion. Did you read the needs of Angelic in the first place? Don't worry, if it was for going that path, I would ditch gaming soundcards, which D2X is also supposed to be, and go with any of the myriad of firewire and pro audio usb interfaces. But Angelic wanted an entry soundcard, which is what I went with. Bottom line is, yes Xonar D2X has better sound quality than most X-Fi soundcards. Yes, it's quite more expensive than most X-Fi soundcards. No, it doesn't support EAX5 (even emulated), only EAX2, and with a poorer implementation. Yes, it has better optical connectivity than the external entry level creatives I suggested. And yes, D2X has better linux support, or creative has a lousy one :) Still, for gaming, and overall improved audio experience at a reduced cost from what Angelic has, those solutions fit the bill perfectly. Asus audio station doesn't because of the same faulty gaming performance that any non-creative soundcard suffer. On a non related note, I enjoy that you give that usage to Second Life, I've seen some interesting things like that there too. And definitely don't ditch software when it comes to playing back multimedia content. But then again, if you still have a fierce faith in vinyl, then that's your choice. On 8 Jan, 05:51, Nin-lil-izi <[email protected]> wrote: > I beg to differ. > The fact that modded drivers even exist for creatives cards is a > testament to the problems with their stock drivers. > Its the same situation as here. Creatives support and drivers have > been sufficiently weak that people have gone out of their way to level > the playing field themselves. > > Asus drivers just work. They don't need modded drivers. > is not open source. > Actually EAX2 hardware is not open source. It's available as a > licensing deal from Creative. There is no case of one manufacturer > being superior than the other here. Creative just have vested interest > in only giving legal rights to use a subset of the architecture to > third party engineers. > Given the way the audio stack was crippled with the introduction of > Vista and the current methods of bypassing Microsofts big shit on > hardware audio processing. Your not gaining anything significant > weather your card is labelled EAX2,4,whatever. > > I owned and used an X-Fi card for a whole year while waiting for > something to finally come on the market that enabled decent digital > multi-channel audio support for gaming AND good quality audio support > under linux. (Up till that point, I had found myself running 2 cards. > 1 for windows and 1 for nix.... It was a PITA) > > After switching over and having the opportunity to try both in an > identical environment. The Xonar was a noticeable improvement in every > respect. > Up till that point I too was a creative fangurl and was unsure if > checking out the competition was a wise move. > > >but not for digital HD audio, gaming or audio customisation. > > Digital HD Audio is one of this cards strengths. I have it hooked upto > a Dolby DTS Decoder via the TosLink running 192k 24bit and it runs > perfectly. > I'm a pretentious audiophile who has everything running through the > same 5.1 home cinema sound system. > > As well as gaming extensively (Certainly a noticeable step from the X- > Fi here), I use it for DJ'ing where I link digital players to my old > school mixing desk via its analogue outputs before resampling for > broadcast online. (I'm a Second Life fan) > > Never used it for watching a movie before. I own a decent DVD upscaler > for such things that dwarfs the video quality possible on computer > based players. > > Anyway my whole point is. You should not be so quick to knock the > alternatives till you have had the chance to give them a fair trial. > > On Jan 8, 3:12 am, tribaljet <[email protected]> wrote: > > > Hardware wise, D2X is quite nice, better than all creatives, except > > the latest Creative HD series. Unfortunately, Asus drivers kinda suck > > beyond measure, and forget about their laughable EAX support. You do > > know that Asus claimed to have support for EAX5, and got their ass > > sued because of that. Virtually all sorts of chips can do EAX1 and 2 > > because creative made those levels open source. EAX3 is supported > > recently by very few manufacturers, and EAX4 and 5 is still exclusive > > to them. For music and movies? Sure. For games, creatives (yes, even > > audigy cards) blow everyone else out of the water. > > > Creative's windows drivers have a few issues, that can usually be > > fixed through configs, or just using modded drivers, there are > > currently two famous modders, one working for creative, the other not > > but still allowed to mod. Linux is tricky, as none of the x-fi > > features are available, but there are at least 2 drivers made for > > linux that do work, through ALSA if I'm not mistaken. > > > I advised less expensive upgrades, if I was to advise something with > > the price of a D2X, I'd go with at least something from Auzentech, and > > from there forward there's the true audio gear, that kinda begin > > costing quite more, and aren't made for gaming. And since Angelic's > > computer with linux is a laptop, an internal soundcard is out of the > > question. > > But don't get me wrong Nin-lil-izi, I find the D2X a rather > > interesting soundcard, but not for digital HD audio, gaming or audio > > customization. > > > On 8 Jan, 02:04, Nin-lil-izi <[email protected]> wrote: > > > > I highly advise against putting Linux and X-Fi cards anywhere near > > > each other. > > > Creative Labs have proven over the years to be resistant to open > > > source software and driver support for such. As a result the quality > > > of said *nix drivers has been a cursory token gesture at best. > > > It took 3 years after release to get even the current basic driver up > > > to a point where it could be merged into the kernel. And before then > > > making the card work at all required either many hours of compiling > > > and kludging or an earlier bugy binary blob that required the use of a > > > specific distro and kernel revision to function. > > > Creative Labs windows drivers have never been terrific either. And > > > worse the company has a policy of enforced obsolescence through > > > strategic dropping of driver support. They have essentially been re- > > > branding the same architecture as new products. Then dropping driver > > > support for the old line, forcing upgrades for their last three > > > product generations. > > > If you need evidence of their poor business practices, then feel free > > > to google away for complaints people have had. > > > > Myself, I use an Asus Xonar > > > D2X.http://uk.asus.com/product.aspx?P_ID=ZBWhAEnH6nDOB00E&content=overview > > > It has superior audio quality over the X-Fi. Has always worked out of > > > the box with Linux, using an open standards driver interface. I've not > > > had a single issue with it after a couple of years of ownership. > > > Usefully, is easily configurable between its various analogue (5.1, > > > 7.1, 2.0, etc) and Digital coax /fibreoptic output modes with a single > > > click from the Ubuntu indicator area GUI as well. > > -- 9xx SOLDIERS SANS FRONTIERS
