Sound Hardware - onboard or addon?

[Phalanx-Imawano 0]

For some time this was a nobrainer to me. I've always gone for add-on sound cards (notably Creative's Soundblaster series, my latest one being the Live 5.1) even if my motherboard has an onboard sound chip. In fact a few years back I did give the onboard sound chip a chance to perform (it was on a PentiumIII motherboard), but it was kinda disappointing (apparently it had no hardware acceleration, resulting in bogged down game performance and ugly sound output). For some time was a firm believer that addon sound cards were always better than onboard sound hardware. That changed last night.

 

Lately I began experiencing problems with a few games, notably Half-Life 2, where a few minutes into playing some of the sounds (eg the spoken dialogs) go silent, then mintues later Windows XP goes STOP ERROR. Once I noticed a regular pattern I suspected my sound card might be the culprit, and having no spares I decided to try enabling my mobo's (ASUS P4P800-X) onboard sound (AC97 sound chip with 6-channel surround support, though I don't know how to use it). Well, not bad at all - the some-sounds-going-silent-then-Stop-Error problem with HL2 disappeared altogether. Also, on a whim I tried running 3DMark 2001, and found out I actually GAINED 2000 3DMarks! So now the SBLive 5.1 is in cold storage and I'm using the onboard sound hardware with no problems so far.

 

How about you guys?

[Wilhelmus 1]

My onboard (ac'97) is better than my old soundblaster addon card, at this time... so my vote for the onboard.

[DosFreak 2]

uhhhh, your comparing an ancient SB Live! to a fairly recent integrated sound chip? Now let's not get into how crappy Creative's drivers are or how they haven't produced anything really noteworthy for the past 4 years but really....you can't do a fair comparison on ancient hardware to new hardware. It's just not done.

 

 

It's likely they you were using ancient drivers, default latency values, and or a sound card that was going bad. I guess we'll never know.

 

[Phalanx-Imawano 0]

Originally posted by dosfreak:

Quote:

uhhhh, your comparing an ancient SB Live! to a fairly recent integrated sound chip? Now let's not get into how crappy Creative's drivers are or how they haven't produced anything really noteworthy for the past 4 years but really....you can't do a fair comparison on ancient hardware to new hardware. It's just not done.

 

 

It's likely they you were using ancient drivers, default latency values, and or a sound card that was going bad. I guess we'll never know.

 

Not at all. Historically, the Soundblaster product line has been one of the best sound hardware solutions I've ever used. I always saw to it that I had the very latest drivers installed for them (always up[censored] them). And in the case of the SBLive5.1, it's overall been one of the best in its class. It just so happened for once my mobo's onboard sound chip outperformed it, and here's a recent discovery: one of my very old games, Drakan: Order of the Flame. I'm not sure why but sometime while I had the SBLive5.1 along with Windows XP Pro (can't remember exactly when), the BGM for that game wasn't playing at all, but switching to the onboard sound hardware brought it back.

[jmmijo 1]

My Audigy 2-ZS still sounds better then the onboard AC97 codec found on most motherboard today, IMHO that is

 

Now that being said, the latest codecs are finally giving Creative Labs a run for their money, of course you can only experience the latest HD Audio codec if you have a 915/925 chipset board.

 

This codec is named Azalia and it's an 7.1 HD Audio codec and it does indeed sound very good to me using the same DTT Cambridge Soundworks 5.1 speakers I have connected to my Audigy.

 

My next upgrade may indeed decide not to go with an Audigy however I've not had the chance yet to purchase the Audigy 4 Pro yet

[theefool 0]

With my experience with HL2, I had better performance with the add-on Audigy 2 ZS, then I did with the onboard sound. Of course, my onboard sound isn't the greatest.

 

I've been using soundblasters, since the original came out, way back when. Before that, I used Adlib, and before that I used a Midi only sound card.

 

Now, I have two Audigy 2 ZS sound cards. Why? On the occasion I want to record music. I hook one of them to my Bass guitar, and the other to my Electric guitar. I'm running Cakewalk Sonar 4.

 

Eventually, I'd like to buy a professional sound card. But, they are kinda expensive. A cheap one runs about $400, this way I don't have to convert from a 1/4" jack to a 1/8"(?) jack.

[Exxccessive 0]

Originally posted by Phalanx-Imawano:

Quote:

So now the SBLive 5.1 is in cold storage and I'm using the onboard sound hardware with no problems so far.

 

How about you guys?

 

 

I'll take care of your SBLive 5.1 for you if you want.

 

 

[DosFreak 2]

Just heard that Creative is making a new soundcard. Supposed to actually be something new :shock: I'll see if I can find the article.

[theefool 0]

I heard about that too. It was mostly a rumour post at some tech site.