Can the Pular 2 and Lunar 2 play sound for games?

WayneSim · Post by **WayneSim** » Fri Feb 22, 2002 5:55 am

Ok I know these card play audio...

But does the Pular or Lunar support EAX effects like the soundblaster live and Audigy?

I don't really want to buy one of these crapy cards but I want to play high end games on my PC with great sound.

I'm currently looking to buy a complete PC and maybe a Pulsar 2 or Lunar 2. But how good are these cards for games?.....

at0m · Post by **at0m** » Fri Feb 22, 2002 9:35 pm

Their wav driver should be fine. Make a simple project: Wav->Analog for best performance.

WayneSim · Post by **WayneSim** » Fri Feb 22, 2002 11:34 pm

all good...

But is anyone using the pular 2 for games that are built to support EAX and other things that the PC game orientated soundblaster live and Audigy support?

Is anyone playing the lastest PC games on a Pular 2 soundcard? How does it sound? Is there any problems?

Thanks

kurst · Post by **kurst** » Sun Feb 24, 2002 2:41 am

Hi Wayne.

Yes, Pulsar is ok for games

No, as far I know Pulsar doesn't support EAX, but you will have not great problems to plug a crappy sblive in your pc. But if your pc is for a serious music purpose work (aka recording studio) I wouldn't make that. The less things are in the pc the better is....

I'm an hardcore gamer too , but I leave to my second pc the hard work

WayneSim · Post by **WayneSim** » Sun Feb 24, 2002 8:31 pm

Kurst, I totally agree. But I don't have the money for 2 PC's. I'd rather built one GREAT PC. I don't really want to buy a 'Live' or 'Audigy' soundcard just to use with games. I think it's a waste. I'd rather put that extra money into a Pulsar 2. And hope I can get a great sound with games. Don't worry I going to have heaps of hard drives stacked in my pc so I can set up all types of different set-ups. I'll have a decated Raid set-up for Audio and then other hard drives for Games.

Please can people add more to this topic of PRO soundcards - Games.

bassdude · Post by **bassdude** » Mon Feb 25, 2002 2:49 pm

Pulsar is not a game sound card in any respect i.e. it does not have onboard support for eax, 3dsound like your typical game card. Also you may run into problems with some games using the wave source modules in pulsar e.g. jerky sound etc.
If you want full sound support for your games you are going to have to get a normal soundcard as well.

Good luck!

King of Snake · Post by **King of Snake** » Tue Feb 26, 2002 2:14 am

Use the directsound module instead of the wav. modules. I've never had any sound problems with it when playing games. As said thoug, no EAX or 3D.

WayneSim · Post by **WayneSim** » Tue Feb 26, 2002 10:11 pm

Thanks for all the advise guys.

When I get my crazy new set-up with a pulsar 2. I quess I'll try games and if I can't get the results i'm after, I quess I'll have to buy a crapy or semi-low soundcard live Audigy or Live. (I don't mean to hammer these soundcards but i'm a professional.) Maybe I'll get one cheap second hand.

I was just hoping as a keen gamer and music lover I would'nt have to waste money on a gamer soundcard.

I guess the only way to tell is to try an Audigy vs pulsar 2 and see if there is any difference in the sound effects and music in games.

I'll try this out sometime.

Really I'm hoping that not many games come out supporting EAX. Becasue then the Pulsar 2 would be the best soundcard for games ever. ummmmm... maybe not

asktoby · Post by **asktoby** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 5:37 pm

I use my system for games occasionally. It normally works fine, "it just works".

However, sometimes I get glitchy sounds, for example, in the recent "Far Cry" demo.

Does anyone know a workaround for this? I'd really like to try the Far Cry demo because it looks very impressive

Joxer the Mighty · Post by **Joxer the Mighty** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 7:00 pm

I play LOTS of games and haven't come across any problems with my Pulsar 2. But as others have said, no 3D.

I hope to have a music only PC soon.

petal · Post by **petal** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 7:04 pm

Does any of you in here play Eve online?

I got hooked the other day......

But the game asks for 14 hardware accelerated channels!?

Does any of you in here knows how to solve that? As it is now I'm running the sound through software accelerated channels, but I guess hardware is better...

Anyone!?

Thomas

Shayne White · Post by **Shayne White** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 7:16 pm

Pulsar works just fine for me. There have been few clicks here and there with URU (but only in certain places, and from that and from the way the clicks sound, I think it's a problem with URU itself). But most of the time URU works fine, and all the other games I've tried work perfectly. Yes, there's no fancy 3D support, but you can easily stick in your own spatial plugins in SFP.

I'm using XP, so I can only use the wave driver, which does both MME and DirectSound. In 98/ME you'd have to have DirectSound hooked up as well as Wave.

Shayne

Joxer the Mighty · Post by **Joxer the Mighty** » Wed Jan 28, 2004 9:41 pm

Sorry Petal, I've never played Eve Online, but the screenshots look beautiful. The one I'm awaiting eagerly is World of Warcraft!

petal · Post by **petal** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 10:17 am

World of warcraft - Is that an upcoming MMOG?

Well, Eve is very beautiful and very addictive too, which is one of the reasons I've stayed away from MMOG's untill now. It's so timeconsuming there's almost no excuse for doing it.

Next semester I'll be working on a big project where we are 20-30 people working together in order to make over own MMOG-prototype. I'll be working on the sound-part, addaptive music more precisely.

So you see, I have to try these games out in order to know what is needed...... At least I keep telling myself that....

Thomas

Joxer the Mighty · Post by **Joxer the Mighty** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 2:27 pm

Yeah, WoW is a MMORPG. I'd venture to say it is probably the most anticipated game of its kind. Signups for the beta started last night, so many people were trying to sign up at the same time that the Blizzard servers crashed.

Games sure are a lot of fun, but you're right, they can be very addictive. Keep us posted on the status of your project, I'd love to hear how it's coming along. Good luck with your 'research'.

valis · Post by **valis** » Thu Jan 29, 2004 2:56 pm

I've used my Pulsars for years with games as well, especially useful if you use 1 wav driver for the 'game' another for a team chatting app (teamspeak etc) and you can control the audio output levels of each independantly.

If 3d sounds etc are important to you though, I would recommend creating multiple hardware profiles and assigning each to a separate user. That way you can have the 'gaming profile' with an Audigy etc. and log into a user that has gaming apps and internet crap installed, and then a separate 'music production profile' in your hardware profile startup selection and a user that has only audio related apps installed.

Go into the SYSTEM control panel then into the "Hardware" tab and finally the bottom "Hardware Profiles" button. Now just hit "Copy" and give the new profile a name (GAMES) and escape out of all that. Go into your user manager control panel and create a new user. Now boot into that hardware profile & user and set up all your game hardware & software. When you boot back into your 'normal' audio profile (which you can also rename to AUDIO) make sure that you disable the Audigy/etc in your device manager and that no game related software etc. is loading in your startup process.

Incidentally separating tasks like this can be great for productivity--meaning its harder to escape to gameland on a whim.