Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => Hardware and Software => Topic started by: Blagard on August 30, 2006, 06:05:28 PM
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I am building a new PC (routine 3 yearly event!). This time around I do not need the gameport I usually provided by getting a cheap soundblaster card. So I have never used onboard sound chips that seemed very poor quality (tried one once didn't like it!).
The question is, do the onboard chips now provide reasonable sound without upsetting the rest of the system. Likely motherboard will be a Asus A8N-SLI Premium (socket 939).
Or is it still best to get a cheap sound card.
Consider that I do not need high quality sound - I'm nearly deaf anyway! Apologies to all those that call me up on the radio and get no reply!
Regards
Blagard - once Taff many years ago, ex firebird, ex krait etc etc
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the Asus A8N-SLI Premium board has 8 channel audio built in .. it works great on my work pc .
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Im also using onboard sound for now successfully. But a sound card is *always* bwtter.
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Actually the processors are getting to the point that they're so fast they can play any game and STILL have a bit of extra power to run the sound chip on the motherboard.
PCI sound cards are better because they process the sound on the PCI card, not the CPU. However with Conroe chips now (and in the future) you're not really going to need a sound card at all. The CPU can handle it without a dip in performance
If I didn't need the firewire plug in my SB Audigy I don't think I'd be using it. It also gives me a second gameport (one game with the motherboard).
I don't need 2 gameports, but it's cool to have 2.
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Actually the CPU still handles all the hardware operations on most PCI sound cards too, they have no built in buffers. Except the Audigy series cards that is. I'm not even sure about the new Soundblaster line, I've not had the need for one.
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The X-Fi cards have a huge onboard buffer.
And that is where the CPU time is saved. As long as the buffer is in system RAM (all onboard chips) there is interruptions to the CPU every time a sound is played.
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Is the same true of the Audigy? And is that the Audigy2 only, or also the Audigy1?
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The Audigy 2 series all have good sized hardware buffers. The Audigy 1 line is a mix of old repackaged SBLive! cards (have very little buffering and lousy drivers) and SB PCI cards.
The Audigy 4 is an abortion. Even Creative wish they had not done those cards.
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No kidding on the drivers. I got a second hand Audigy1 I've been using for a while. It doesn't have any of the CD-ROM software with it, and the only way to get drivers for it is to run the Software AutoUpdate on the creative labs webpage.
(Actually I think they added some downloadable drivers in the past 3 months or so, but only after 2-3 years of me using auto update)
I was just wondering if it was worth it to keep this card. I'm only using it for the firewire and second gameport plug. Well I can get a standalone firewire card with 3+1 plugs and I already have the one gameport.
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I keep my SB Live! 5.1 card for a few reasons:
1. I need the gameport.
2. While the Nvidia onboard sound seems to work ok, I've NEVER had vox issues while using the SB Live! card. Since I needed the gameport anyway, why change something that works well?
3. Upgrading to an Audigy2 card was cost prohibitive for me, when I might only gain a few fps anyway, and wasnt having any problems from my Live! card.
4. Upgrading to a X-Fi card is even more cost prohibitive.
5. I'm cheap and I'm lazy.
I think that about covers it. :)
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Originally posted by StarOfAfrica2
5. I'm cheap and I'm lazy.
When did you join the club?! Did they teach you the secret handshake yet?
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Originally posted by Roscoroo
the Asus A8N-SLI Premium board has 8 channel audio built in .. it works great on my work pc .
I second this :)
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quote:
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Originally posted by Roscoroo
the Asus A8N-SLI Premium board has 8 channel audio built in .. it works great on my work pc .
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Originally posted by [Sg]ShotGun
I second this :)
I third this. I have the A8N-E with same built in sound.
Gunner
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Originally posted by GunnerCAF
quote:
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Originally posted by Roscoroo
the Asus A8N-SLI Premium board has 8 channel audio built in .. it works great on my work pc .
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I third this. I have the A8N-E with same built in sound.
Gunner
Can you "fourth" something without damaging it? :)
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Onboard sound can work fine, but it will always use more CPU cycles to play a sound than a good PCI sound card will.
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Thank you all.
The answer is quite clear to me. I have now ordered the motherboard I mentioned. I am confident that the onboard chip will at least least work in Aces High, so there is currently no point in investing in a budget sound card.
In a couple of weeks when all the bits have been installed in the nice new PC case I will let you know how it works.
Regards
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Asus A7N8X-E here with onboard 5.1 sound; works flawlessly in every game I've got. From AH to Doom3 to LOMAC to Silent Hunter III, I've never had a sound glitch. For some reason, nForce boards don't get the same performance gain when switching to a sound card. On any other, killing the onboard sound will get you a slight increase in performance. Not so with nForce. The gain is there, it simply isn't as large. Though running an AMD64 pretty much negates it; with that thing you'll have horsepower to spare.
And you will love the nForce drivers! No headaches, no nastyness, and unlike VIA they actually work.
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Flakbait [Delta6]
(http://www.wa-net.com/~delta6/sig/geek.gif)
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Originally posted by Krusty
When did you join the club?! Did they teach you the secret handshake yet?
Ha! Trick question! The Cheap and Lazy club for Men doesnt have a secret handshake. They are too lazy to come up with one - and too lazy to get up and shake your hand anyway if they did - and too cheap to pay someone to come up with one!
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Welcome, brother!
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Originally posted by flakbait
Asus A7N8X-E here with onboard 5.1 sound; works flawlessly in every game I've got. From AH to Doom3 to LOMAC to Silent Hunter III, I've never had a sound glitch. For some reason, nForce boards don't get the same performance gain when switching to a sound card. On any other, killing the onboard sound will get you a slight increase in performance. Not so with nForce. The gain is there, it simply isn't as large. Though running an AMD64 pretty much negates it; with that thing you'll have horsepower to spare.
And you will love the nForce drivers! No headaches, no nastyness, and unlike VIA they actually work.
Thats what i have at home a7n8x-e dlx running the 4.27 international drivers the onboard sound works great .. I run hires in ah2 and play music underneath i dont have any probs .
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i just put together my ASUS Crosshair system, and the Motherboard comes with some sort of sound card on it already. Its called the soundMAX supremeFX card. ive been having lots of problems in game, including one where, whenever i key VOX, i lose all sounds in game, if i alt-tab out and back in , sound comes back. No one can hear my VOX but can hear radio beeps. I also have had lockups that i think may be related to sound. Is anyone else experiencing this problem? does anyone else know about this problem? could it be something other than my sound card?
Im running an AMD FX-62 on the Asus crosshair motherboard with windows XP x64. 2 nVidia 7900GT cards in SLI, and plenty of RAM. Ive also installed two patches from AMD regarding the dual-core processor as well as the most recent non-beta BIOS, audio, and video drivers.
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I'm just using onboard sound on an ABIT A8N-32x. With the little amount of overhead presented by AH, it is no factor in framerates or slowdowns. I havn't noticed any.
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I have the ASUS A8N SLI Premium mobo & I was getting snapping,popping & crackle in my onboard sound while playing AH, I kept looking around for other players eating rice krispies with an open mic. I got the Audigy 2Z & it cleared up.
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Brenjen,
I will be really intersted to see if that happens to me!
I've built my new PC and just waiting for the graphics card to arrive before booting it up for the first time. - Aces High will be the first "game" I load up and hope to try it this weekend on that PC unless I'm recovering the lead roof, windsurfing or some other distraction!
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Krusty / SOA2 there is no handshake needed, no handshake is the clear sign for cheap & lazy.
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New PC up and running with on board sound chip.
No problems at all with sound except for leaving a bathroom echo on when first trying Vox! - never had the option for those effects before.
As for frame rates, I have no idea of the impact the chip has because it just isn't a problem. Getting a flat 60FPS generally and high 50's in low level furball at a field. Just one flight tonight and four kills off one spit clip, so you might say I am rather a happy soul right now! I could actually see what I was shooting at tonight with a nice new 19" Viewsonic 922
cheers Blagard.