My brains, they hurt.

Whilst it would almost certainly play bad, the visuals look really nice in its overly cartoon animated style.

Also, the rockets are preparing to invade South Korea.

Do the sandforce controllers still have problems? Would of thought they had worked it out by now.

Yes, the difference between regular onboard audio and even a cheaper sound card is night and day. Sounds clearer with more definition and the adjustability is amazing when used right.

for $60, makes a noticable difference in the quality and the xonar software is good and easy to use.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132053

for $160, very powerful card. Better sounding and more adjustability than the previous card, basically the same software. Bit expensive for most people to justify.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829132010&Tpk=asus%20xonar%20essense%20stx

Get a comp with a quality soundcard and listen to both a razer/steelseries/thermaltake/whatever headset and a proper set of headphones. There is no comparison in the sound quality, the quality headphones win every time.

That's why people say to just buy proper headphones, they're just better, not even just for the sound. Better made, sound better, look better, more functionality, last longer, more comfortable, often same price or cheaper. There is zero reason to buy a XYZ gaming headset if your budget stretches far enough to buy some good headphones, and even if it doesn't you will not regret saving a bit more to buy them.

AD700's and a modmic/zalman clip on.

Don't listen to anyone that recommends a "gaming headset", I guarantee you will not find a better all rounder set of headphones for the price than these, They do everything from music to gaming to being comfortable exceptionally well, and headset mics aren't generally great anyway so it's not worth worrying about the quality for your mic unless you wanna buy a condenser mic and an mbox and rest it on your desk. Just get something that works.

yeah looks to be the same, gl

http://www.headsetbuddy.com/pc-computer-headset-to-3-5mm-smartphone-adapter/

googled it. No idea about quality tho but expect a bit of loss.

I would rule it down to this. If the jack on your laptop is a combo audio/mic jack and your just using a strictly headphone splitter then it doesn't support a microphone as well as the connections are different.

the 3.5mm plug on headsets (headphones+mic) will have 3 bands on it for the different connections and a 3.5mm plug for just headphones will only have 2 bands. If your splitters plug has 2 bands on it then it doesn't allow for a microphone to work.

It hasn't, it's in for the upcoming OWL season in round 3 and 6

http://ozfortress.com/showthread.php?t=57239