[Fox]

Hi,

I'm strongly considering building a new PC system (mine is about 5 years old), I bought an Asus HDAV1.3 slim for my current one: http://www.asus.com/Sound_Cards_and_DigitaltoAnalog_Converters/Xonar_HDAV13_Slim/

I was hoping to leverage the HDMI and Dolby Digital Live (and the EAX stuff) , the HDMI didn't work out by the time I ran a cable out of my video card, through the sound card, into my receiver and into the TV there was noticable lag with the mouse so I ran HDMI to the TV and SPDIF to the receiver and that's worked pretty well. The DDL works well and card sounds great. I believe the drivers are crap though as my computer blue screens way too much (Win 7 64 bit) Either that or I have a flakey piece of hardware somewhere I've done memory tests, and nothing, so it could be somewhere in the MoBo, CPU, Video Card, so between that and random computer slowness I think its just time for an upgrade.

Today I have my system wired into a home theater with a projector, nice surround system, I use it mostly for listening to CDs and gaming, but its a back up for netflix/dvd/bluray and the occasional youtube or hulu.

I haven't been enamored with motherboard sound options are there any out there now with good dolby digital live/DTS interactive drivers?
What about using HDMI out from the graphics card through a receiver is this a better option?
Or is there a new dedicated sound card with rock solid drivers that might suit my needs better?

I obviously have that sound card so I can port it over if I'm not happy, but if those drivers are causing a problem then its simply not a smart move. (although i could always test my new system for a few weeks to see if there's a change in behavior).

I'll happily take any other recommendations toward a build people may have I tend to play older games, so I don't need anything too crazy for video card, but I do like the crank the settings when I do play games (Star Craft II and Final Fantasy XIV are probably 2 of the newer games I've played, and they're both a few years old at least)

Thanks in advance.

 

[jhoff80]

HDMI out is better than DD Live or DTS Interactive over optical/coaxial digital. The latter two reencode your audio into a lossy format to then be decoded again in your receiver.

HDMI out will send out 7.1 LPCM at up to 24/192. Just get a decent GPU and don't even bother with a sound card, in my opinion. (I don't know the system requirements for those two specific games, nor how much you're willing to spend, so I can't really give you recommendations there).

 

[MSmith83]

As much as it pained me to depart with the Auzentech X-Fi HomeTheater HD, I finally ditched the practice of using a dedicated sound card with my latest X99 build and am now using HDMI out from the graphics card. It works perfectly.

Going back to play older games like Doom 3 and Quake 4 in EAX with a dedicated X-Fi sound card had its charm, but to be honest the implementation with latest drivers is quite broken. Sometimes the environmental effects would work, other times not, even with native OpenAL games. It used to be bulletproof when the tech was new, but for now it became too much of a hassle just for clinging onto nostalgia.

After doing a search, it appears that Auzentech is now out of business.