Author Topic: Skuzzy: Sound Card advice requested. (Read 436 times)

Blue Mako · « **on:** March 21, 2005, 08:18:33 PM »

Skuzzy,

Before you mentioned that the SB Live! Value 5.1 card that I'm running will be giving some performance penalty.

Question: Would a SB Audigy 2 Value card give any increase in performace over the Live! card? I'm tossing up between a SB Audigy 2 ZS and the Value models; the Value is a little over half the price of the ZS so I want to consider it's virtues. The info on the SB site is difficult for a lay person like me to interpret so I appeal to your all-knowing-ness.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #1 on:** March 22, 2005, 06:53:53 AM »

Looks like the Audigy 2 Value is the original Audigy card with some bells and whistles missing.

Quite frankly, almost anything would be a step up from the SBLive! card, except for the AC97 devices.

The ZS will get you the most bang for the buck when it comes to freeing CPU cycles.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #2 on:** March 22, 2005, 01:19:56 PM »

Just out of curiousity, what is it that makes the Audigy better than the Live! cards? I ask because I use a 5.1 Live! card and the only reason I do is because of the gameport. I have the nForce sound chipset and I could easily use that (it claims to use less CPU resources), but I dont want to give up my gameport. I'd yank it and use a gamecard, but PCI gamecards are scarcer than hen's teeth. The Audigy cards dont have gameports. Even all the Live! cards dont have gameports. If you have an alternative I'm all ears lol.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #3 on:** March 22, 2005, 01:32:59 PM »

The SBLive! card is an ok piece of hardware, but Creative did a terrible job on the drivers for it. They expose no hardware buffers for the card which requires the CPU to handhold the card for every sound needing to be played.
This bogs up the CPU with sound stuff.

With the Audigy line, Creative finally go it together and did a decent job with the drivers for the hardware and expose all type of hardware. This reduces CPU utilization by a ton.

Engine · « **Reply #4 on:** March 22, 2005, 01:56:14 PM »

Heard about this, but all I'd heard was that the Creative drivers were atrocious and it's better to use the Windows drivers. There's a very noticable difference between them, and with using Hardware Acceleration at 3/4ths and full, with Battlefield 1942.

If I use the Windows drivers, would I still see a CPU performance hit?

humble · « **Reply #5 on:** March 22, 2005, 02:00:35 PM »

My understanding is that the onboard sound in the Nforce chipset is actually the most efficient sound platform available...actually better than any standalone sound card with regard to CPU cycles.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #6 on:** March 22, 2005, 02:05:58 PM »

The problem with the NForce onboard sound chips is not CPU utilization, but CPU holdup. Onboard sound chips make use of system memory for thier hardware buffers.
So everytime the sound chip has to fetch any data, the CPU gets held up (i.e. the CPU has to stop and wait for the sound chip to finish accessing data before resuming operations).

Engine, whoever told you that is wrong. The default Windows sound drivers are very bare and only work in the 2D realm.

eagl · « **Reply #7 on:** March 22, 2005, 02:56:38 PM »

My audigy2 ZS has a gameport and it works fine.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #8 on:** March 22, 2005, 03:56:31 PM »

Quote

Originally posted by eagl
My audigy2 ZS has a gameport and it works fine.

Eagl, the Audigy2 ZS versions on the Creative website (and on the shelf in the stores) do not have one. They have done away with the gameport/MIDI port on sound cards, excepting only the Live! 5.1 card that I have. And I dont see it on the shelves anymore.

However, Turtle Beach offers cards still with 2 ports....one for a gameport, one to be a MIDI port. In the past they had pretty good quality stuff but I havent seen one in forever (they have them on the Best Buy website). Anybody use one of their cards now? I'd like to know how they stack up.

Blue Mako · « **Reply #9 on:** March 22, 2005, 06:27:47 PM »

Thanks heaps for the replies. Off to the PC shop again this weekend.

eagl · « **Reply #10 on:** March 23, 2005, 01:37:43 PM »

Star,

Mine is (I think) a separate plug attached with a ribbon cable, so it might not show on the box. I got it at newegg a few months ago, audigy ZS retail box.

This link:

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProduct.asp?submit=property&DEPA=0

shows every creative soundcard with gameport that newegg sells, and all 6 of the audigy2 cards listed have gameports.

Skuzzy · « **Reply #11 on:** March 23, 2005, 01:39:42 PM »

eagl is quite right. Creative removed the game port from the primary slot and in the box, they put a PCI slot plate with a game port on it and it connects to the sound card via a ribbon cable.

My Audigy 2ZS Platinum has this arrangement as well.

StarOfAfrica2 · « **Reply #12 on:** March 23, 2005, 02:20:45 PM »

Damn. Excuse me whilst I go beat my head against a wall. I twice passed up killer deals on Audigy cards because I didnt want to give up my gameport.

I wish they would show that somewhere, even on the creative site there is not one picture of the card with any add on.

Thanks guys.