asus xonar Dx

[Getback]

Skuzzy, can you use this card in AH? It said that every game must have eax 5.0 manually enabled. (whatever that is)

[Pudgie]

Asus Xonar DX 7.1 sound card runs just fine in AH II.

I got 1 in my box.

IMHO, every bit as good as Creative X-Fi series w/o the driver bloatware.

The only "downside" to this card is that it costs more & it needs auxillary power via a floppy drive connect (if you got a spare connect off your PSU) or a 4-pin Molex to floppy drive adapter (can be hard to come by).

Otherwise it's an audiophile's dream come true.

On the EAX 5.0 the Xonar's driver does a VERY good job of emulating EAX 5.0 effects (Creative holds the rights to EAX 5.0) in games that are written to use it--so much so that it is virtually undetectable between the Xonar & X-Fi in head-to-head testing.

Check out the review of the Xonar at Tech Reports.
 
If you're running Vista & gaming this IS your card to have.

[Getback]

Good to hear, may order one tonight.

[Fulmar]

Creative has always had terrible drivers, and they STILL have problems in vista.  I've never used the Asus board so I can't compare.

[Reschke]

I have been looking for a true sound card and was going to pull the trigger on a Creative one a few months ago but I will look into this one.

[Skuzzy]

ASUS is making a serious stab at competing with Creative and that is a good thing.  From what I have been able to read, there seems to be some minor issues with the ASUS drivers, but nothing that could be called a show stopper.

I'll probably nab one for my next home computer build.

[Pudgie]

Yep Skuzzy I found out 1 of them.

If you set up the Xonar to handle 192 Khz sample rate & start playing games the Xonar will creep out from time to time & lock up. Once I reset the sample rate back down to 96 KHz for games--no more problems.

As I read up on this I found that most games are written for maximum sound sample rates of 96 Khz (Creative sets the standard since they're the leader in this area as I understand it & all Creative cards max out at 96 Khz) so it seems that the driver may have been freaking out trying to sample game sound at a rate that games are not written to be run at, IMHO. But you're the expert in this area so does this make sense?

It also could be heat related as there are no heatsinks on the DSP's & since the Xonar uses auxillary 12v power to do it's thing you know it's gotta run somewhat warmer than the other cards out there & on my Abit IP35 Pro mobo the PCI-E 1x slot is above the PCI-E 16x slot that has my GeForce 7900 GTX vid card in it & below the NB P35 chipset w/ passive heatpipe fin cooler--it's probably a safe bet that I ain't got a good enough flow of air around it to keep it cooled sufficiently when pushing the card to it's max capacity. But this is just subjective commentary as I don't have any creditable proof.

The 192 Khz sample rate is geared more toward music reproduction as I understand & when I played my music CD's at this setting I saw no problems or issues w/ the Xonar at all.

Hopefully Asus will tune the Xonar drivers to automatically adjust the sample rate to fit the usage in the future so this issue doesn't occur. But IMHO this ain't even a show stopper.

If you get 1 of these suckers, just remember that the DX is 6 3/4" long & might not fit on some mobos due to placement of adjacent equipment around the PCI-E 1x slots. Mine cleared the 1st DIMM slot on my mobo by 3/16". If you get more ambitious & get the D2X it's 7 1/8" long (I got that 1 also-it's as large as a Radeon 9800 vid card!) & it wouldn't clear the 1st DIMM slot. You have been warned! 

Pair the Xonar up w/ a quality set of speakers..................... ..........& see for yourself.

 

[Getback]

Ordered one today!

[Getback]

I have it installed but am having problems in the game with voice. Could use some help.

Thanks in advance.

[Skuzzy]

Need someone who has one to chime in on this.

[Getback]

I have it working okay. At least better than my SB and Onboard sound. This is what I did. I ran a registry cleaner and then ran a driver cleaner for the old onboard sound drivers. I have found the xonar works best at 48 mhz or 96 mhz but not very well at 192. My desktop usage is now 0 - 4% currently instead of 4-7%. From the looks of things it looks like I need to completely shut down my AV program, which is Avast. I do turn off the online access.

My wingies are giving me a 5 x 5 on vox. So if they can hear me that's all that matters. Additionally, wow, is that a lot smoother ride. No hiccups when I fire the guns initially.

[Pudgie]

Getback,

That's the 1 area that I haven't tested this Xonar in as I generally don't use ingame vox even though I have all of it set up. Most of the time I can't remember which channel you're supposed to talk on <hehe>.

I'll have to look into this & get back w/ you on what I find.

Are you using AEC & VocalFX w/ ingame vox?

Oh, 1 other thing. You did check to make sure that DS3D GX 2.0 was enabled when you're gaming, right?

[Getback]

Pudgie, my main man, where have ya been!? I don't have any of the vox options selected. Should I. Heck I don't know what they mean or what they do.

What and where is the DS3d GX 2.0?

Thanks in advance.

[Pudgie]

DS3D GX 2.0 is the DirectSound API-equivelant that Asus uses to provide full D3D sound-including Creative's EAX 2.0 (native) & EAX 5.0 (emulated) sound effects along w/ the others. If you're looking at the driver utility to the R there should be 5 icons arrainged in a circle-the icon w/ "GX" should be lit up (enables DS3D GX 2.0). If it's not just click on it & your done.

I tested my mic out today in Windows--all working just fine. Went into AHII & tried it--I could hear myself thru the speakers but nobody responded to me from in the game so I don't know if it's working or not ingame.

Does AHII like a mic that is setup w/ mic boost enabled in Windows?
Does AHII like to be setup to use wave input?
Does AHII have to have UDP working for vox to work?

I think I'm doing something wrong but I can't find it ATM.

Got any suggestions?

 

[Getback]

Okay, DS3D GX is for Windows Vista. I am running Windows XP. Whew! figured that out.

I believe most AHII players use mic boost. I do

I use Wave in. However I'm really not sure about using it. I have to do some tests.

The last question is I don't know. I think that's a skuzz question.