Do you have a suggestion under which forum we can start that thread?
re:Snyder, doesn't look like it's as full featured as the one in that pdf, it lacks the base of the controller.
Soundcards an outdated concept?
- Thread starter SoftwareGuy256
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Do you have a suggestion under which forum we can start that thread?
re:Snyder, doesn't look like it's as full featured as the one in that pdf, it lacks the base of the controller.
Blazkowicz
Legend
the raw quality of the analog audio output matters. and you can keep your sound card half a decade or more without worrying how fancy, crappy or both is the sound on this and that motherboard. that's why I like having some decent sound card in my PC (an audigy 1, using the rear output which is said to be better).
I'd care more about EAX if creative labs hadn't go the way of opening it to gain support then closing it to maintain hegemony. so, fuck it.
I'd care more about EAX if creative labs hadn't go the way of opening it to gain support then closing it to maintain hegemony. so, fuck it.
Sound cards... good quality sound caards at least amplify the sound rather than these poor onboard chips ... and then you have the DAC's and cleaner signal hence giving a better sound.
Sound cards are becoming a niche market but relying on gfx manufacturers or motherboard makers to give you "decent" quality playback is not going to improve matters.. the opposite in fact.
How seriously do you take your sound? Personally.. I am half deaf in one ear... and need glasses so a Riva TNT and Soundblaster AWE64 is good nuff for me
Sound cards are becoming a niche market but relying on gfx manufacturers or motherboard makers to give you "decent" quality playback is not going to improve matters.. the opposite in fact.
How seriously do you take your sound? Personally.. I am half deaf in one ear... and need glasses so a Riva TNT and Soundblaster AWE64 is good nuff for me
AWE64 lol, blast from the past. I remember having fun with RAM expansion on that. I miss my Gravis Ultrasound
Nothing ever beat the GUS, I mean.. 1 MEG of sound banks? that thing was mandatory in the demoscene.
BlackAngus
Newcomer
Oh I have a brand new one sitting on the shelf beside me. =-)
Take that charlie brown!
I only wish it worked on Vista! ... or XP! ....or windows 2000!!!.....<cry>
I envy you, I could only afford second hand cards and was pretty happy when I finally got my hands on a GUS MAX.
The GUS by itself showed there is nothing better than dedicated hardware processing, much like the GPU's nowadays work. and it'd cost hardly a penny to implement nowadays...
Aerows
Regular
I thought I would *NEVER* get another Creative product. I'm glad that I decided to give them one last try when I got the X-FI. It is the best sound card they have made in years. I have an ExtremeGamer, and I really like it. The only reason I got it is for OpenAL support. If Creative actually updates the drivers for a while, this sound card should last a very long time.
AcceleratorX
Newcomer
swaaye said:
I believe the "hiss" of the onboard audio is largely dependent on the specific implementation of the IC on the motherboard. Because I've heard of two different mobos with the exact same sound chip differ heavily in terms of hiss (and sometimes even quality) because of the implementation/internal wiring/placement/interference characteristics of the motherboard itself.
Frequency response is not so horrible if you have one of the better onboard audio chips. For example, IMO realtek doesn't have good audio chips, but SoundMAX for example (and maybe VIA also) has pretty good characteristics in this regard. Even audio quality with SoundMAX is pretty good, or at least it seems that way to me, and also the reviews say so.
The only bad facets of disappointment are no support for EAX3+ and maybe OpenAL also (not sure). Not to mention the software processing and somewhat poor MIDI quality compared to discrete cards. But if you're going to only listen to MP3s, then these onboard chips can have pretty good quality.
The thing is I think a SBLive has better quality than almost any onboard audio solution. And a Live! is fully accelerated all the way to like Windows x64. Creative supported that board extremely well, IMO. Mainly because OEMs used it for many years, I'm sure.
You can also get an Audigy 2 on eBay for like $20 or less these days and be set very nicely for games and get pretty darned good quality. Hardware OpenAL and EAX 4.
Apparently Creative is now working on an Alchemy version for Audigy too. But they are going to charge for it. Can't say I blame them there though. They are old cards and they have supported them well over the years. Just look at the original Audigy; upgraded through drivers to driver feature parity with Audigy 4.
And, the EMU10Kx resampling issue has never bothered me. I can only hear it in the sample files designed to aggravate the issue. It is rather unfortunate though, IMO. If only 48 KHz was the norm.....
You can also get an Audigy 2 on eBay for like $20 or less these days and be set very nicely for games and get pretty darned good quality. Hardware OpenAL and EAX 4.
Apparently Creative is now working on an Alchemy version for Audigy too. But they are going to charge for it. Can't say I blame them there though. They are old cards and they have supported them well over the years. Just look at the original Audigy; upgraded through drivers to driver feature parity with Audigy 4.
And, the EMU10Kx resampling issue has never bothered me. I can only hear it in the sample files designed to aggravate the issue. It is rather unfortunate though, IMO. If only 48 KHz was the norm.....
We did chat a bit about it. Onboard audio is about as bad as you can find, I'm sure. Unless you are using a SB16, perhaps.
I only use those for home theater. My PC is purely analog. So I don't really pay attention to them. But yea, if you hook up speakers through an optical digital output you skip past the usually-significant analog quality problems. It won't help with stuff like Realtek's horrible 3D audio support, though.
Frankly, I find soundcards for gaming useless. Some people swear by them, and that doesn't bother me, but IMO, if you want to game and don't mind a touch of noise go with a 7-channel onboard audio solution. Most game soundtracks are pretty awful anyway If you must have crystalline audio then get a low-end pro audio card. They're so much more useful and will last for a long, long time longer than Creative will choose to support your $180 NoiseBlaster....
Obviously you havent seen a game lose 15%+ performance from not having dedicated sound hardware. They're so cheap these days theres really no good excuse not to have one if you're a serious gamer.
Could you show me then? Last time I checked the worst case scenario was 3%. I actually dropped my Audigy2ZS from my machine because it had some terrible sound bugs in Battlefield2 (Engine noise got reverbed like mad inside a vehicle and made driving anything unplayable... if the audigy can make my machine perform 15% better.. I'll stick it right in again..
It depends on how fancy the audio engine in the game is. How many channels are you trying to mix at once? Is the engine even designed to take advantage of hardware channels? If you have a software solution (one of the USB or super cheap Creative cards) that is trying to emulate EAX 3 or better, that will definitely slow your game down.
I've never played BF2 so I can't comment on problems with it. But I do know that game is generally not seen as a tight piece of work.
I'm not totally convinced of the value of the card either, honestly. I would never pay over $100 for an X-Fi. But, I'm not going to use my mobo's audio either because I know that it will have lesser output signal quality and probably have weird issues with 3D audio positioning. Most onboard solutions are worthless for effects. But, many games are doing the effects in software these days because of this.
I've never played BF2 so I can't comment on problems with it. But I do know that game is generally not seen as a tight piece of work.
I'm not totally convinced of the value of the card either, honestly. I would never pay over $100 for an X-Fi. But, I'm not going to use my mobo's audio either because I know that it will have lesser output signal quality and probably have weird issues with 3D audio positioning. Most onboard solutions are worthless for effects. But, many games are doing the effects in software these days because of this.
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the difference in some cases is negligible.