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

[BadMouth]

I usually disable networking and other unused processes to free up every last bit of processor power for emulators.

I have a couple real cheap sound cards laying around that I have no use for.
They do have the creative logo printed on the chips.

Would it free up CPU cycles if I used a card for sound instead of the onboard?

I'm not talking about expensive sound cards that sound better, but the kind you can get brand new for $6 on fleabay.

[JDFan]

Depends -- what OS are you using ?  If XP then if the card offers direct Audio Hardware Acceleration then yes - If the  card does not have the audio Hardware acceleration or you are using VISTA\Win 7 then no real difference since MS rewrote the audio sub system beginning with Vista and no longer allowed the Hardware Accelleration to be used (unless you also used Alchemy ) so the benefit of using a dedicated sound card was no longer beneficial vs. using onboard chips so no real advantage to using a cheap sound card anymore.

[BadMouth]

Depends -- what OS are you using ?  If XP then if the card offers direct Audio Hardware Acceleration then yes - If the  card does not have the audio Hardware acceleration or you are using VISTA\Win 7 then no real difference since MS rewrote the audio sub system beginning with Vista and no longer allowed the Hardware Accelleration to be used (unless you also used Alchemy ) so the benefit of using a dedicated sound card was no longer beneficial vs. using onboard chips so no real advantage to using a cheap sound card anymore.

Thanks for the informative reply. 

I did some googling & reading, but I'm unclear as to whether the software would have to support direct hardware acceleration.
Let's say the card does support it.  Would MAME utilize it or would that audio still get passed to the software audio engine?

[JDFan]

IIRC - When Vista came out Microsoft rewrote the audio stack so that it could no longer be accessed directly (they say that the direct hardware access to the stack was causing much of the system instability so didn't want third parties being able to access it anymore since people blamed MS for the system crashing and not the third party ! ) which pretty much made using a addin sound card futile (until creative labs developed Alchemy which used some other workarounds to regain direct access) - That and the multiple core CPUs that most are using now has pretty much meant the end of using the cheaper discrete sound cards since the newer onboard chips along with multiple CPU cores has meant there is no real advantage to using them any more and if what MS says is true they might actual introduce more problems with stability.

If you are using an older single or perhaps even dual core cpu and XP then you might see some benefit from the card but otherwise they are pretty much obsolete (unless you are talking some of the higher end cards that improve the quality of the sound output)

In answer to your question though I believe (but have been known to be wrong in the past !) just the OS has to support the hardware accelleration in order for it to be used and not the specific program such as MAME.

[lilshawn]

the way MS modded the audio stack is the shits and i hate it. as much as I love 7, xp was way better.

with XP I could run multiple audio streams from different sources to different audio systems... play games on my main desktop screen using the speakers or headphone adapter as it's source. and play a movie file on my 2nd screen (HDMI to TV) with the audio stream from the video going out the digital/HDMI.

with the way they rewrote the stack, you can only have one device at a time so it's all or nothing,...even though they show multiple volume controls for the devices and programs

also if anybody knows a way to fix (break) windows 7 i'm also interested.

[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]

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

EWE!  Why did you have to remind me of those  things?   

[brad808]

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.

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

[BadMouth]

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.

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

Yeah, I can't imagine it would have been recorded at that high of a bitrate and also doubt the emulator is any higher than 44.1kHz.
I'll have to look into the emulator.

Anyway, 44.1 sounds condensed and devoid of any sparkle in the highs.  Almost monotone.  Kinda like a full range speaker that is muddy and can't resolve any detail in the highs.  At this level, the software gives me an EQ which helps a little.  I'm exaggerating a bit here for the sake of showing the differences.  It's not bad, it's just not the sound I want.
 
96khz is slightly better compared to 44.1 without the EQ.  I lose the EQ at this level though, so it ends up not being much better compared to 44.1 with the EQ.  I'd probably rank them about the same.  They sound different, but neither one is much better than the other.

With 192kHz, the highs suddenly have the sparkle and clarity that was lacking in the other two settings.  It sounds less muddy.  The stereo separation also seems improved and it feels more like I'm standing in the sweet spot of a stereo setup rather than across from a monotone single speaker.  It's not perfect and could use some equalization, but it's definitely clearer.

Could be that the audio software is introducing some other kind of processing at that level.  I don't know.

Those are the only 3 options it gives me.  I'll look into the emulator (Makaron).

[Yenome]

the way MS modded the audio stack is the shits and i hate it. as much as I love 7, xp was way better.

with XP I could run multiple audio streams from different sources to different audio systems... play games on my main desktop screen using the speakers or headphone adapter as it's source. and play a movie file on my 2nd screen (HDMI to TV) with the audio stream from the video going out the digital/HDMI.

with the way they rewrote the stack, you can only have one device at a time so it's all or nothing,...even though they show multiple volume controls for the devices and programs

also if anybody knows a way to fix (break) windows 7 i'm also interested.

i do that with 7 everyday. games play their sound through the speakers but skype only comes across the headset. your pc it self must also be able to push diff audio streams. i can push 3. hdmi, onboard, front jacks. i had to turn the option on in my sound drivers but it was there.

[brad808]

Hmm just a thought but I'm wondering if the EQ processing is always engaged at 44.1khz. In the sense that even if you aren't adjusting anything in the EQ settings the audio is still going through the algorithm of the EQ and actually making the sound worse due to poor quality EQ software.

If that were the case then it would make sense that 192kHz and 96khz both sound better if they don't have the EQ software built into their processing.



Even though you probably couldn't care less, if you ever have a rainy day you could do a cool experiment that would show you if the audio processing is changing the sound. The basic idea is that if you have any multitrack audio software, if you have two identical audio files on two different tracks and reverse the phase of one then they will completely cancel each other out.

There used to be a program out there that could take internal audio streams and route them to inputs in audio programs to eliminate any analog interference from playing a part. Keep it all digital and record the audio file playing through the built in EQ with no settings changed. Line the two tracks up (there will be slight latency caused on recorded track of a few samples so you will have to line them up again). Then flip the phase on one and see if it nulls the tracks out.

.... Like I said only for the curious on a rainy day :-)

Sent from my Nexus 4

[lilshawn]

if you are getting sound skipping try and disable in the bios anything you don';t need. this frees up IRQ so they don't get shared.

while normally not a problem, a shared IRQ can cause issues if you try to access 2 items at the same time on the same IRQ

often a com port and the sound share the same IRQ. if you access the comport whilest playing audio, you can get a skip in the sound stream while the device listens to the CPU. once the sound realizes it's not needed it resumes. My uncle had a computer that while playing MP3's, if you dialed out to the internet, when the computer sent the IRQ to the com port of the modem to go off hook and dial the number, the MP3 would stop playing for a second. turned out the modem and the soundcard shared the same IRQ (5).

moving or reassigning IRQ's to these items often fixes the issue. check your drivers for your sound too. update them to the newest, or even try an older version if you can find it. sometimes they rewrite drivers tom add features, but ultimately break a subsystem.

[Eddie_Brock]

Another *potential* benefit that others here have not mentioned.

Again, really depends on your operating system... Game Port. A lot of older sound cards had a gameport interface on the back for plugging in joysticks and flight sticks. Microsoft removed support for GamePort on Windows 7, but if you're on XP, you could theoretically plug in an old ThrustMaster etc.