Race Driver: Grid
Call of Duty 4
Company of Heroes

all good games with pretty good discrete 5.1 support

any game that uses eax really, latest versions are better than earlier so modern games should sound the best at least those within the last few years.

however, any game, at least in xp and below will use direct sound as it is what is responsible for multi channel sound, eax is just for how it sounds.

F.E.A.R. is also excellent for surround sound. Totally creepy.

I'll second F.E.A.R. The sound effects are supremely creepy and awesome. I'd also say Bioshock, purely for the music and voice-acting.

Well I finally got my logitech z-5500 and have set it up. I used an opitcal cable from my onboard sound on my AB9-Pro to the speaker system. The system is kinda neat cuz the lcd panel will tell you what type of sound is coming from the computer. For the first round of testing I quickly ran through, the matrix DVD, unreal tournament III and mass effect.

The matrix what awesome. even the intro had me spinning my head trying to get bearing on various sounds. The LCD readout did indeed say dolby digital.

However the two games only played in stereo. This was a big dissapointment for me. It sounded OK when i enabled dolby prologic but nowhere near the lvl of "discrete" as the matrix DVD.

Later I will try using the direct 6 channel hookup and see if I get any better results from the games. Also I'll test the matrix DVD to see if it's effected. Sould testing on that front fail to produce accurate in game surround, could anyone help me with the various creative x-fi products? Do they all provide the same lvl of decoding? Or will the 200 dollar units "render" sound faster then the entry lvl 100 dollar units?

I'm using the onboard sound from my AB9-Pro motherboard. I don't know what it is for sure. Prolly reltek.

Testing with the direct 6 channel hookup made no difference. I still get amazing surround sound in DVD, none in gaming. Games do provide a acceptable lvl of surround sound if I enable prologic on my speaker set, or enable speaker fill in vista. But comparing it to the dolby surround sound from my ps3 through the same sound system, it's lacking considerably.

I'll be installing my audigy 2 zs, now that vista drivers are avaliable and it looks as if they are no longer charging for alchemy. I'll update when i've done that.

Oh one last note, for testing purposes I am comparing sound from call of duty 4 on the ps3 and call of duty 4 PC.

FEAR and COD4 and Stalker shadow of Chernobyl or clear sky both have good 5.1 sound

COD4 sounds more realistic than all of them as they seem to have better sound libraries and a better sound editing team

Well I felt the desire to see exactly what a dedicated sound card can do. I always thought that a dedicated sound card would enchance my expierence. When in reality it enables it. I've since installed my old audigy ZS 2 and have ingame true surround sound working on call of duty 4. I thought that would be good knowledge for people that use surround sound headphones and onboard sound. Turns out the combination really isn't any better then standard headphones with "fake" surround.

It also brings to question why people claim that dedicated sound cards help with FPS? Since the game won't run advance sound with an onboard unit where is this "CPU" usage savings comming from.

So yes a sound card helps with gameplay (FPS) for example.. ask anyone with tech knowledge.. almost anyone....llooll

I'll third F.E.A.R., surround sound with the lights off should make for an interesting experience

Sadly that's all I can think of right now, I wish developers would pay as much attention to sound as they do to graphics. I haven't played COD4 or GRID so can't comment on them.

Metal Gear Solid 4 on the PS3 has the highest quality audio I've ever experienced in a game.