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Sound card question
- Thread starter mkillio
- Start date
You're joking right? The answer is most definately.
For pure audio quality go grab a loopback cable, download RightMark Audio Analyzer, and try for youself. For CPU usage grab RightMark 3DSound from the same page. As for subjective gaming audio quality you will have to experience it, but the difference will probably be very noticable for newer games supporting EAX 3 and/or 4.
For pure audio quality go grab a loopback cable, download RightMark Audio Analyzer, and try for youself. For CPU usage grab RightMark 3DSound from the same page. As for subjective gaming audio quality you will have to experience it, but the difference will probably be very noticable for newer games supporting EAX 3 and/or 4.
Ah... Right... Had a minor brainfart there. X-Gamer != X-Fi.
I remember Creative kept promising an EAX upgrade, but then discontinued 'liveware' alltogether and launched the Audigy. *Surprise!* It will at least support EAX2, though. (And perhaps more using hacks to install later drivers. Can't remember specifics but there was definate improvement.) Apart from more speaker outputs; up to the Audigy4 most of the 'feature innovation' CL delivered was software and not hardware.
Still betting it will be better than an onboard AC97 codec.
I remember Creative kept promising an EAX upgrade, but then discontinued 'liveware' alltogether and launched the Audigy. *Surprise!* It will at least support EAX2, though. (And perhaps more using hacks to install later drivers. Can't remember specifics but there was definate improvement.) Apart from more speaker outputs; up to the Audigy4 most of the 'feature innovation' CL delivered was software and not hardware.
Still betting it will be better than an onboard AC97 codec.
the maddman
Regular
Well the only thing I like about my SB Live is the cleaner Mic input. I gave up on the Creative drivers for them a long time ago, but the hardware is solid. A good DSP and decent DAC/ADC. But since I don't load the Creative drivers, it's acting like a 2 channel basic sound card. I'd still be using my Hercules GameTheater XP if it didn't seem to like to crash modern systems. And the huge cord to the breakout box makes it really hard to move the PC.
Fastest way to get fed up with AC97 audio is to hook up a headset and try and voice chat in games. I haven't had a motherboard yet with a decent Mic in. AC97 is CPU intensive, and the analog side is usually sub-par.
For sound playback, just about any decent PCI sound card is better than AC97, but when it comes to INPUTS, get a good card. Any of the semi-recent Creative Labs seem to get that right.
Fastest way to get fed up with AC97 audio is to hook up a headset and try and voice chat in games. I haven't had a motherboard yet with a decent Mic in. AC97 is CPU intensive, and the analog side is usually sub-par.
For sound playback, just about any decent PCI sound card is better than AC97, but when it comes to INPUTS, get a good card. Any of the semi-recent Creative Labs seem to get that right.
The final Creative drivers for the Live! cards are quite adequate. I haven't had any issues with them for game audio quality or overall system stability, over the past few years that I've used them. In fact, I haven't had problems with Creative's drivers since they got NT5 figured out in the "Win2K is new" era. My A2ZS PCI and A2ZS PCMCIA also have good drivers, IMO. I don't know where the driver fretting comes from. It's just like how people rip on ATI's drivers constantly with false reasoning.
To get the card running at its best for games, you should just uninstall all the drivers for it on your comp and the install Creative's unipack from their site. You want "Sound Blaster Live! - LiveDrvUni-Pack (English)". Don't download drivers for the Live! 24-bit.
If you aren't going to game with it much, grab the latest KX Project driver pack. They let you use the rear output as the front output which offers better audio quality because the rear output is on a better DAC. These drivers have some incredible functionality for on-the-cheap musicians. Not much for gamers though.
The advantages of Live! over plain AC97 are hardware audio acceleration of 32 channels (DS/DS3D/EAX2), much better analog audio signal quality because of better DACs and cleaner circuitry, decent hardware MIDI (soundfont support), and better inputs. The drivers are quite refined now too. If you consider that the Live! first showed up in 1998 and is fully functional across Windows 98 (95?) through Windows XP, how can you not see that it is quite a nice little card?
Technically you could say there is AC97 audio on all audio cards since the main DAC is AC97. It's just that there's a whole lot more functionality to a Live! than the entirely host-driven AC97 audio solutions on mobos. AC97 is just a crappy cheap audio standard from Intel I believe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC97
To get the card running at its best for games, you should just uninstall all the drivers for it on your comp and the install Creative's unipack from their site. You want "Sound Blaster Live! - LiveDrvUni-Pack (English)". Don't download drivers for the Live! 24-bit.
If you aren't going to game with it much, grab the latest KX Project driver pack. They let you use the rear output as the front output which offers better audio quality because the rear output is on a better DAC. These drivers have some incredible functionality for on-the-cheap musicians. Not much for gamers though.
The advantages of Live! over plain AC97 are hardware audio acceleration of 32 channels (DS/DS3D/EAX2), much better analog audio signal quality because of better DACs and cleaner circuitry, decent hardware MIDI (soundfont support), and better inputs. The drivers are quite refined now too. If you consider that the Live! first showed up in 1998 and is fully functional across Windows 98 (95?) through Windows XP, how can you not see that it is quite a nice little card?
Technically you could say there is AC97 audio on all audio cards since the main DAC is AC97. It's just that there's a whole lot more functionality to a Live! than the entirely host-driven AC97 audio solutions on mobos. AC97 is just a crappy cheap audio standard from Intel I believe. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AC97
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On. Yeah, I think a lot of times people under esitmate the advantages of a sound card. They think its just to improve sound quality, its really not only for that. Of course you'll get improved sound quality, but also improved performance in things such as games.
I recently had a person I know finally buy a sound card, had always used onboard. I cant explain his expression when he finally heard an X-Fi Xtreme Music on his sytem, it was an amazing difference. Not only that, but games like CS:S improved greatly in the FPS depart, the max FPS didnt increase really, but the average and especially the lowest FPS got a really good FPS increase, and the game smoothed out an extreme amount for him. And this is a very high endish PC (A64 3500+, X850XT, 2GB of RAM).
I recently had a person I know finally buy a sound card, had always used onboard. I cant explain his expression when he finally heard an X-Fi Xtreme Music on his sytem, it was an amazing difference. Not only that, but games like CS:S improved greatly in the FPS depart, the max FPS didnt increase really, but the average and especially the lowest FPS got a really good FPS increase, and the game smoothed out an extreme amount for him. And this is a very high endish PC (A64 3500+, X850XT, 2GB of RAM).
EAX normally takes a performance hit. I only tested it once, with PC demo of Halo 2, but 3d hardware sound no EAX was definetly faster than 3d hardware sound EAX on on my Herc Game Theatre card I had back then.
Hower EAX on with a dedicated soundcard is still normally faster than using AC97 onboard sound with no EAX capability.
Hower EAX on with a dedicated soundcard is still normally faster than using AC97 onboard sound with no EAX capability.
Randell said:EAX normally takes a performance hit. I only tested it once, with PC demo of Halo 2, but 3d hardware sound no EAX was definetly faster than 3d hardware sound EAX on on my Herc Game Theatre card I had back then.
Hower EAX on with a dedicated soundcard is still normally faster than using AC97 onboard sound with no EAX capability.
This is because your sound card didnt have built in hardware support for EAX. EAX is Creatives thing, their cards are made for it basically, so its better to have it on when you have a Creative card and better to have it off when you dont have one.
the maddman
Regular
Yeah, EAX is Creative's sandbox, so non creative cards take a hit doing some of it in software. I haven't kept up with it, are they actually doing 3d positioning in EAX now or is it still just 4 channel + reverb?
For me personally, I've never heard "3d" sound from two speakers like everyone promises except with the demo apps that came with my Aureal card. Everything else I've ever tried doesn't seem to work. And my computer setup makes it hard to run wires to real rear speakers.
For me personally, I've never heard "3d" sound from two speakers like everyone promises except with the demo apps that came with my Aureal card. Everything else I've ever tried doesn't seem to work. And my computer setup makes it hard to run wires to real rear speakers.
I dont know the limits of EAX, I just know that no one has taken it near what it can go. I've seen this comment for lots of people who I would think of as in the know about audio in games. Creative actually does a lot when you consider their firm grip on the market.
the maddman
Regular
Well, I just got a new hard drive and installed a fresh copy of XP, I might try out the Creative drivers again and see if they've improved. Wish me luck.
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