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Buying sound card, need advice

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und3rscor3

Junior Member
First, let me say that I have no experience with sound cards. Here's the issue: in a game I recently started playing, my on-board audio chip cannot process certain sound effects fast enough. This leads to significant lag in the game. So I am going to buy a low level sound card, but I can't decide which one to buy.

Here are my 2 top choices:
Asus Xonar DS 7.1 ($50)
Asus Xonar DG 5.1 ($35)
Both have gotten good reviews. In fact, one review states that there is no noticeable sound quality difference between the two. But audio processing speed is my concern.

The Xonar DS has a better processor on it, there is no debate. However, I hesitate to buy the DS for a few reasons:
-It has 7.1 surround sound. That's total overkill; I have 2 speakers and a subwoofer, and I honestly don't see myself buying surround sound speakers. I'd prefer high quality headphones if I did upgrade from my current speakers.
-It doesn't support Dolby surround sound. I don't have Dolby anything. However, if I ever did decide that I want to have surround sound, I would go for some of those cool sets of headphones with Dolby 5.1 technology. But if I bought this sound card, that would be out of the question cuz there's no Dolby support.
-It costs $15 more than the Xonar DG, yet I don't really desire any of the DS's extra features (except its better processor).

The Xonar DG, on the other hand, does support Dolby tech, and it costs a cool $35, no doubt partly because it doesn't have 7.1 capability (which I don't need anyways). The only reason I don't buy it is because I wonder if its processor will be good enough to eliminate the audio-based lag I experience.

So I guess my question is: Do you think the Xonar DG, judging by its specs, will be a significant enough improvement over on-board audio to eliminate the problems I've been having? I don't know the specs of my on-board audio for comparison. I can't find them anywhere.
 
mnewsham said:
What are your complete system specs?
Click to expand...

This, I really doubt that a game can lag just coz of sound processing. Did you try to change the sound settings within the game?

Besides that, since you are not using the digital output, it doesn't really matter, both of them should have good enough processors to handle any modern game. I'd go for the cheapest one.
 
I'm pretty certain 95% of today's gamers use onboard audio chips. Which means all games are designed to work on these onboard chips reliably, at the cost of simultaneous sounds played and 3D effects.

In fact, I'd first make sure you have 3D effects disabled and simultaneous sounds set to lower than what your onboard chip supports, both in game's settings. Next you should make sure that you're running latest drivers for your onboard audio chip.

If those do not help, post system specs like has been requested already.

Asus Xonar is miles better than any onboard audio chip. It does have its own processor to handle audio processing, unlike onboard chips which rely on CPU to process the audio. However, there is zero guarantee getting Xonar would fix your problem.
 
Damn, I forgot the all-important rule: always post your specs...

Dell Dimension E521 desktop
OS: Windows XP Home Edition 32 bit
Processor: AMD Athlon 64 X2 3600+, 1.90 GHz
RAM: 2.5 gb DDR2
Video card: Sapphire Radeon HD 5570, 1gb DDR3

The game I recently installed is The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion. I know it's a graphics intensive game, and I know I don't exactly have a gaming rig. But the thing is, I am able to run the game very smoothly at medium settings, and many things even at high settings.

The game runs nicely for me except in one specific in-game situation: I experience extreme lag (like 3 fps) whenever I get near an in-game animal with four or more legs. I was baffled by this at first. I tried literally going down to minimum video settings and 800 x 600 resolution, and the problem wasn't affected at all. I didn't touch the audio settings though, until I did some research. It turns out this is a known issue; a mod has been created to solve it. In the game, each individual foot of a creature makes its own individual sound effect when it hits the ground. That is why some creatures with a lot of feet overwhelm some audio chips.

I didn't believe audio could cause such severe lag either. But when I went into Oblivion's config and disabled "impact sound effects," I know longer experienced the lag at all. The problem with just disabling impact sound effects is that it causes all impact sounds, including sword clashes and everything else, to be disabled, degrading gameplay quality. I could use the Quiet Feet mod, but I would prefer to keep all sound effects in the game. So I decided maybe it's time to get an actual sound card.
 
Personally I would think twice buying a sound card just because of one game. It'd be cheaper to edit Oblivion.ini or use the mod. If you have good quality speakers and/or headphones, then you might actually benefit from Xonar.

Try setting bDSoundHWAcceleration=0 and bUseSoftwareAudio3D=1 to disable HW acceleration on sounds, which may also fix the problem if Oblivion is stupid enough to try and use it on onboard chips. If that doesn't help, then set iMaxImpactSoundCount to 24 or 16. Default is probably 32.

But if you really want to get a sound card anyway, then you can't really go wrong with Xonar. The only other option you have is going with Creative X-Fi and Creative is notorious for its shitty driver and software quality and support.
 
Hmm; that is a very odd issue indeed. Do you have the most up to date drivers for your onboard audio? That may resolve the issue. Assuming you have exhausted troubleshooting, and know a sound card will resolve the issue I have no problem recommending the Xonar DG.
 
I would recommend trying the mod that is supposed to fix the problem. Save your money for a system upgrade.
 
I agree to just workaround the issue, especially on such a low-power rig. With the way Windows 7 sound works, it's not like you'd be able to use the hardware 3D sound processor once you upgrade anyway.
 
That's not entirely true. If game supports EAX or OpenAL, you can enable audio processing on hardware by enabling GX mode in the Xonar driver control panel. Basically Xonar's drivers can do what Creative's ALchemy does. Though of course Creative has full EAX functionality, something that no other vendors can do.
 
I dunno. Like I said, everything in the game runs smoothly until I get near a creature that creates a lot of impact sound effects. So if my processor doesn't have a problem with anything else in the game, why would the sound effects of a four-legged creature suddenly push my CPU way beyond its limits and cause such severe lag?

Besides, it's a known issue with Oblivion. Other people have experienced it and tracked it down to their audio hardware. And I've also played other graphics-intensive games back when I had a GeForce 8600 GT and never had any problems like this, so I think Oblivion's game engine may be a little goofy too.
 
und3rscor3 said:
so I think Oblivion's game engine may be a little goofy too.
Click to expand...

Ding ding ding! Winner winner chicken dinner!

In short, it's probably a silly driver issue for a 5 year old game. I wouldn't worry about buying a new card just for that.

Oh by the way, have you made sure you have the latest driver version for your onboard sound?
 
Yes, my audio driver is up to date. In another topic I made, someone posted a link to a topic on another forum where people were discussing this issue with Oblivion. Some things in that topic actually indicate that Oblivion doesn't quite cooperate with the Sigmatel audio in many Dell computers. My on board sound chip is a Sigmatel one.

I know Oblivion is 5 years old, but so is my computer. Buying a new computer isn't really in my plans at the moment. I'll be going off to college soon. I could get a super awesome gaming rig, but I wouldn't have a lot of time to use it throughout fall & spring semesters, and by the time I'm through with college, that gaming rig would be obsolete old tech.

Anyways, I have decided that the Xonar DS is out of the question, so now I'll try to decide whether or not to go for the DG. At $28 AR & shipped, I think I'll most likely get it because it has good reviews and headphone-oriented features. I use headphones a lot, and I like listening to music too so maybe I'll enjoy getting away from on-board audio. Plus it would likely solve my Oblivion problem and prevent me from having to use a mod that takes out sound effects.
 
If you happen to be in the Triangle area, I have a couple of old Creative sound cards lying around. Since Fallout 3 and New Vegas use the same engine as Oblivion, this must affect more than one game.
 
First thing I had to do for Oblivion was buy a sound card. For me it was being around horses. Clop, clop, Oblivion has stopped working. Back then there were posts every day about onboard sound issues. The advice was to get a sound card, even a cheap one.
 
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