Sound Cards

[JacquesPatat]

i'm currently looking at sound card for my PC, but just want to know if it is worth it getting a sound card (looking at either creative labs sound blasterX ae-5 or Sound Blaster Z SE.) for gaming. know in the 90's sound card was to a point worth it. but not sure about now a days or will i just be wasting my money?

[_I_]

the onboard realtek on newer mobos is good

or using the gpu sound card for 5.1/7.1 or atmos is better

[Omega]

Today it makes no difference unless you require the additional functionality a sound card can offer. The onboard audio is for most usecases just as good as a sound card.

[JacquesPatat]

Originally posted by _I_:

the onboard realtek on newer mobos is good

or using the gpu sound card for 5.1/7.1 or atmos is better

thats what i'm kind of thought, realtek does the job (no problems there) and with my nvidia graphics card with HDMI cable - the sound is also no problem

[_I_]

you can assign the onboard audio jacks to do anything on most boards
line in, mic, even set as 2 separate sound devices, for voip and windows/game sounds

if it has 5/6 jacks, you can do analog 5.1/7.1, and front jacks for voip, and have a line in

[JacquesPatat]

Originally posted by Omega:

Today it makes no difference unless you require the additional functionality a sound card can offer. The onboard audio is for most usecases just as good as a sound card.

thats what i'm in two parts about. as it seems to me that majority of sound cards by the looks of it, is made more for people like streamers/podcast/youtubers/musicians/etc for their audio capabilities. i believe i wont be using the additional features anyway.

Was thinking sound card might be better then built in sound card. so i'll stick with the onboard for now

[nullable]

For me the history tells us a lot. Prior to multi-core CPU's and whatnot, then a dedicated sound card was preferable because the onboard sounds would share CPU time and on a single core CPU it was a measurable performance hit to use onboard sound.

However CPU power has exploded over the last twenty years. But the demands for sound processing haven't increased at anything remotely close. Sound hardware has also gotten better too, and cheaper, and pretty much all the downside from twenty years ago are solved.

You pretty much only need a dedicated sound card if you already have strong opinions against onboard sound, or you know your needs demand features that are only offered on dedicated sound cards. In nearly any other cases, onboard is fine.

[xSOSxHawkens]

Dedicated sound cards like the two you listed are night and day differences in quality and positional audio accuracy vs Realtek or anything on board.

The people who claim there is little/no difference have either not tried hardware audio, or have not tried it anytime recently to any reasonable extent.

If you want pure 1:1 quality go for an external USB Amp/Dac.

If you want 99% of that quality + *obscenely* better 3d positional audio that allows for real audio location, as well as a sound solution that will support single cable surround sound for all games (via DD-Live or DTS Connect) then the sound card is the option.

I will note that *some* Motherboard audio does support the mentioned DTS/DD-L options, but they will still lack massively in the 3d positional audio department, and most motherboards do *not* contain those (DTS/DD-L) features due to lack of licensing for the tech. Most Creative audio cards do.

I dont have a link at this moment, but this evening will track down one to a great vid you can use to make your own comparisons on 3d positional audio quality to decide if its right for you. Someone did a super great comparison vid of the different tech choices back in the BF3 days, and the tech is still the same now from all major brands.

Personally I use a Soundblaster Z series with a pair of DT-770

[emoticorpse]

I got a cheap dac from Amazon and it's pretty good. Glad I got it because I constantly break the front panel headphone jacks on my case.

[JacquesPatat]

Originally posted by xSOSxHawkens:

Dedicated sound cards like the two you listed are night and day differences in quality and positional audio accuracy vs Realtek or anything on board.

The people who claim there is little/no difference have either not tried hardware audio, or have not tried it anytime recently to any reasonable extent.

If you want pure 1:1 quality go for an external USB Amp/Dac.

If you want 99% of that quality + *obscenely* better 3d positional audio that allows for real audio location, as well as a sound solution that will support single cable surround sound for all games (via DD-Live or DTS Connect) then the sound card is the option.

I will note that *some* Motherboard audio does support the mentioned DTS/DD-L options, but they will still lack massively in the 3d positional audio department, and most motherboards do *not* contain those (DTS/DD-L) features due to lack of licensing for the tech. Most Creative audio cards do.

I dont have a link at this moment, but this evening will track down one to a great vid you can use to make your own comparisons on 3d positional audio quality to decide if its right for you. Someone did a super great comparison vid of the different tech choices back in the BF3 days, and the tech is still the same now from all major brands.

Personally I use a Soundblaster Z series with a pair of DT-770

will have a look at the vid when you post it later.

[JacquesPatat]

Originally posted by emoticorpse:

I got a cheap dac from Amazon and it's pretty good. Glad I got it because I constantly break the front panel headphone jacks on my case.

seen a few when searching for info and comparing prices

[xSOSxHawkens]

Originally posted by JacquesPatat:

Originally posted by xSOSxHawkens:

Dedicated sound cards like the two you listed are night and day differences in quality and positional audio accuracy vs Realtek or anything on board.

The people who claim there is little/no difference have either not tried hardware audio, or have not tried it anytime recently to any reasonable extent.

If you want pure 1:1 quality go for an external USB Amp/Dac.

If you want 99% of that quality + *obscenely* better 3d positional audio that allows for real audio location, as well as a sound solution that will support single cable surround sound for all games (via DD-Live or DTS Connect) then the sound card is the option.

I will note that *some* Motherboard audio does support the mentioned DTS/DD-L options, but they will still lack massively in the 3d positional audio department, and most motherboards do *not* contain those (DTS/DD-L) features due to lack of licensing for the tech. Most Creative audio cards do.

I dont have a link at this moment, but this evening will track down one to a great vid you can use to make your own comparisons on 3d positional audio quality to decide if its right for you. Someone did a super great comparison vid of the different tech choices back in the BF3 days, and the tech is still the same now from all major brands.

Personally I use a Soundblaster Z series with a pair of DT-770

will have a look at the vid when you post it later.

Grabbed it on break for ya.

Check the effects out for yourself:


Grab a decent set of headphones, plug them into your back panel output, set your HD Audio output to 24 bit 196KHz, which will force-disable any and all filtering, and provide as close to direct 1:1 bit-matched listening as Realtek can make possible.

Then spend 10-30 minutes either skipping through, or watching in whole, this video -

YouTube™ Video: SBX vs. CMSS-3D vs. Razer vs. Dolby vs. Realtek - headphone game sound test 

Views: 138,137

Important: Set Your audio to stereo (2.0) and use headphones pls to get the correct sound in this video!!! Test of soundcards, sound software and onboard sound.

It compares SBX (current Sound Blaster 3D Tech), CMSS3d (older SB tech), Razer's solution for their surround headsets, Dolby Surround packaged with higher end Realtek integrated systems, and Realtek Surround, the default on all ALC codecs.

[Omega]

Originally posted by xSOSxHawkens:

Originally posted by JacquesPatat:

will have a look at the vid when you post it later.

Grabbed it on break for ya.

Check the effects out for yourself:


Grab a decent set of headphones, plug them into your back panel output, set your HD Audio output to 24 bit 196KHz, which will force-disable any and all filtering, and provide as close to direct 1:1 bit-matched listening as Realtek can make possible.

Then spend 10-30 minutes either skipping through, or watching in whole, this video -

YouTube™ Video: SBX vs. CMSS-3D vs. Razer vs. Dolby vs. Realtek - headphone game sound test 

Views: 138,137

Important: Set Your audio to stereo (2.0) and use headphones pls to get the correct sound in this video!!! Test of soundcards, sound software and onboard sound.

It compares SBX (current Sound Blaster 3D Tech), CMSS3d (older SB tech), Razer's solution for their surround headsets, Dolby Surround packaged with higher end Realtek integrated systems, and Realtek Surround, the default on all ALC codecs.

YouTube compresses audio which massively hurts audio quality, it will sound nothing like the actual thing.

[Tonepoet]

I don't think it'll matter too much. I remember reading much of what Nw A.V.[nwavguy.blogspot.com] guy wrote and if I recall correctly, I think one of those things was that any relatively recent D.A.C. chip from within the past 10 years should be good enough in terms of sound quality, and as you can see, his blog hasn't been updated in a dozen or so years. Then he went on to design an external D.A.C. device though.

Plus it's not like I think they're doing much with F.M. synthesized M.I.D.I. anymore. Yamaha only produces one F.M. Synthesis chip anymore. The YMF825, but I don't think it's used in any new sound card. It sounds neat, but it's not as if Creative is putting it in their newest sound cards, so what's the point in a sound card if it can't play At Doom's Gate, Passport.mid and all of these nifty touhou tracks[www16.big.or.jp]?

Oh, not to mention sound over P.C.I.E. isn't the ideal way to do it anyway.

[xSOSxHawkens]

Originally posted by Omega:

Originally posted by xSOSxHawkens:

Grabbed it on break for ya.

Check the effects out for yourself:


Grab a decent set of headphones, plug them into your back panel output, set your HD Audio output to 24 bit 196KHz, which will force-disable any and all filtering, and provide as close to direct 1:1 bit-matched listening as Realtek can make possible.

Then spend 10-30 minutes either skipping through, or watching in whole, this video -

YouTube™ Video: SBX vs. CMSS-3D vs. Razer vs. Dolby vs. Realtek - headphone game sound test 

Views: 138,137

Important: Set Your audio to stereo (2.0) and use headphones pls to get the correct sound in this video!!! Test of soundcards, sound software and onboard sound.

It compares SBX (current Sound Blaster 3D Tech), CMSS3d (older SB tech), Razer's solution for their surround headsets, Dolby Surround packaged with higher end Realtek integrated systems, and Realtek Surround, the default on all ALC codecs.

YouTube compresses audio which massively hurts audio quality, it will sound nothing like the actual thing.

The audio quality in the vid is plenty good enough to compare the part that the vid is showing to compare, 3d positional audio and its accuracy using different companies approaches to it.

Tell me you didnt even bother to watch the vid without telling me...lol

[Omega]

Originally posted by xSOSxHawkens:

Originally posted by Omega:

YouTube compresses audio which massively hurts audio quality, it will sound nothing like the actual thing.

The audio quality in the vid is plenty good enough to compare the part that the vid is showing to compare, 3d positional audio and its accuracy using different companies approaches to it.

Tell me you didnt even bother to watch the vid without telling me...lol

No, it really is not representative of this stuff in the slightest. Not only does the audio quality degrade severely on YouTube. It also does not transfer the actual positional audio behavior unique to each vendor, at best one can create a poor imitation of it.