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Are sound cards worth the money?
- Thread starter Rubbish
- Start date
Mobo? Not at all.
CPU? Some. In absolute 'best case' situations, with a rather week CPU, 15%-20% FPS boost, tops.
What it makes a difference in is QUALITY. For starters, no onboard audio solution has better than EAX2, whereas most games today are coming out with EAX5 support.
Although it wasn't specifically intended to show it, this page has one of the best examples of why EAX matters. Let it load, and go to the 'Videos' page. Compare the 'Windows Vista' vs 'Windows Vista & Creative ALchemy' to get a good example of how a game sounds without EAX, then with it.
Another big plus is in music listening, and - especially with the X-Fi cards - 3d positioning over headphones. Good headphones with 3dss-headphone-3d sound a LOT more accurate than even 7.1 systems. (I mean, think about it, you only have 2 ears, right? Why do you need 8 speakers?)
CPU? Some. In absolute 'best case' situations, with a rather week CPU, 15%-20% FPS boost, tops.
What it makes a difference in is QUALITY. For starters, no onboard audio solution has better than EAX2, whereas most games today are coming out with EAX5 support.
Although it wasn't specifically intended to show it, this page has one of the best examples of why EAX matters. Let it load, and go to the 'Videos' page. Compare the 'Windows Vista' vs 'Windows Vista & Creative ALchemy' to get a good example of how a game sounds without EAX, then with it.
Another big plus is in music listening, and - especially with the X-Fi cards - 3d positioning over headphones. Good headphones with 3dss-headphone-3d sound a LOT more accurate than even 7.1 systems. (I mean, think about it, you only have 2 ears, right? Why do you need 8 speakers?)
Diseaseboy
[H]ard|Gawd
- Joined
- Mar 27, 2001
- Messages
- 1,206
I would wait until a true hardware accelerated Vista soundcard comes out. You should be fine with the mb sound until then. Creative's drivers are still flakey (even the latest beta ones from yesterday). I would save my money and wait for this fall when drivers mature and possible new soundcards come out that excel in Vista.
Moogle Stiltzkin
Gawd
- Joined
- Nov 11, 2004
- Messages
- 814
Disease i've been holding out with my old Audigy 2 Zs for ages. I even passed up on XFI since audio at the time was my lowest priority.
But since then i have changed my mind.
EAX and surround sound work on Vista using XFI, that is why i just ordered the XFI Prelude since the hardware had consistently better components than Creative's offerings while still offering me CMS3d and EAX 5 which is important for me as a gamer, and still offer great sound for music ( so i hear )
Yeah Creative drivers are crap and bloatware, but i've suffered enough as it is and as long as it works thats fine, but i'll still reply on Creative forum why they make such crappy drivers until they get it right
What i wonder is how will Vista SP1 XAUDIO affect my sound card purchase ?
But since then i have changed my mind.
EAX and surround sound work on Vista using XFI, that is why i just ordered the XFI Prelude since the hardware had consistently better components than Creative's offerings while still offering me CMS3d and EAX 5 which is important for me as a gamer, and still offer great sound for music ( so i hear )
Yeah Creative drivers are crap and bloatware, but i've suffered enough as it is and as long as it works thats fine, but i'll still reply on Creative forum why they make such crappy drivers until they get it right
What i wonder is how will Vista SP1 XAUDIO affect my sound card purchase ?
I wouldn't touch a creative card with a bargepole. The only hardware problems i've EVER had in the past six years were due entirely to the Sblive (in my old AthlonMP), then the Audigy2 I was running in this box (dual opty 2210) - hardlocks all over the place.
The card now sits in a cupboard somewhere, because I get a more stable system with the onboard audio.
Then again, i'm not too worried about games, in fact i'm more interested in professional audio solutions right now - though it'd be nice to have a card that does everything (that isn't a creative card).
The card now sits in a cupboard somewhere, because I get a more stable system with the onboard audio.
Then again, i'm not too worried about games, in fact i'm more interested in professional audio solutions right now - though it'd be nice to have a card that does everything (that isn't a creative card).