S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Publishers give sound advice
ASUS are showing off their new Xonar sound cards, which have been thoroughly tested and developed with the help of THQ, publishers of the hugely anticipated (and ever so slightly late) S.T.A.L.K.E.R. The Xonar cards are, according to ASUS and THQ, superbly suited to the extensive use of 3D soundscaping that players will be able to enjoy when S.T.A.L.K.E.R. hits the shelves next week.
Now normally you’d be expecting a sound card to have all sorts of wonderful ubery-frippery which will enhance your gaming experience, but is still built around Creative’s EAX sound format... Well it’s not so with the XonarD2 and XonarD2K.
Instead, both cards use Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect to convert any gaming audio into Dolby Digital and DTS 5.1 3D surround sound. Also included in the feature set is Dolby Headphone and Dolby Virtual Speaker to give you realistic 3D sound over standard single driver headphones or stereo speakers.
Click for large imageAnd following in the Razer Barracuda’s footsteps, ASUS have thrown an EMI (Electro Magnetic Interference) shield over the top to stop other devices in your system affecting the sound. The Card will some in two versions, the PCIe based XonarD2K and the PCI XonarD2.
And if films and music is more your bag the Dolby and DTS will enhance many movie titles while the Full Duplex HD audio at 192Khz/24Bit is going to provide some serious sound clarity. Or if you prefer, pumping the music from your portable music player, be it MP3, iPod or even CD will let the XOnar work it’s Dolby magic and add the above features into the sound you hear.
Click for large imageAnd ripping music using the ALT technology (Analogue Loopback Technology) means you can use the enhanced Dolby feature-set to create MP3 and WMA for creating your own music library.
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