Audigy 2 vs. Onboard sound

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xxaaqq

[H]ard|Gawd
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While I'm sure many of you will tell me that the Audigy 2 is superior to onboard sound, I still have a few questions.

To introduce my questions, I'll tell you that I am currently using the onboard sound on my Gigabyte GA-K8VNXP with a barely adequate 4.1 speaker system (Logitech Soundman SR-30 4.1). The sound chip is an AC97 solution, specifically the ALC 658, I believe. I have an Audigy 2, but the reason I'm not using it is that I wanted to play games rather than sit around figuring out how to get the rear speakers to work with the Creative card.

What I want to know is if the load on the CPU from onboard sound is significant enough that using the add-in card will actually produce any sort of noticeable difference in frame rates or benchmark scores. Okay, so maybe I only have one question, and I didn't even word it in question form, but hopefully those of you who fret over 2 FPS will help me out anyway :)
 
Mikey20... your post was pointless, and you did not address my question at all.

Let me use this analogy: I have a Ferrari, and a Ford Escort. Now as it turns out, to drive the Ferrari, I have to cut off my leg, and shove it in the engine compartment. To drive the Escort, I just get in and it goes. Is driving the Ferrari worth the trouble of cutting off my leg?

Although, in this case, the Audigy 2 might not be as much of an improvement over the latest onboard sound chips as a Ferrari is over an Escort, and if so that leg is really quite important to me.
 
how was mikey's post uninformative? just because he didn't go into detail?

basically what you're saying is you're too lazy to do a bit of homework and figure out how to use your video card properly and want to know if onboard sound is good?

compared to your mobo's onboard sound, audigy 2 is much better. you should take the 15 minutes to figure out how to plug in your speakers and benefit from much better sound and probably a bit of an improvement on framerates. sound takes resources, onboard or aftermarket, but the audigy 2 is good, and there's no real reason to not be using it if you don't have better
 
Well, your post is helpful.

Forums are a forum of research, and unfortunately, the search is disabled. All Mikey20 did was give an opinion, and one that I already stated I knew. What you did differently is tell me that in your opinion (or perhaps experience or research), the sound card will help with resources and better sound quality. Of course, my ultimate question here is:

Does the onboard sound use resources that the Audigy 2 will not use, thus improving overall system performance?

It wouldn't hurt if someone could post suggestions cluing me into why the rear speakers aren't working.

The wires were not plugged in wrong. There was an issue with configuration. I'm not being lazy. I'm being impatient. I don't like spending hours getting a sound card to work when there's an alternative that lets me game right away. And I don't like that I paid Creative $90 for a sound card that doesn't want to work properly, although perhaps some of the blame should be put on VIA, for so frequently building chipsets that find ways to conflict with the Creative cards.
 
The Audigy2 will use fewer CPU cycles when utilizing a 3D sound API it is compatible with that the CODEC can also use.

The %CPU usage of a particular onboard solution is not solely determined by the CODEC chip in use - the implementation of the CODEC by the mobo manufacturer determines to some extent how efficiently the CODEC operates, so it's impossible to give you a good guess of the difference without measuring.

With an Athlon 64 I strongly doubt the CPU utilization difference will be noticable in gameplay relative to the A2.
You can however, run a timedemo with either one or the other solution and compare the numbers if you're really concerned about it. Any answer you get here will be purely speculation unless you can find someone with the same motherboard to do testing for you.

And I don't like that I paid Creative $90 for a sound card that doesn't want to work properly, although perhaps some of the blame should be put on VIA, for so frequently building chipsets that find ways to conflict with the Creative cards.
Click to expand...

Creative's inability to comply with PCI2.1 or 2.2 specification was not VIA's fault. VIA's chipsets complied perfectly well with the PCI2.1 specs
I doubt in this case that the problem is caused by the A2 however, more likely the drivers are configured incorrectly or there is an IRQ sharing violation or a software conflict because the onboard sound was not turned off, or some such.
 
Well, I did have onboard sound disabled. The only problem is that the second output was not putting anything out.

I did not know about the PCI specification issue. I will just have to try again with the Audigy 2 sometime. Frustrating... but so far not as frustrating as the time I had with my SBLive! MP3+ card...

EDIT: I'm starting to get frustrated again! I've tried a few different PCI slots, with the same results. The card recognizes two wires plugged into the 1 and 2 output jacks as desktop speakers, and just feeds 2 channels of sound. When I try to install any of the Creative software, such as Speaker Setup or Surround Mixer, it stops with an error of "Setup did not find required hardware. Setup will now exit." Why does Creative suck so much :( :( :(
 
Anyone successfully install an Audigy 2 card into a K8T800 system, and be able to have 4.1 channel sound using the #1 and #2 output jacks?
 
Originally posted by xxaaqq
Anyone successfully install an Audigy 2 card into a K8T800 system, and be able to have 4.1 channel sound using the #1 and #2 output jacks?
Click to expand...

If it has a PCI slot, it will be a sucsess...
 
I am living proof that this is not true.

However, Creative has responded to my email. Once I've gone through these steps (basically a complete uninstall of drivers, and freshly installing them), I'll see if I have any better luck.
 
xxaq the problem isnt with the sound card or the system, the only way 4.1 will work is if you use something that utilizes 4.1 unless you have the new drivers and surround mixer, then you have to enable CMSS surround upmix which will upmix all your 2 channle sound onto all 4 channles, this isnt the sound cards fault or the drivers, it's doing its job of being accurate, reproducing 2channle stream over 2 channles, if you want 4.1 then you have to use the stereo upmix, which doesnt add any 3d effects thank god.

I actually sold my A2 and used the onbord soundcard because they didnt have this option before, and i didnt want any 3d effects while listening to music on 4 channels. But like 2 weeks after I sold my sound card they released new drivers that did that :( blah! now i have an A2 ZS, Either way you have to set it to stereo upmix in the CMSS settings, and then you can have 4.1 audio.
 
I don't think that's really the problem. I've had the Audigy 2 for perhaps 10 months now, and on my old system, it worked the way I expected to. When I'd look at my sound settings in the control panel, I'd see "surround speakers", not "stereo" or "desktop". Whether or not games or applications made use of the surround isn't the problem. Having the card work the way it should is. Unfortunately, my brother is borrowing my laptop and the only copy of my email from Creative is on there, so I've got to wait to try getting it to work right.
 
Creative's inability to comply with PCI2.1 or 2.2 specification was not VIA's fault. VIA's chipsets complied perfectly well with the PCI2.1 specs
Click to expand...
That is funny because I have always thought it was the other way around.
VIA's implementation of PCI2.1 was lax and Creative's products demanded strict compliance with this specification. My conclusion is based on this old ass article from Tecchannel.de and as such I freely admit to being oblivious to any other source that could prove my interpretation to be wrong.
But then again I really don't think this has anything to do with the problem this person is having. ;)

Originally posted by xxaaqq
The wires were not plugged in wrong. There was an issue with configuration. I'm not being lazy. I'm being impatient. I don't like spending hours getting a sound card to work when there's an alternative that lets me game right away.
Click to expand...

Originally posted by xxaaqq
The card recognizes two wires plugged into the 1 and 2 output jacks as desktop speakers, and just feeds 2 channels of sound. .
Click to expand...
Originally posted by xxaaqq
I've had the Audigy 2 for perhaps 10 months now, and on my old system, it worked the way I expected to. When I'd look at my sound settings in the control panel, I'd see "surround speakers", not "stereo" or "desktop".
Click to expand...

Umm, yea. Sure. :rolleyes:
If I take all of those quotes and put them together.....It sure sounds like you are being lazy to me, but you do have a legitimate problem that compounds the problem you are having. We will get to that later but for now all you have to do is read the product manual to find out the Soundcard does not autosense what speakers you have plugged into it.
You have to tell the Card/OS what kind of speakers you have. In this case you would select Quadraphonic speakers from the drop down list.
Maybe a picture will help?
dumbtruck.jpg


Originally posted by xxaaqq
When I try to install any of the Creative software, such as Speaker Setup or Surround Mixer, it stops with an error of "Setup did not find required hardware. Setup will now exit."
Click to expand...
You should not have this problem if you removed the onboard audio drivers from the system.
What drivers are you using for the Audigy2?
I have seen the EAX4 drivers cause this problem before on my system. I would uninstall your current drivers and install the drivers and apps from the CD before you update to the latest drivers.
If that doesn't work then you can always install the programs from their respective folders on the installation CD. They each have a sperate installer that does not query the hardware during the installation.
Let us know what you figure out. :)
 
Thank you budaben. That helped me install my sound card...

X86Dude... I did select the type of speakers. After restarting the computer, the type of speakers is re-selected as stereo.

However, I believe the email from Creative is saying what you are saying about uninstalling the more recent drivers and trying the drivers from CD. The only part I don't remember exactly is the way to uninstall the current drivers, since it is atypical.

Also, if the problem was just speaker selection, I wouldn't be as unhappy about it, but it's also a problem of Creative's own software not recognizing the Audigy 2 as even installed, and therefore not installing. It's not that I really wanted to use that software, but I thought perhaps the speaker setup or surround mixer software would take over control of configuring what speakers I was using, and make things work properly. The same reason why you have Creative software in one of your screen shots. That's a screen I can't get to because that software won't even install for me. Anyway, I'll update this thread when I reinstall the Audigy 2.

Btw, originally, when I first installed Windows, I had the onboard sound disabled, and the Audigy 2 installed, so that onboard drivers wouldn't even be installed in the first place. But the Audigy 2 still didn't work right. But I guess that's my fault for not magically knowing that the latest drivers have issues... sometimes... though not on my old system.
 
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