Author Topic: Usb headphones and mic (Read 515 times)

JTs · « **on:** October 26, 2005, 12:38:39 AM »

Gentlemen;
Usb headphones and mic are they any good in this game? if yes can you recomend a good pair.
Thanks.
JT

aSTAR · « **Reply #1 on:** October 26, 2005, 09:07:44 AM »

I love my Logitech 300 USB, no sound card needed. Less
demand on my CPU.

Lye-El · « **Reply #2 on:** October 26, 2005, 12:23:41 PM »

Seems I remember Skuzzy saying the the USB type headphones/mic actually use more processor power because the processor is doing the work that a sound card would normally take care of.

SNO · « **Reply #3 on:** October 26, 2005, 04:09:19 PM »

Plantronics DSP 500 usb has it's own soundcard also. I like mine, bass, surround sound whole nine yards.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #4 on:** October 26, 2005, 04:32:14 PM »

Yes, a USB based headset/mic will be far more demanding of the CPU than a good sound card.

SkyWolf · « **Reply #5 on:** October 27, 2005, 08:41:06 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Yes, a USB based headset/mic will be far more demanding of the CPU than a good sound card.

Skuzzy... is this true of all USB devices? USB CH setup for example?

Max · « **Reply #6 on:** October 27, 2005, 09:36:54 AM »

Quote

Originally posted by Skuzzy
Yes, a USB based headset/mic will be far more demanding of the CPU than a good sound card.

Last week I spoke with Skuzzy regarding screen freezes/stutters I was experiencing since 2.05.2. I happen to use a USB mic/headset but failed to mention it. In any case Skuzzy's advice was to uncheck "enhanced terrain" and switch to 256 max texture size. It worked.

DmdMax

Skuzzy · « **Reply #7 on:** October 27, 2005, 10:13:58 AM »

Joysticks are low data throughput devices, so they have far less impact, regardless of the bus interface.

Sound devices are very high data demand devices. And the higher quality the sound, the more demanding it is. The USB bus really is not meant for such devices. It is a dumb bus which requires a lot of hand-holding by the CPU. It also removes any chance of overlapping I/O.

A good sound card can process and play sounds on the card, while the CPU is busy with running code.

The other problem with USB sound devices occur when people forget to remove the other sound device from the system before using it. Windows, and particularly DirectX, gets really wonky when two sound generating devices are active.

Max · « **Reply #8 on:** October 27, 2005, 12:39:45 PM »

Is "wonky" GEEK for nutz?

Max

Skuzzy · « **Reply #9 on:** October 27, 2005, 02:51:57 PM »

I thought everyone, who played an online game, knew that?

Skilless · « **Reply #10 on:** October 31, 2005, 09:07:27 PM »

I have a Roland USB audio interface that I use to get my sound to my speakers and for recording and a RCA wireless USB audio interface that I use to get music from my PC to my home stereo. I often run both of these at the same time with no perceived loss of speed or frame rate.

Krusty · « **Reply #11 on:** October 31, 2005, 09:12:19 PM »

Skuzzy, what would be the best way of disabling an on-board sound card? My mobo has a SB on the board, but I use a PCI audigy. I just went to windows device manager and unchecked "this device is active". Is there a better way?

NOTE: I just checked my device manager and cannot see the card there.. It just shows SB Audigy stuff, as far as I can tell. I don't know when the on-board sound card disappeared. How can I check, and do I need to?

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #12 on:** October 31, 2005, 10:22:56 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by Skilless
I have a Roland USB audio interface that I use to get my sound to my speakers and for recording and a RCA wireless USB audio interface that I use to get music from my PC to my home stereo. I often run both of these at the same time with no perceived loss of speed or frame rate.

And are you doing this while running a CPU intensive program like Aces High at the same time?

Skuzzy · « **Reply #13 on:** November 01, 2005, 06:58:27 AM »

Krusty, most motherboard BIOS setups allow you to disable any onboard sound device. You did it right though. You have to remove it from Windows BEFORE disabling it in the system BIOS.

Here is the real ouchy though. Even though the onboard is disabled, Windows did not clean out the drivers for it, so the files are still there, and could get referenced by the installation of a new sound card driver.
Really quite wonderful how Windows merrily allows a device to be disabled, but does not allow you to clean out the files the device left behind.

And anyone can claim there is no CPU loss using USB for the sound interface, whicih would be an opinion. The fact is, the USB interface is rather stupid and requires a lot of hand holding from the CPU (one interrupt per byte of data). This is not an opinion. It is how the USB bus works. A good sound card will kick the stuffing out of any USB based sound device, in terms of lower CPU overhead.