biohazardx9 wrote on 2022-07-06, 10:33:

Also lets not forget that Microsoft has changed how the audio system works in windows which now prevents practically any add on […]
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Peter.Mengel wrote on 2022-07-01, 01:57:

Shponglefan wrote on 2022-07-01, 01:48:

3D positional audio, particularly as realized by A3D back in the late 90s.

Positional audio seems to have a taken a flying leap backwards over the past couple decades. I keep wondering if we'll ever see a resurgence. I figured VR might rekindle interest in proper positional 3D sound, but given the slow VR adoption my optimism for that has fizzled.

I personally doubt that...cause we would need standard and gamedevs got lazy as a huge sound engine doesnt improve a game as much as GRAPHICS...so its wasted money...no one ever said WOW that sound engine was great did you hear how the game sounds...sad but true..it could add so much to gameplay.
And then we would need better gear and whos left? Creative with bad cards or Asus...if they hadnt drop the market either?

Also lets not forget that Microsoft has changed how the audio system works in windows which now prevents practically any add on card from working right.
Essentially all they want is the codec portion with the audio engine software via CPU. This allows the privacy of the Audio firewall preventing the MIC and such.

see we had creative with the EAX, Aureal with the A3D, then there were cards by Hercules (Fotissimo range), and other cheapo ones based off C-Media but! all in essence were great add-in sound cards. They definitely did alot for not only producing great sound but expanding while also offloading from the CPU.

I loved hearing music pushed to the max, especially UT99's tunes. loved the little apps they gave .

At least there is a hardware-accelerated OpenAL implementation for Creative sound cards (from Audigy 2 up to X-Fi, unless I'm mistaken) which bypasses the audio stack that Microsoft rewrote starting with Windows Vista, but it wasn't 100% stable and was eventually abandoned due to lack of developer support. Most (if not all) of the advantages of offloading audio from the CPU were diminished at this point, 3-5% of CPU usage for audio isn't much of an overhead these days.

On the other hand, I wish that there was more interest in serious gaming audio development which feels stagnated in general.

Haven't managed to find a trouble free PCIe parallell port card yet. There's always limitations, devices simply refusing to work with it, fiddling around with settings trying to get it working, etc. Not like the old ISA and to some extent PCI ones. which you just installed, and then they'd work with anything you'd plug in.

kaputnik wrote on 2022-07-06, 14:19:

Haven't managed to find a trouble free PCIe parallell port card yet. There's always limitations, devices simply refusing to work with it, fiddling around with settings trying to get it working, etc. Not like the old ISA and to some extent PCI ones. which you just installed, and then they'd work with anything you'd plug in.

Try one from Lava:
https://lavaports.com/parallel-cards/

Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-07-06, 14:05:

On the other hand, I wish that there was more interest in serious gaming audio development which feels stagnated in general.

Agreed, I loved having a shiny audio card with bells and whistles that could produce some serious power and then the control panel's and apps with it to tweak it.
Shame it is all dead.

it really needs to come back but sadly we are in a generation of people who only want to use headphones via bluetooth or USB which may sound ok but USB audio isn't all that.
I have a turtlebeach TAC which is a lovely product don't get me wrong but it is as basic as basic gets. zero customization except for presets. it just feels 'bland'.
Yet my Roccat Juke even though cheap and basic, at least I had a control panel for it to tweak something.

There's loads of 'projects' out there reviving soundcards. Really should design our own.

biohazardx9 wrote on 2022-07-07, 12:31:

Agreed, I loved having a shiny audio card with bells and whistles that could produce some serious power and then the control pan […]
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Gmlb256 wrote on 2022-07-06, 14:05:

On the other hand, I wish that there was more interest in serious gaming audio development which feels stagnated in general.

Agreed, I loved having a shiny audio card with bells and whistles that could produce some serious power and then the control panel's and apps with it to tweak it.
Shame it is all dead.

it really needs to come back but sadly we are in a generation of people who only want to use headphones via bluetooth or USB which may sound ok but USB audio isn't all that.
I have a turtlebeach TAC which is a lovely product don't get me wrong but it is as basic as basic gets. zero customization except for presets. it just feels 'bland'.
Yet my Roccat Juke even though cheap and basic, at least I had a control panel for it to tweak something.

There's loads of 'projects' out there reviving soundcards. Really should design our own.

In my opinion USB audio is actually awesome. No need to install drivers which might be unstable or not available for your OS. DAC external to the PC's case, so less noise. Sure there's no control panel where I can choose to make everything sound like I'm in a bathroom, but I can live without that.

Oetker wrote on 2022-07-07, 12:41:

In my opinion USB audio is actually awesome. No need to install drivers which might be unstable or not available for your OS. DAC external to the PC's case, so less noise. Sure there's no control panel where I can choose to make everything sound like I'm in a bathroom, but I can live without that.

For me However it's yet another external box, zero configuration, it's just stereo. No inputs, no 5.1 analogue jacks, no SP/dif (unless you buy a dac with it) no EQ to name a few things missing.
Some DAC's need external PSU as well (obviously to reduce the noise further)

For gaming use, wanting Audiophile Quality is really overkill. if you are listening to Tidal Masters, or high res audio then yes sure. Of course no drivers needed but then they are basic drivers. They work well for stereo.

For me the magic of slotting in the card, dropping the software pack on and having all that inside is what done it for me. When I'm hunting down Xan Kreigor's ass in UT99 I'm not really going to worry if there's a bit of noise or that it isn't audiophile quality. The DAC as you mention is perfect for that quality and suited well for another PC.

I get your point though 😀