The Experience: Games
Dragon Age: Origins
Bioware's return to traditional RPGs was several years in the making and combines bloody medieval combat with a rich fantasy setting. A lush score plus the usual sword and sorcery gameplay should give plenty of opportunity for sound cards to shine.
Audigy 2ZS/DT 231
Impressive sounds from the start, lots of texture and small details, although slightly revealing background static and/or reproduction artifacts.
Xonar Xense/DT 231
A warmer overall sound - voices sound more natural, but the sound effects seem to lack a little detail compared to the Audigy.
Xonar Xense/PC 350
With this combination the orchestral score sounds much better than with the DT 231s, but the effects aren't noticeably improved from the Audigy.
Fallout 3
Fallout 3 is Bethesda's recent crown jewel, set in a post apocalyptic wasteland and positively crammed full of atmospheric sounds and music.
Audigy 2ZS/DT 231
What a plethora of textures and effects! Wonderful ambient sounds immediately surround the player, along with very atmospheric music. Very crisp and well textured, with fairly punchy explosion/gunfire effects.
Xonar Xense/DT 231
This combination reveals slightly more bass and warmth, but it all sounds rather flat compared to the Audigy. Worse though, is that radio tunes stutter badly with the GX setting enabled, this goes away when GX (EAX emulation) is turned off. Disappointing.
Xonar Xense/PC 350
Bass sounds are much lower - especially noticeable during nuclear explosions which now feel more cinematic, but aren't overpowering. Same problem with GX though of course, so while they are better than the DT 231s, the experience isn't as good as with the Audigy.
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising Demo
Operation Flashpoint: Dragon Rising is a more traditional squad-based FPS and a great test of positional audio, along with all the gunfire and explosions you would expect in a modern shooter.
Audigy 2ZS/DT 231
Another good baseline. Lots of crisp sounds, positional audio works very well as witnessed by the opening helicopter flyover. However, some distortion/noise is slightly noticeable.
Xonar Xense/DT 231
Finally this combination gets a good performance in, and a complete turnaround from Fallout 3. Positional Audio works fine, sounds are nice and crisp and no distortion was noticed.
Xonar Xense/PC 350
A slight extra bass element to shots, and positional audio just a smidgen better than the DR 231s, but very hard to notice the difference. A good performance, but not significantly better than the other setups for once.
Games summary
Again this one is tight and it's close between the Audigy/DT 231 combo and the Xonar/PC 350. The former offers better positional audio and slightly clearer details, while the latter offers a much richer musical score experience and deeper touches to effects. The ASUS card shows it works best in FPS style games, which the pro-gaming scene might be interested in, but it's much weaker in some other game genres and the problem with EAX emulation is a disappointment.