Sound Cards and Music/Game settings

[Lordbob75]

Hey all,

Recently bought Assassin's Creed (awesome game) from Steam, and ran into some issues.

The game itself is awesome, Ubisoft is not. I can no longer hear voices in cutscenes, and have searched the internet and found no fix.

Anyways, this whole ordeal has made me think about getting a separate sound card from my RealTek built-in audio.
Mostly because of Realteks terrible support, but also because I have heard that I should get better sound quality from it.

The issue is that I have no idea what to look for in a sound card, don't know any good brands (except that I don't like Creative), and don't want to spend much (broke college student )

Any thoughts?

~Lordbob

 

[noobvious]

This is a complete stab in the dark, from a non-expert.... but maybe worth a try, as it wouldn't cost anything to try, I don't think. My computer has the Realtek hardware that you see in my system specs, but my uncle , who built the machine, never put the Realtek drivers on it.....he said it is running the built-in Windows sound driver.

Maybe it's worth trying that with the game before you buy a sound card?

 

[Wishmaster]

As you may know, the actual sound quality you'll gain from a dedicated sound card will be largely dependant on the speakers themselves.


I really only have experience with the Creative Xtreme Gamer, and have very good luck with mine..
No issues to speak of, although I know theres many horror stories. Just never encountered them myself, and even use all official software/drivers.



But Im guessing this isn't an option for you


It may also be worth looking into the ASUS Xonar line.



Hopefully others may be able to give you something more productive.

 

[Lordbob75]

Perhaps. But the sound doesn't work quite right without the drivers.

Personally, I think the game is poorly coded at best...

~Lordbob

 

[profdlp]

This is a wild guess, but have you checked the game settings to see if they match your speaker configuration? Many recent games rely heavily on positional audio* and come with 5.1 set as default. If you have just two speakers that might explain your glitch. I'm running an old-school quadraphonic setup and run into this all the time. My onboard Realtek lets me set it for quad, but has all sorts of issues. (Like wanting to use only the front pair all the time.)

*So you can hear the bad guys sneaking up on you from the left-rear, etc.

 

[Lordbob75]

Yeah. I have messed with every possible setting (no, really).

I just ordered this: Newegg.com - ASUS Xonar DS 7.1 Channels 24-bit 192KHz PCI Interface Audio Card

~Lordbob

 

[Wishmaster]

Nice. Let us know how it works out

 

[Lordbob75]

Nice. Let us know how it works out

Will do.

Looks nice. Hope it improves both speakers and headphone quality

~Lordbob

 

[stormy13]

Looks nice. Hope it improves both speakers and headphone quality

As long as you have semi decent speakers and headphones to begin with, yes it will. May even find yourself joining the ranks of us that say to those that think onboard is "good enough" that,

1. They have never heard any better.

2. Their speakers are broken.

3. Their ears are broken.

 

[Lordbob75]

Looks nice. Hope it improves both speakers and headphone quality

As long as you have semi decent speakers and headphones to begin with, yes it will. May even find yourself joining the ranks of us that say to those that think onboard is "good enough" that,

1. They have never heard any better.

2. Their speakers are broken.

3. Their ears are broken.

Hopefully!

~Lordbob

 

[profdlp]

...May even find yourself joining the ranks of us that say to those that think onboard is "good enough" that...

Lordbob75, I am also interested in what you think. For years, I hated onboard sound with a righteous passion. Then a while back I built a computer for someone on a tight budget and with decent speakers it wasn't too bad. Since then, I've skipped the sound card business (also a Creative hater these days) and stuck with the onboard sound myself. I'll be interested in hearing what I might be missing.

 

[Lordbob75]

...May even find yourself joining the ranks of us that say to those that think onboard is "good enough" that...

Lordbob75, I am also interested in what you think. For years, I hated onboard sound with a righteous passion. Then a while back I built a computer for someone on a tight budget and with decent speakers it wasn't too bad. Since then, I've skipped the sound card business (also a Creative hater these days) and stuck with the onboard sound myself. I'll be interested in hearing what I might be missing.

I can tell you now that I have used the onboard sound on my motherboard just fine for about 2 years now.
I messed with my old Creative Audigy Sound Blaster, but it (and its drivers) were WAY more trouble than it was worth.

Never noticed a huge difference there, but I am hoping that the Asus card will at least give me good drivers. That would be worth the $60 at this point.

Also, anyone have tips on getting iTunes to sound better?
I listen to heavy metal (and some other types of music such as Jazz and classical), and it always sounds a little weak sometimes...

~Lordbob

 

[stormy13]

Use a different media player? No idea about itunes, but I can hear a definite difference between WMP and Winamp with Winamp sounding far better.

As for the debate between onboard and an actual card here is a thread that has been going about it for the last 4 1/2 years,

Onboard Sound Vs. Add in Sound Card - Guru3D.com Forums

 

[Wishmaster]

itunes still have a EQ? Maybe try adjusting it a bit.

Haven't had itunes in a long time, can't really remember.

 

[Lordbob75]

Just to let you know, I think the game problem was caused by turning on loudness equalization. Turning it off seems to fix it.
Go figure.

~Lordbob

 

[profdlp]

Equalization? Well, I guess that 0 = 0

 

[Lordbob75]

Equalization? Well, I guess that 0 = 0

I think it was taking loud sounds and quieting them, and soft sounds and making them louder. Thus why I couldn't hear the voices in the cutscenes, but I could hear the background noise...

iTunes sounds better now too haha.

~Lordbob