rec.autos.simulators

by **Mike Beaucham** » Sat, 28 Jun 2003 10:37:59

Hey all.. sort of a weird situation. I have onboard sound (K7S5A) right now,
and I'm considering buying a 5.1 card. I'm looking at either the
Soundblaster Live! for $46CDN or the Soundblaster Audigy 2 for $104CDN. The
audigy 2 is obviously newer, better, and I like that it has a firewire port.
Just incase I ever decide to get that digital video camera, I can transfer
video through the firewire port. I mean, firewire cards themselves cost $50
anyhow.

However, looking into the future... if I ever want to upgrade my computer, I
noticed that most motherboards have firewire built in and the nforce 2
boards also have 5.1 audio built in.

So, when I upgrade my computer in December or something, will I be sitting
with a $104 Audigy 2 and nothing to do with it, since the motherboard has
5.1 built in and firewire??

Theoretically, lets say I already have that nforce 2 card with the onboard
5.1 sound, would framerate and performance benefit from disabling it and
installing the audigy 2? I figure it would, since the CPU (if it is even the
CPU that does it) doesn't have to calculate all the audio stuff.

Mike
http://www.racesimcentral.net/

by **pete** » Sat, 28 Jun 2003 11:13:05

I'm pretty sure that disabling your onboard sound and installing a PCI
Soundblaster card would give you increased frame rates.

Pete

by **Haqsa** » Sat, 28 Jun 2003 12:48:33

Depends on how the onboard sound is implemented. Some of them are quite
good. See if your motherboard is reviewed on www.hardocp.com, they are the
only web site I have seen that bothers to check the effect of the onboard
sound on frame rate.

If you do decide to go with a 5.1 card, avoid the Soundblaster Live. The
drivers for XP are poor, hardware mode has never really worked right even in
Windows 9x, and besides, it's a five year old design. Would you put a 5
year old video card in your game machine? I have a couple of friends with
Audigy 2's who like them very much, if I wasn't using onboard sound I would
probably go with that.

by **Pete** » Sat, 28 Jun 2003 14:03:41

I think there is a review of cards versus nforce sound on Toms hardware.
From memory the Audigy 2 leads, but not by very much.
The Nforce was around equal to Audigy (1) or Live card.

Audigy (1) has firewire also. I have one, used for video.

--
Pete H
GPL sucks ... you in
NR2002 too

> Depends on how the onboard sound is implemented. Some of them are quite
> good. See if your motherboard is reviewed on www.hardocp.com, they are
the
> only web site I have seen that bothers to check the effect of the onboard
> sound on frame rate.

> If you do decide to go with a 5.1 card, avoid the Soundblaster Live. The
> drivers for XP are poor, hardware mode has never really worked right even
in
> Windows 9x, and besides, it's a five year old design. Would you put a 5
> year old video card in your game machine? I have a couple of friends with
> Audigy 2's who like them very much, if I wasn't using onboard sound I
would
> probably go with that.

> > Hey all.. sort of a weird situation. I have onboard sound (K7S5A) right
> now,
> > and I'm considering buying a 5.1 card. I'm looking at either the
> > Soundblaster Live! for $46CDN or the Soundblaster Audigy 2 for $104CDN.
> The
> > audigy 2 is obviously newer, better, and I like that it has a firewire
> port.
> > Just incase I ever decide to get that digital video camera, I can
transfer
> > video through the firewire port. I mean, firewire cards themselves cost
> $50
> > anyhow.

> > However, looking into the future... if I ever want to upgrade my
computer,
> I
> > noticed that most motherboards have firewire built in and the nforce 2
> > boards also have 5.1 audio built in.

> > So, when I upgrade my computer in December or something, will I be
sitting
> > with a $104 Audigy 2 and nothing to do with it, since the motherboard
has
> > 5.1 built in and firewire??

> > Theoretically, lets say I already have that nforce 2 card with the
onboard
> > 5.1 sound, would framerate and performance benefit from disabling it and
> > installing the audigy 2? I figure it would, since the CPU (if it is even
> the
> > CPU that does it) doesn't have to calculate all the audio stuff.

> > Mike
> > http://mikebeauchamp.com

by **Steve Smit** » Sat, 28 Jun 2003 20:42:31

I tried the M-Audio Revolution 7.1 with one of my 1.3-GHz Athlons. It
produced the best sound I've ever heard on my Logi Z-680s, BUT was very CPU
intensive. I went back to my Audigy 2 and put the Revolution back in the
box pending my upgrade to a Canterwood/3-Ghz P4.

> Depends on how the onboard sound is implemented. Some of them are quite
> good. See if your motherboard is reviewed on www.hardocp.com, they are
the
> only web site I have seen that bothers to check the effect of the onboard
> sound on frame rate.

> If you do decide to go with a 5.1 card, avoid the Soundblaster Live. The
> drivers for XP are poor, hardware mode has never really worked right even
in
> Windows 9x, and besides, it's a five year old design. Would you put a 5
> year old video card in your game machine? I have a couple of friends with
> Audigy 2's who like them very much, if I wasn't using onboard sound I
would
> probably go with that.

> > Hey all.. sort of a weird situation. I have onboard sound (K7S5A) right
> now,
> > and I'm considering buying a 5.1 card. I'm looking at either the
> > Soundblaster Live! for $46CDN or the Soundblaster Audigy 2 for $104CDN.
> The
> > audigy 2 is obviously newer, better, and I like that it has a firewire
> port.
> > Just incase I ever decide to get that digital video camera, I can
transfer
> > video through the firewire port. I mean, firewire cards themselves cost
> $50
> > anyhow.

> > However, looking into the future... if I ever want to upgrade my
computer,
> I
> > noticed that most motherboards have firewire built in and the nforce 2
> > boards also have 5.1 audio built in.

> > So, when I upgrade my computer in December or something, will I be
sitting
> > with a $104 Audigy 2 and nothing to do with it, since the motherboard
has
> > 5.1 built in and firewire??

> > Theoretically, lets say I already have that nforce 2 card with the
onboard
> > 5.1 sound, would framerate and performance benefit from disabling it and
> > installing the audigy 2? I figure it would, since the CPU (if it is even
> the
> > CPU that does it) doesn't have to calculate all the audio stuff.

> > Mike
> > http://mikebeauchamp.com

by **Redmis** » Sun, 29 Jun 2003 15:16:19

IMHO, the nforce2 onboard sound is far superior to an Audigy in most
respects - particularly xp drivers. With your current AC97 onboard sound,
I'd guess that games are up to 5-10% slower than with decent sound hardware.
Not really a big deal and it's probably worth putting up with it until
you're ready to upgrade to a nforce 2 or 3.

An easy way to see what difference a new sound card would make is to disable
your current sound hardware in the device manager and see if games run much
faster without sound.

by **Mike Beaucham** » Sun, 29 Jun 2003 16:09:35

nforce2 onboard is BETTER than an audigy 2, or just the audigy? The audigy I
can understand, but from reviews I've read, the audigy 2 seems like a pretty
high end card.

Thanks for the info though, I'll take a look at it and consider a few
things. The reason I'm looking into it in the first place isn't really for
performance, it's for 5.1 audio in my bedroom. My stereo receiver supports
it, and I'm building 5.1 speakers in a few weeks. I also can't wait to play
games like Raven Shield with full 5.1 sound and EAX.

Mike
http://mikebeauchamp.com

by **Joachim Trens** » Sun, 29 Jun 2003 16:44:34

Hi Mike,

Yes, especially when you're using 3D sound and EAX.

For me, the nForce2 sound chip frequently produced a little stutter when
shifting up in GPL and had this cross-talk like effect with N2002 when
playing online, in that from time to time, I seemed to hear other car's
engine sounds although they weren't anywhere near me. I'm not the only one
reporting issues with the nForce2, but OTOH, the nForce2 works perfectly
fine for others.

While again OTOH, there are people who have issues with the Audigy, while it
works perfectly for me (Asus A7N8X Deluxe, WinME and Win2k, using the
board's Nvidia NIC).

Therefor, fps apart, it might be good if you were able to try before you
buy.

Achim

by **Joachim Trens** » Sun, 29 Jun 2003 16:46:30

Hi Mike,

IMHO, the A2 sounds better than the nForce2 onboard, more refined and
balanced somehow. But, the nForce2 sound pretty good for an onboard sound as
well and _is_ an alternative to a separate soundcard.

Achim

by **Mike Beaucham** » Sun, 29 Jun 2003 16:59:21

Yeah, my mistake.. you are right.. the nforce2 onboard sound is definately
faster..
http://www17.tomshardware.com/game/20030405/sound_for_games-02.html

Hmmm..

Mike
http://mikebeauchamp.com

by **Redmis** » Sun, 29 Jun 2003 17:00:47

If you're going to be using a digital solution, the analogue quality
(signal:noise ratio etc) won't really matter - I'd guess that for EAX,
***y, wizz-bang, 3D effects an Audigy (2) might be better than an nforce
but I wouldn't bet on it. Creative's drivers and bloatware/software don't
fill me with confidence though.....

by **Steve Smit** » Mon, 30 Jun 2003 07:45:54

I agree the A2 is a *great* sound card, but Creative's fluffy s/w *is*

memory headroom w. and w/o all the cute little applets.

> >If you're going to be using a digital solution, the analogue quality
> >(signal:noise ratio etc) won't really matter - I'd guess that for EAX,
> >***y, wizz-bang, 3D effects an Audigy (2) might be better than an nforce
> >but I wouldn't bet on it. Creative's drivers and bloatware/software
don't
> >fill me with confidence though.....

> I have the Audigy2 and the bloatware is optional now. If you want you
> can choose to install only the drivers and nothing else (that means no
> taskbar at the top of your screen unless you want it). But then you
> will miss out on some of the great utilities included too, like DVD-A
> player, Streaming Audio recorder (which I actually use to just listen
> to radio stations because it's a lot more compact than Media Player),
> and even the main Mediasource player is pretty cool. The retail
> Audigy2 is a good package and they even throw in Hitman2 and Soldier
> of Fortune2. Buy those two games seperately and that will be about the
> same cost as the Audigy2 can be had for.

by **Redmis** » Mon, 30 Jun 2003 10:57:15

nForce2 mainboards aren't any more expensive than other boards nowadays so
that's a moot point. Quality onboard sound is finally a standard feature
these days. With the nForce2 you install one driver and your NIC, SC, AGP
etc is all working in a matter of seconds. By the way, I don't own one -
I've got a pathetic VIA KT333 mobo (with all of VIAs USB problems) and a
SBLive which has had its share of driver issues and mainboard chipset
conflicts.

by **Damien Smit** » Tue, 01 Jul 2003 15:49:43

Hehe...now I *really* feel sorry for Intel users.

rec.autos.simulators

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?

OT: Does getting a new soundcard increase performance?