Soundcard and performance

Honesty

Honesty

New Member
Hi,
I have two questions about soundcards.

  • Does a soundcard improve your computer performance in 3D applications? Since the computer does not have to calculate the sound itself.
  • And what is the best soundcard manufacturer? I heard once Creative was market leader but I am still unsure.
 
onboard soundcards use your CPU, so having i dedicated one helps (i myself have a fairly good one) but will notice maybe around 5fps extra in some games. Creative do make the best sound cards i believe, but the Asus ones are meant to be good too.
 
On board sound tends to die a lot, especially Realtek on board.

I've been using Creative cards for as long as I can remember and have never had anything to complain about.
 
The only thing i could complain about my creative card is the crystallizer. some songs sound great with it, others sound like they have already been through a crystallizer, and it hurts your ears.
 
linkin93 said:
onboard soundcards use your CPU, so having i dedicated one helps (i myself have a fairly good one) but will notice maybe around 5fps extra in some games. Creative do make the best sound cards i believe, but the Asus ones are meant to be good too.
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Do they? I thought they were just generic soundcard circuitry soldered to the mobo....huh. My bad. :o
TheMoreYouKnow.jpg
 
Basically an onboard soundcard lets you plug in speakers, and transfers sound processing to (duh) the CPU.

Good soundcards have their own processor and what is known as X-RAM (basically means less system memory is used for sounds)
 
With today's multi-core processors, the CPU usage by a sound card most likely won't impact performance much, if at all.
 
I never noticed a difference with gaming sounds between my buddies system and my own where I use mobo sound.

I guess it depends how much of a audiophile you are.
 
The same with onboard video, putting a card in will offload CPU work and increase performance drastically or minimally. Sound, probably really minimal, but hell, if you have a spare sound card, you deserve that extra frame.
 
Twist86 said:
I never noticed a difference with gaming sounds between my buddies system and my own where I use mobo sound.

I guess it depends how much of a audiophile you are.
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It doesn't come out nearly as much on games, unless the game has amazing sound like Battlefield 2. With an real X-fi sound card and the highest sound settings you can hear the different types of bullet pings as they ricochet off different ground material.
 
Pair that with a Psyko headset and you'll be freakin' out thinking you're in the war. (They're 5.1 headphones... look em up, they're amazing)
 
Twist86 said:
I never noticed a difference with gaming sounds between my buddies system and my own where I use mobo sound.

I guess it depends how much of a audiophile you are.
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That's because there is pretty much no difference. You'll get more features, and encoding/decoding options with a good standalone sound card, but in reality you're not going to hear a difference (unless the fancy software you install with the card sticks various EQs n' that on the output, to make you think it sounds better).

People should spend their money on good speakers, not a soundcard.
 
[-0MEGA-];1381274 said:
I do love Creative's CMSS-3D and Crystallizer, as well as it's DTS and Dolby Digital features.
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Just a question: have you noticed that sometimes the crystallizer is too strong in some songs (kind of hurts ears), but with others it gives a lot of improvement?
 
linkin93 said:
Just a question: have you noticed that sometimes the crystallizer is too strong in some songs (kind of hurts ears), but with others it gives a lot of improvement?
Click to expand...

Yep, the crystalizer really helps on old youtube videos and low quality mp3 files due to their low bitrate encoding. I usually leave it on around 25% for normal listening.
 
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