onboard sound good enough?

[Nightfalls]

Do you think the sound hardware integrated in modern motherboards (ac97, soundstorm etc) is good enough for MAME and a MAME cabinet using 2.1 speakers with subwoofer, or should I buy an Audigy soundcard? Will onboard sound have some performance penalty which doesn't occur with an independent sound card?

[TalkingOctopus]

Onboard should be just fine for MAME.  An audigy would be a waste.

[grafixmonkey]

An audigy would be a waste.

Unless you want to be able to turn on an "arcade room ambiance" reverb effect when you play games.    

Or play the 4-player Ninja Turtles games with the "chipmunk" audio distortion effect on.  

[papaschtroumpf]

OfficeMAx has a 5.1 C-Media based sound card free  after rebate this week. I got it for my mame rig and it's decent, much better than the OC 97 built in my AL440LX motherboard., I agree that Audigy would be a waste.
Heck the maddog sound card would also be a waste if it wasn't free after rebates and I hadn't decided to add jukebox capabilities to my cabinet.

[Spaced Invader]

Most onboard sound uses processor ticks and can cause slowdown (N64 emulation with onboard sound is no fun). Depending on your processor, chipset, and the application you are trying to run; you may want to get a card. I plugged a $20 soundblaster 16 into my Athlon 1.8 Ghz box and noticed an immediate improvement in overall performance in demanding apps (games).

Just my opinion.