SB Audigy2 ZS -VS- SB Audigy4

You'd be better off going with a genuine Creative XFi for the best gaming experience.
 
AFAIK Audigy 4 is an Audigy 2 ZS with slightly better DACs, so it has a little bit better signal-to-noise ratio.

X-Fi is better, though.
 
Yeah but an Audigy 4 or A2ZS cost about $20 on ebay. X-Fi may be a little better, but is it really worth the cost? :) You do get full hardware OpenAL support with Audigy cards.
 
I've owned both cards, they are roughly equivocal. I couldn't honestly notice a performance or sound quality difference between the two with headphones or surround sound speakers (Logitech Z5300e's)
 
You do get full OpenAL support with X-Fis.
 
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I highly doubt it. CPUs are too fast these days. The only benefit with X-Fi is sound quality, and even that is questionable unless the game actually takes EAX5 seriously (fairly rare, if it has even ever happened). Apparently X-Fi has some pretty decent headphone binaural audio support tho. I've never used one tho so I can't comment there.
 
I like the binaural effect. I can locate enemies above and below me but it's not perfect (I'd like customization according to your ear/head :) ).
 
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XFi headphone mode is excellent. I generally don't believe/buy into that kind of stuff (call me a sceptic :smile:) but I tested it once just for kicks and it really works great.

I was immensely surprised by how well it actually works and how accurately it places sounds in different directions. Totally unexpected I have to say.

Still, I don't play that way normalluy beacuse I prefer to not wear headphones but I wouldn't have hesitated to use headphones ifnot for my own peculiart aste.

Peace.
 
When I switched from a Nforce3 to Intel's P35 the only reason I bought an X-Fi was to get back headphone surround sound, similar to NV's Cinesurround. I use decent headphones (Sennheiser HD590, not as good as my decade old HD565 though, but more rugged)
 
When I first tried it, it changed the sound a lot. However now there is almost no difference when listening to stereo music and switching CMSS on.
I think that's because of the August '07 driver update, which is only available using Windows update.

IIRC the Asus Xonar provides Dolby Headphone, but I doubt it offers elevation effects like the X-Fi does.
 
i'll rephrase the quote "I hope one day we see soundcards capable of encoding holophonics" ;)
But is holophonics anything more than a simple a binaural recording? For recording those you just need a dummy head and a stereo soundcard.

To simulate binaural sound on a sound card you need head-related transfer functions, which are standard fare on any modern soundcard (with all their normal limitations).

The explanations regarding any special processing for "holophonics" are either clearly bunk or intentionally obscure. In any case, the main ingredient for the clips you are hearing is just a binaural recording, instead of any sort of "encoding".
 
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