Getting the most out of your PC audio experience can be a tricky thing. There are many factors involved - some of which you can control, and some of which you cannot.
Factors that are under your control include your hardware and its set-up, as well as your choice of casino software to play, but unfortunately, there are few choices in casino providers that have good sound support.
To get the best audio experience from your PC, you'll need to understand the factors that make it up.
There are three main components that go into the creation of your PC audio. These are the speakers, the sound card, and the program that plays the sound. Fortunately, there is a wide selection of speakers and sound cards out there that are capable of performing the task well. Unfortunatey, most of today's Internet casino software is not as high quality as the sound processing hardware.
Sound in Game Software
Let's start by looking at the ways in which game software can produce sounds. As is so often the case, in audio, there is a trade-off between download size and quality. Simply speaking, PC sound can be broken up into two categories, namely, MIDI and recorded playback.
Audio that has been encoded as MIDI is substantially smaller than recorded playback, and therefore has a shorter download time. On the flipside, the way the audio plays back may vary significantly from one sound card to another. Most online casinos that support background music use MIDI files.
Recorded playback music can be handled in many ways by the software developer. In the conversion from the audio domain to the digital domain, for storage with the software, the developer must choose the sample rate, the sampling range, and the number of channels to capture.
Higher sampling rates produce smoother sounds. Higher sampling ranges increase the fidelity of the playback and reduce aliasing, and multiple channels allow features such as stereo and other effect. More storage allocated from each of these parameters yields higher quality in the final playback.
Sound Cards
The next step in the process of getting the sound from the program to your ears is its trip through the sound card of your computer. The sound card is responsible for the translation of the instructions from the program into the signals that are sent to your speakers, which will eventually convert that signal to audio.
Sound cards vary greatly in audio quality and price, but in most cases your choice of speakers will have a greater impact on the ultimate sound quality than does your sound card. However, if you do want to shop around for the best sounding cards, then match the card to the speaker by making sure that the type of audio your software plays is well supported by that card. Since virtually all casino software that plays music does so in MIDI, look for sound cards that reviewers have rated better in MIDI performance. One such card is the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum by Creative Labs. Although the card is pricey at a list price of $199 (street price of $170-$180), there is a value edition with a list price of $99 (street price $75-$85), that has the same quality audio, but lacks some of the extra bells and whistles of its big brother. Of course there are sound cards available at much lower prices, such as the high-quality Diamond Monster MX 300 for less than $50. Both of these cards are reviewed at http://www.review-zone.com/.
Speakers
After the sound card has processed the audio the speakers take over. Other than the developer's choice of music and formats, your speakers are the most important factor in the quality of the sound. Speakers range from plain old battery powered $9 speakers way up into the stratosphere.
If you are looking to make the most of your PC audio experience, you'll want to check out some of the following choices. These speakers will not only enhance your online casino audio, but will give you home stereo quality for your CD's as well.
These speakers are: Creative Labs FPS 2000 (street price $125), Midiland S2/4030 (street price $120), Sonigistix Monsoon MM-700 (street price $160) and the fantastically priced Aura Aspect 20/40 Combo (street price $80, but they can be a challenge to find). Each of these speaker sets comes with stereo speakers (Creative Labs has 4) plus a subwoofer.
Recommendation
Since most casino software has either poor support for background music, or its background music is low quality, your best choice is still to choose your favorite CD and play it on your CD-player while you play. Choosing a good sound card and speaker will allow your system to play both CD audio, plus the other game sounds mixed in at the same time. Just remember to turn off the game's background music to avoid a cacophony of competing tracks. For now, we'll just have to wait until casino software has better sound integration.
Author: Steve "Eagle Eye" Walker is a consultant to the online gaming industry. He has been involved with online gaming since its start and has consulted on software, security, technology and operations for numerous online casinos. He can reached at casinoconsultant@yahoo.com
---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ---------- ----------
| 
