Simviation Forum - Does a sound card have any effect in performance?

Aug 22^nd, 2004 at 3:06pm

Selbio Offline
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Does it? If so what is a good sound card I can use that's cheap and won't stress a 250w psu too much.

Thanks in advance

Best Regards,&&Selby&&

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Reply #1 - Aug 22^nd, 2004 at 3:18pm

congo Offline
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A sound card won't usually use much power, so don't worry about it.

Soundcards definitely affect performance..... but.... on modern fast systems with CPU's of around 2ghz or more, the soundcard has much less influence because the CPU has less trouble dealing with the sound processing.

There is research done on how much CPU utilisation different soundcards use with varied results, but generally, a decent soundcard will take some load off the CPU.

The economical Soundblaster Live series soundcards weren't too bad with CPU load, but the new onboard AC'97 sound etc., is much better in my opinion for sound quality; I'm not sure about the CPU load though.

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #2 - Aug 22^nd, 2004 at 3:32pm

Selbio Offline
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I don't know Congo, I have an Onboard AC'97 and the sound quality isn't the best. I had a SB Live 5.1 once and it sound much better than this. I really don't like the sound quality I'm getting with the Onboard card.

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Reply #3 - Aug 22^nd, 2004 at 3:50pm

congo Offline
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I've found the same thing on older boards. My nForce2 mainboard's onboard sound is clearly better than my SB Live 5.1 though. Also there isn't any measureable performance difference with my rig... CPU 2800+

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #4 - Aug 22^nd, 2004 at 4:26pm

Selbio Offline
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I heard VIA based motherboards have poor sound quality, this is my case. Sometimes when I Listen to music the sound breaks up.

Best Regards,&&Selby&&

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Reply #5 - Aug 22^nd, 2004 at 4:50pm

Iroquois Offline
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I have the Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1. Great sound comes out of that. I never use the AC97 so I don't know how good it is. It doesn't support 5.1 so it's no good to me.
A really good one is the SB Audigy2 ZS series. These are the only soundcards I've seen that support DTS which is a big plus if you watch DVDs on your computer. They start at $100US.

I only pretend to know what I'm talking about. Heck, that's what lawyers, car mechanics, and IT professionals do everyday. Wink

&&The Rig: &&AMD Athlon XP2000+ Palomino, ECS K7S5A 3.1, 1GB PC2700 DDR, Geforce FX5200 128mb, SB Live Platinum, 16xDVD, 16x10x40x CDRW, 40/60gb 7200rpm HDD, 325w Power, Windows XP Home SP1, Directx 9.0c with 66.81 Beta gfx drivers

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Reply #6 - Aug 22^nd, 2004 at 5:37pm

Delta_ Offline
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I have a VIA board (from Gigabyte) and it has AC' 97. I have disabled it from my bios and the performance does not increase notably. Also i have no problems with sound quality on mine. I find the quality excellent. Selbio have you tried updating drivers for it. I don't see why you should have bad sound quality when i have excellent sound quality.

Also AC'97 does support 5.1, or atleast on mine it does.

My system:Intel Q6600@3.6GHz, Corsair XMS2 4GB DDR2-6400 (4-4-4-12-1T) , Sapphire 7850 OC 2BG 920/5000, X-Fi Fatality, Corsair AX 750, 7 Pro x64

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Reply #7 - Aug 22^nd, 2004 at 6:21pm

Politically Incorrect Offline
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Quote:

A really good one is the SB Audigy2 ZS series. These are the only soundcards I've seen that support DTS which is a big plus if you watch DVDs on your computer. They start at $100US.

I added a SB Audigy 2 ZS along with 7:1 suround speakers ($168 for a bundle deal at Buy.com) and I love it!
Music sounds awesome and games will blow you away!
Nothing like firing up a DC3 with the volume maxed out, now it is almost "As real as it gets!" Cheesy

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Reply #8 - Aug 22^nd, 2004 at 11:04pm

congo Offline
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I think the variable quality with onboard sound is the version of the chips used, the driver version and the way the mainboard (chipset) handles the soundchip.

Many new mainboards have great onboard sound that would suit most users, but the sound enthusiast will want more.

It's still a question of how much load the soundcard, (onboard or otherwise), places on the CPU, affecting performance. They all differ. Slower systems will be affected noticeably, while fast systems won't matter much.

Mainboard: Asus P5K-Premium, CPU=Intel E6850 @ x8x450fsb 3.6ghz, RAM: 4gb PC8500 Team Dark, Video: NV8800GT, HDD: 2x1Tb Samsung F3 RAID-0 + 1Tb F3, PSU: Antec 550 Basiq, OS: Win7x64, Display: 24" WS LCD

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Reply #9 - Aug 23^rd, 2004 at 7:52pm

Selbio Offline
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I have the ALC658 sound chipset. At least it sounds better than the C-media onboard sound cards I've used in the past. Before I put in the video card I noticed that the sound was breaking up real bad on fs9 specially during take off. After the new video card was installed it does it only whenever I'm listening to some songs. i noticed that if I disabled the sound by pressing the Q key in fs9 fsp will increase as well as performance.
I'm going to wait though, my main priority now is the PSU, specially now that the one I just replaced( in warranty HiPro PSU 250w) was getting real hot last night even harder than the air coming out of it.

Best Regards,&&Selby&&

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Reply #10 - Aug 25^th, 2004 at 4:35pm

4_Series_Scania Offline
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The economical Soundblaster Live series soundcards weren't too bad with CPU load, but the new onboard AC'97 sound etc., is much better in my opinion for sound quality; I'm not sure about the CPU load though.

I assume you've not discovered the "Chipmunk effect" that AC-97 brings out in Battlefield 1942? not to mention severe performance problems with GTA 3 & Vice City....?

I recently had to go back to my AC-97 soundcard (it only cost me £4!) when I snapped my audio plug on my SB Live 5.1 by God, it was nice to get it back in once replaced with a new one, I could'nt believe how much trouble I had with the AC-97 chipset.

"Papa Bear to all units, red dog, red dog, casualty count is high" - a quote from the Desert Combat mod for BF 1942 - imagine that if said after a few tokes on Helium! you get the definition of the Chipmunk effect! I'm still laughing thinking about it! Grin

Posting drivel here since Jan 31st, 2002. - That long!

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Reply #11 - Aug 30^th, 2004 at 10:07pm

Selbio Offline
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I experience that playing BF1942 and many pther problems. Mafia is the worse. I cannot play Mafia on this sopund setup I have otherwise I will hear the chipmunks for real. I first discovered this when I got my first Nvidia Nforce 2 motherboard with the ALC650 sound chipset. I had to buy a SB live 5.1.
I finally decided to get a better power supply. I bought an Allied PSU with 300W which isn't much but at least is better than the Hipro 250w I have at the moment. Hopefully I can buy a decent sound card now.

Best Regards,&&Selby&&

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