Onboard audio vs a Sound Card

[Cocytus]

I game a good bit, the latest titles (Doom 3, Half Life 2, FarCry...)

Should I stick with the onboard audio of my Nforce2 board, or get an audio card?

Does the integrated audio saddle the CPU's overhead? Will the audio card (fully or partially) unsaddle the CPU?

Sorry in advance for the newbish question...

 

[cmdrmoocow]

Unless you have the Karajan onboard audio (or perhaps Soundstorm), a hardware sound card will help unload the CPU slightly.

Keep in mind the term 'slightly'.

 

[Patt]

I played all the games you mentioned with my NForce2 board's onboard sound, and had no problems. Then purchased an Audigy 2 ZS card, played again and only noticed a very slight difference in CPU usage. However, the extra effects from the card EAX etc. really make the sound that much better.

 

[NEVERwinter]

Stick with it, unless if you want better sound quality -get HTPC cards such as Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1, or if you want better sound effect in games (EAX3/EAX4) -get Audigy card. But basically, nForce Soundstorm is pretty good for common use.

 

[Slaimus]

Actually, the nForce2 onboard sound has the lowest CPU usage, even compared to high end gaming cards. If framerates are your concern, then it is the best.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Slaimus
Actually, the nForce2 onboard sound has the lowest CPU usage, even compared to high end gaming cards. If framerates are your concern, then it is the best.

Yep.

My opinion on this whole thing??

I have an nForce2 board and I own an Audigy 2. My Audigy 2 is currently gathering dust in the closet. That should sum it up for you.

The nForce2 sound and eax support are just fine. The drivers are rock solid for the nForce. (Creative drivers are shit)

 

[Hyperlite]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: Slaimus
Actually, the nForce2 onboard sound has the lowest CPU usage, even compared to high end gaming cards. If framerates are your concern, then it is the best.

Yep.

My opinion on this whole thing??

I have an nForce2 board and I own an Audigy 2. My Audigy 2 is currently gathering dust in the closet. That should sum it up for you.

The nForce2 sound and eax support are just fine. The drivers are rock solid for the nForce. (Creative drivers are shit)

heres my address...

 

[statik213]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: Slaimus
Actually, the nForce2 onboard sound has the lowest CPU usage, even compared to high end gaming cards. If framerates are your concern, then it is the best.

Yep.

My opinion on this whole thing??

I have an nForce2 board and I own an Audigy 2. My Audigy 2 is currently gathering dust in the closet. That should sum it up for you.

The nForce2 sound and eax support are just fine. The drivers are rock solid for the nForce. (Creative drivers are shit)

can i have it then?

 

[Nothinman]

Does the integrated audio saddle the CPU's overhead? Will the audio card (fully or partially) unsaddle the CPU?

Maybe, depends on the card. The fact that it's soldered to the motherboard instead of onto a seperate pcb is irrelevant.

 

[tfinch2]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Does the integrated audio saddle the CPU's overhead? Will the audio card (fully or partially) unsaddle the CPU?

Maybe, depends on the card. The fact that it's soldered to the motherboard instead of onto a seperate pcb is irrelevant.

Winnar. No matter where the I/O device onboard or not the controller is still going to interupt the CPU

 

[Seeruk]

I will never ever use or buy another creative product due to their appalling drivers and their insane policy of insisting the old (usually very broken) drivers from the CD must be instaled 1st and then pile all kinds of patches and bloatware on top.

 

[bersl2]

Make sure that any given sound hardware does its DSP in hardware. Most on-motherboard solutions don't. Most discrete sound cards do. Fortunately, so does Nforce2.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Seeruk
I will never ever use or buy another creative product due to their appalling drivers and their insane policy of insisting the old (usually very broken) drivers from the CD must be instaled 1st and then pile all kinds of patches and bloatware on top.

Ditto

 

[Gamingphreek]

Onboard Sound will only be taxing to the system and sound bad if it does not have an APU and uses relatively low quality componenets

The Soundstorm and Via Vinyl/Envy sound both have APUs. Therefore instead of going through the CPU and taking up process cycles like most onboard audio, all the audio tasks are offloaded to the APU.

Soundstorm has the lowest CPU Utilization of any solution on the market followed closely by the Audigy's. The DFI's Karajan audio module though still not as good as either is worlds better than any standard onboard solution. See Anands review of the soundcards.

As far as EAX goes. IIRC Soundstorm supports EAX, and EAX2; additionally i think the Envy supports EAX but nothing else. The only solutions that supprot EAX3 and Advanced HD (4) are the Audigy series. IMO you shouldn't upgrade based on EAX support at all.

-Kevin

 

[Nothinman]

I will never ever use or buy another creative product due to their appalling drivers and their insane policy of insisting the old (usually very broken) drivers from the CD must be instaled 1st and then pile all kinds of patches and bloatware on top.

I have a SBLive and I'll not be replacing it until it dies, but then I'm using Linux so I don't have to deal with their Windows drivers.

 

[housecat]

my unwanted opinion?

Creative sucks.

Dont ever use their junk. If you want a sound card, get one for BETTER SOUND quality like a Envy24 based card ie. M-Audio Revolution. Dont buy a sound card soley for cpu utilization.

I'd like to see benches at the res you game at, with onboard and an audigy.. you wouldnt notice the differnce at all without benching.

I hate EAX, you realize its mainly a "environmental" effect engine and relies upon good old DirectSound3D to do positioning right?
If you like your sound sounding like its being beat out of a empty barrel, then you'll love gaming in EAX modes.

 

[imported_michealo]

I will never ever use or buy another creative product due to their appalling drivers and their insane policy of insisting the old (usually very broken) drivers from the CD must be instaled 1st and then pile all kinds of patches and bloatware on top.

exaggerations

you no longer need the drivers cd, or install anything above and beyond the required drivers. haven't for quite some time now

 

[nycdude]

Anyone know the same question for a MSI K8N neo2 motherboard??? I still have a Audigy sound card lying around.

LMK
Thanks

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: michealo

I will never ever use or buy another creative product due to their appalling drivers and their insane policy of insisting the old (usually very broken) drivers from the CD must be instaled 1st and then pile all kinds of patches and bloatware on top.

exaggerations

you no longer need the drivers cd, or install anything above and beyond the required drivers. haven't for quite some time now

Partial exaggeration I'll say. True that you can avoid much of the bloatware now by doing drivers only. The control panel applets still suck and the part about the drivers being the suck is absolutely the truth though. Horrible drivers and they don't seem to care much.

 

[Nothinman]

Horrible drivers and they don't seem to care much.

Ironic then, since their drivers are among the best for Linux IMO.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Nothinman

Horrible drivers and they don't seem to care much.

Ironic then, since their drivers are among the best for Linux IMO.

Must .. resist .. linux ... jab ... can't... stop...

So what a Windows user would see as piss-poor would be considered great for Linux?



hehe, but seriously it's apples to oranges.

Relative to other Windows drivers for all devices in general, the creative soundcard drivers are definately sub-par. It's good to hear they have it together for Linux though.

 

[Nothinman]

hehe, but seriously it's apples to oranges.

I know, but the Linux drivers are small, unobtrusive and "just work" which sounds like what you'd want from the Windows ones. And the cards do hardware mixing, something that's getting harder to find in a soundcard these days, hell some don't even do hardware volume control anymore.

Relative to other Windows drivers for all devices in general, the creative soundcard drivers are definately sub-par. It's good to hear they have it together for Linux though.

I believe what really happened is they released sub-par Linux drivers too, but the cards were cheap (I got my SBLive for ~$20 bucks years ago) and they did hardware mixing and all that crap so they were popular and since the drivers were GPL they were eventually brought into a good state and put in the official kernel.

 

[Smilin]

Originally posted by: Nothinman
I know, but the Linux drivers are small, unobtrusive and "just work" which sounds like what you'd want from the Windows ones.

Yes, I'm jealous (or would be if I hadn't written off creative some time ago). You took my jab at Linux well btw. :beer:

 

[Nothinman]

Yes, I'm jealous (or would be if I hadn't written off creative some time ago). You took my jab at Linux well btw.

Because I know it's not true =) I did my days of fighting with Windows drivers, being able to type 'modprobe emu10k1' and have my sound card 'just work' is great. And now the hotplug scripts with most distros handle hardware detection so it's even less work.

 

[housecat]

Originally posted by: Smilin

Originally posted by: michealo

I will never ever use or buy another creative product due to their appalling drivers and their insane policy of insisting the old (usually very broken) drivers from the CD must be instaled 1st and then pile all kinds of patches and bloatware on top.

exaggerations

you no longer need the drivers cd, or install anything above and beyond the required drivers. haven't for quite some time now

Partial exaggeration I'll say. True that you can avoid much of the bloatware now by doing drivers only. The control panel applets still suck and the part about the drivers being the suck is absolutely the truth though. Horrible drivers and they don't seem to care much.

IIRC, you still do indeed need to install the apps off the CD first. Then do all kinds of patches and even more bloatware on top of the bloatware apps.

The drivers, you can download directly from Creative w/o the CD, yes.
But you have to download patches and updates in order for those too. They dont have just one driver file update, they have you go from 1.2 to 1.3 then to 1.4 (for an example) in that order.

So yes, they are still completely gay, and it is still a pain in the a$$.
But you CAN get a Creative card working w/o the CD.. I guess theres an emphasis on the work involved.. but nonetheless..

Thats how it was with my audigy1 just 1 month ago, before I sold it on ebay.

Now I format my PC, go to Nvidia.com, get the latest NF4 standalone pack and my video driver... and all done. Couldnt be any easier, even in linux.

Then you consider how great some of these (non-Creative) drivers, at least, are, and its no small reason you dont hear complaints on drivers other than Creative's.

Creative deserves their reputation, they wrought every bit of it on themselves.
Its a marketing company, their product is not that great, and their support is worse.