[en] A comparative study of various energy loss formulations has been made using the calculated stopping power values and the corresponding experimental values for projectile ions with 8≤Z≤92 in 11 gaseous media: the five monatomic rare gases (He to Xe), two diatomic gases (H₂, N₂) and four polyatomic compounds (CH₄, C₄H₁₀, CO₂ and CF₄), in an energy range of ∼1-80 MeV/n. The merits and demerits of the adopted formulations are highlighted. It has been observed that the calculations based on SRIM-2000.38 recently developed by Ziegler provides best agreement with the experimental results for projectile ions with 8≤Z≤47 in all these absorbers except the H₂ gas absorber