Main > Main Forum

Any benefit to using cheap sound card instead of onboard audio?

Pages: << < (2/3) > >>

Minwah:

I used to disable inbuild audio and use a SoundBlaster 16PCI, but I think unless you are using a very old PC it's not really worth it. I've tried it on a P4 2.8ghz in XP and it doesn't make any noticeable difference (as far as I can tell).

For a really old PC though it's worth trying to free up as much CPU as possible.

WindDrake:

I don't see it saving any CPU cycles anyhow, as the audio codec sits on a dedicated bus (HDA) on the Southbridge. I can't see operating a PCIE device instead of the dedicated part saving anything.

It was only worth it back in the pre-AC97 days, when more of the codec's functions ended up software, and thus CPU, driven.

Like those horrible PCTel Winmodems, for those of you guys who remember them.

BadMouth:

These PCs are 3.4Ghz triple cores, so I guess it's really not worth bothering with.

The games that run almost perfect except for occasional sound skips drive me nuts.
I succeeded in getting California Speed to stay at 100% in all but a couple sections by tweaking MAME settings and disabling stuff in XP.
The other day I finally got around to reducing the resolution in the service menu of NFL Blitz and now it plays perfectly with no sound skips.
Of course, every time you get one working great, there is another on the verge no matter how fast your processor.

I may add a good sound card to my standup cab though.  I put a lot of time into the speaker layout and I'm not happy with the sound quality.
It just doesn't sound as open and dynamic as I think it should.  The onboard audio has an option for 192kHz and it sounds sooooo much better then the default 44.1, but at that setting it doesn't allow you to use the EQ or any other tweaks.  I know using the software EQ eats up cycles, but for this cab the sound quality on the NAOMI shmups is important to me.  I considered adding a car EQ, but I'd rather not add any more components that need powered.

spoot:


--- Quote from: WindDrake on May 24, 2013, 10:13:33 am ---Like those horrible PCTel Winmodems, for those of you guys who remember them.

--- End quote ---

EWE!  Why did you have to remind me of those  :censored: things?   :'(

brad808:


--- Quote from: BadMouth on May 24, 2013, 10:35:36 am ---I may add a good sound card to my standup cab though.  I put a lot of time into the speaker layout and I'm not happy with the sound quality.
It just doesn't sound as open and dynamic as I think it should.  The onboard audio has an option for 192kHz and it sounds sooooo much better then the default 44.1, but at that setting it doesn't allow you to use the EQ or any other tweaks.

--- End quote ---

That's actually sort of strange because I would guess that almost none of the content you would be listening to would have been recorded in that high of a sample rate to begin with. That means it's converting everything on the way out. Meaning if you took a 1 second piece of audio that had 44100 samples taken of it (original recording) and then decided to take those 44100 samples and represent them with 192000 samples there shouldn't be an audible improvement (not saying there isn't... Just that in theory there shouldn't be, in fact it should sound worse.) If they have an option for 48khz, 88.2khz or 96khz have you tried those? How do those compare to the 192kHz or 44.1khz?

Just for my own curiosity is all :)

Sent from my Nexus 4


Pages: << < (2/3) > >>

Go to full version