... BTW, what do you guys think of:
http://us.creative.com/p/sound-blaster/sound-blasteraxx-control-panel
For those of us who can't get access to Sound Blaster Cinema 2.
Hi Fulaman,If I understand correctly, the Sound BlasterAxx Control Panel software only controls Creative Sound BlasterAxx hardware. See the hardware requirements here:
http://www.soundblaster.com/products/sound-blasteraxx-specs.aspxAs far as I know, the Titan does not have a Sound BlasterAxx processor on its motherboard. Rather, it has a Realtek HD processor. Creative's Sound Blaster Cinema software was written to work with Realtek HD processors. But the Sound BlasterAxx is not (as far as I can tell).
If you want to try third-party sound effects or sound control software, it needs to be compatible with your hardware (the audio DSP chip on your notebook's motherboard) and/or its driver. For most MSI gaming notebooks, the hardware will be a Realtek HD chip (I don't remember the exact chip model numbers used by MSI---but it would be helpful to know.)
There is another solution and I'm surprised that more notebook owners don't use it. If you don't like the sound processor or software in your notebook and you're only interested in driving headphones or external speakers, then bypass the built-in sound entirely and get an external audio device. If you like Creative's software then buy one of their products---they make lots of audio devices that will plug into your notebook's USB port. Some will also interface with your Titan's digital S/PDIF port as well. Then you can get your audio device drivers and software directly from Creative and forget MSI for your audio.
Personally, I dislike Creative Lab's drivers and software. In my experience, their stuff is poorly designed, poorly written and generates way too much distortion. The fact that the Nahimic sound effects software is worse-sounding than Sound Blaster Cinema 2, is really bad. The one consumer sound device company that I trust is Turtle Beach. The company was founded by musicians who know good sound and their audio devices almost always outperformed the competition by a wide margin. Today they mostly make gaming headsets---but they still have a few audio devices. For example, their DSS2 Dolby Digital audio device is good for generating a decent pseudo surround sound image with plain stereo headphones (it connects to a digital S/PDIF port for audio and a USB port for power). And if you only need stereo sound, their USB-based Amigo II and Micro II are very economical.
There's only one reason that you
must stick with your notebook's built-in audio device---if you need to use the built-in speakers of your notebook.
It's a shame that so many MSI notebook owners are having audio trouble because the Realtek HD DSP chip in most MSI gaming notebooks is quite good. And the high-end models like the GT80 Titan have excellent discrete amplifiers for the headphones, left and right stereo channels and subwoofer channel. The problem, as is often the case, is with driver and software support.
No matter what solution you seek, if you have made the jump to Win 10, you are probably going to have trouble for a while. Many audio devices do not yet have compatible drivers and software. It is patently stupid to make an early jump to a new OS version and expect to find all the needed drivers ready and waiting. When, in the history of the PC industry, have they ever been debugged, ready and waiting for the new OS? Those who expect quick support are either ignorant of the software development process and the complexities involved or have no understanding of the computer industry. If you truly need good sound, then you need to return to a version of Windows that has been around long enough for these complex audio drivers and software to have been written AND DEBUGGED!!! Even the operating system, itself, needs to be debugged after its official release before all of these things work right---that's just the way it is.
Regards, David
Author
Topic: Nahimic latest driver update (Read 128014 times)