Aces High Bulletin Board

General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: aSTAR on October 28, 2003, 07:14:09 PM

Title: On Board Audio?
Post by: aSTAR on October 28, 2003, 07:14:09 PM: I will be changing my MoBo to ASUS P4C800 Deluxe and was wondering if the audio on board is OK? I have a SB Audigy2 at
the moment, but have had some problems with Mic in AH.
Appreciate comments on this.

SE
Title: On Board Audio?
Post by: bloom25 on October 28, 2003, 07:42:58 PM: The Audigy 2 is much better than the onboard audio on that board. It's going to be much better than the onboard audio on any board. Only the Soundstorm audio option available on some very high end nForce 2 based boards can even come close.
Title: On Board Audio?
Post by: zmeg on October 28, 2003, 08:17:22 PM: Thats not quite true. I have a Gigabyte ga-7va mobo with onboard ac97 5.1 suround sound. For 6 monthes I never even tried the onboard sound because I still had my audigy card from my old system, then when my son ask for a audigy card for his system I decided to see what the onboard 5.1 sounded like. Much to my suprize it was just as good as the audigy sound & doesn't use as many resources.
Title: On Board Audio?
Post by: aSTAR on October 28, 2003, 08:24:19 PM: Is it a major problem to switch from one to the other?
I have never done this, I'm aware of bios, but that's it.
A quick procedure given to me would be appreciated so
I may test both situations.

Se
Title: On Board Audio?
Post by: zmeg on October 28, 2003, 08:40:39 PM: You just go to control panal and change your default sound device. Onboard sound is usually enabled in bios by default.
Title: Re: On Board Audio?
Post by: Wanker on October 29, 2003, 08:11:38 AM: Quote
Originally posted by s-eagle
I will be changing my MoBo to ASUS P4C800 Deluxe and was wondering if the audio on board is OK? I have a SB Audigy2 at
the moment, but have had some problems with Mic in AH.
Appreciate comments on this.

SE

The Asus P4C800 Deluxe is a very nice motherboard. So far, it's been rock solid for me. The onboard sound works great in AH, but I haven't tried it out in any other applications or games yet. If you're not too much of an audiophile, the onboard sound should be good enough.

That being said, if you have an Audigy2 already, I'd use that. It's gotta be better than almost any onboard chip.
Title: Thank you
Post by: aSTAR on October 29, 2003, 08:39:53 AM: Will stay with the Audigy 2 system.
Thanks to ALL.

Se
Title: On Board Audio?
Post by: bloom25 on October 30, 2003, 12:31:28 AM: It's important to remember that AC97 sound is software driven. If Creative's Audigy drivers are written correctly (hardly a given with anything made by Creative, their drivers have recently been pretty poor) the Audigy should dominate any AC97 based software audio solution with regards to performance.

Sound quality is very subjective and depends a LOT on proper board design. Onboard sound audio quality varies tremendously, even between boards using the same AC97 codec. (Realtek, CMedia, and Analog Devices are the manufacturers of the majority of AC97 onboard sound chips.) It's generally a safe assumption that the sound quality on a good standalone sound card is going to be better than the average onboard sound solution. Typically onboard sound solutions deliver acceptable sound quality. In my experience there are two major failings with most onboard sound solutions:
1. Stereo separation, which is basically the amount of bleedover between the left and right channels, is typically very poor compared to standalone sound cards.

2. MIDI wavetable implementations on some onboard solutions is downright terrible. (Try the "trumpet" sound on some onboard solutions, it's sometimes so bad it's almost funny.) Truthfully though, not many of us deal with MIDI files an aweful lot anymore so this isn't really a huge deal.
Title: On Board Audio?
Post by: aSTAR on November 01, 2003, 08:17:05 PM: I am a Big Dummy, my problem with Mic etc in AH has been due to
Audio in bios being AUTO, I changed it to disable and so far it
seems to be working fine.
Keeping my Audigy2 on board:)

Thanks to ALL for your help.

se
Title: On Board Audio?
Post by: Stringer on November 05, 2003, 12:55:48 PM: zmeg,
I've just picked up my new system and I have a Gigabyte board, with the same onboard sound as yours.

I'm using the onboard sound, but the sound quits about 1 or 2 minutes after launching AH.

Any suggestions?
Title: On Board Audio?
Post by: Reschke on November 05, 2003, 01:28:01 PM: Different Gigabyte board here Stringer (Ga-7N400 Pro) based on the nVidia nForce2 chipset and that onboard sound rocks. As for yours dropping out after a minute or two in the game have you tried dropping the acceleration rate in the sound control panel or within DirectX? Those were the only ways I could get my Diamond MX300 to work within WinXP along with running a utility to change the way XP saw the card.
Title: On Board Audio?
Post by: Eagler on November 05, 2003, 01:56:22 PM: recently went from onboard sound on the asus board to an audigy 2 -
first time I fired up AH after the switch, I thought I was in a different game as the sound was that much better - even ship flak with the new "boom" wasn't so bad :)
Title: Stringer
Post by: aSTAR on November 05, 2003, 03:19:13 PM: Had the same problem, went to my Bios and diabled Audio,
haven't had a problem since.

SE
Title: opps
Post by: aSTAR on November 05, 2003, 03:20:50 PM: Sorry Stringer read it wrong, you are using onboard audio,
diregard previous reply.
SE
Title: On Board Audio?
Post by: zmeg on November 05, 2003, 07:23:54 PM: Stringer, make sure you have the latest 4 in 1 drivers and ac 97 drivers. If you have a headphone & mic jack in the front of your case make sure it has the right type of connector. Also make sure you have a large enough power supply, and double check that you have the speaker pluged correctly.