surround sound

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coombesy

New Member
i am thinking of getting surrond sound for my windows xp to enhance gaming and films it has a 5.1 sound card but is the standard hp pavilion one will surround sound just fit or do i need a better sound card
thanks in advance :)

edited because of spelling mistake
 
Praetor

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
Generally speaking any surround capable card/device should be sufficient although i'd personally reccomend the Soundblaster Audigy series of products ... fairly easy to setup and a bunch of features etc for an affordable price :)
 
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coombesy

New Member
erm sorry im not sure what motherboard i have as im not too smart on computers its a hp pavilion 7955 and has the standard motherboard if thats any use now by sound do you mean sound card because i have the standard hp 5.1 that came in my pc and speakers i have some polk audio cheap speakers and the small one on my 17" lcd monitor sorry i can not be of more use thank you very much
 
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elmarcorulz

VIP Member
how many sound ports are on the motherboard ie does it have front, rear and centre/bass or does it just have the one port
 
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coombesy

New Member
elmarcorulz said:
how many sound ports are on the motherboard ie does it have front, rear and centre/bass or does it just have the one port
Click to expand...

the ports i run speakers on are a speaker port which is orange and a green out port this is all i know thank you very much though
 
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coombesy

New Member
praetor thanks for looking that up and the suggetion but thats a bit out of my bubget as i have just bought a flatscree dvd rewriter and graphics card do you think my current sound card would run surround sound thank you very much
 
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LittleHoov

New Member
ive personally had good luck with this little gem http://www.newegg.com/app/viewproductdesc.asp?description=29-117-105&DEPA=0

i had my Dell onboard sound and desktop speakers though, so obviously i was blown away when i got that sound card and a set of Logitech Z-640s... but you can get a 5.1 card fore even cheaper than that...you can also get a 7.1 card for a little more if you want to plan for the future..
also i believe that using onboard sound (its where the sound card is sort of embedded in the motherboard and not in a PCI slot) takes up more system resources than using a PCI card..so if you're looking to eek out a bit more performance, thats the way to go.

also as for your card running surround sound i would say it would, even if it only has 3 plugs i think it still can, supposedly you can change what the plug is somehow? a friend of mine did it once, he had 6-channel onboard and it just had the 3 plugs(line in, out, and mic) and he changed the line out and mic to center and rear...but i dont know how.
 
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Praetor

Praetor

Administrator
Staff member
praetor thanks for looking that up and the suggetion but thats a bit out of my bubget as i have just bought a flatscree dvd rewriter and graphics card do you think my current sound card would run surround sound thank you very much
Click to expand...
What is the budget? :)
 
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coombesy

New Member
:D erm the budget is small as possible im not sure how much bout £10ish :D i know thats not much but some people told me you can get a quite basic one for that much
 
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coombesy

New Member
SUNSWAY /ST Lab PCI Sound Card 4-channel (C-Media 8738 chip)
is this any good for the money and will it run surrond sound thank you for all your help all of you
 
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elmarcorulz

VIP Member
my 5.1 sourround sound has 3 2rca to 3.5mm jack, which i plug into 3 ports on my sound card. however, on the subwoofer is a switch to change from 5.1 to 2.1 so on my old sound card i only had a line in line out and mic ports so i could only use one, so i had to change it from 5.1 to 2.1 and it worked fine out of all 6 speakers
 
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