How much pci bandwidth does the Audigy 2 use during intense gaming ??

[Soulkeeper]

just wondering how much bandwidth the Audigy2 can use

I am guessing between 40 and 90 MB/s is this about right ??

 

[CTho9305]

Doubt it. Assuming you're playing 10 simultaneous CD-quality streams, that's under 10 MB/sec - closer to 1.4 MB/sec. (650mb/74/60*10)

 

[Soulkeeper]

wow that seems really low for bandwidth usage
i guess it only transfers sound files from the system memory tho anyways


there isn't any way to know for sure tho is there ??

 

[zephyrprime]

It's probably really low. There's just no way it would be 40MB/s.

1 background + 3 ambiants + 10 special effects at full cd quality would be 2.4MB/s.

 

[Peter]

All true ... however Creative's drivers have a long standing reputation (NOT) for sucking up lots of system I/O bandwidth for some obscure housekeeping tasks.

 

[Howard]

I wouldn't worry about it affecting the overall speed of your computer.

 

[piasabird]

The company that produces the M-Audio sound cards and Via that makes the ENVY-24 chip claim that the Audigy is not really 24 bit. They said for a regular audio sound track like on a DVD on a M-Audio 24 bit sound card that the handware on the soundcard can function in hardware mode and process the sound in a single pass using hardware only. What they said about the Audigy is it took 2 passes. Both types of soundcards have their weaknesses and their strong points. The M-Audio does not have the capability of the the control of the sound and the EAX support that the Audigy has. On the other hand the M-Audio probably will not crash as many games and is better for audiofiles.

 

[WobbleWobble]

I thought that Creative's problems didn't lie with using too much bandwidth, but by not properly sharing the PCI bus? That would cause some performance issues with IDE/RAID controllers on the PCI bus and NICs.

 

[persille]

Summing up on multiple issues from one question:
I've been doing some video-editing using a pinnacle DC10+ which doesn't have any sound related hardware, you have to use your PC's general sound hardware. I'n the DC10+ forums it got generally known that the SB Live drivers were PCI bandwith hogs claiming a certain amount of bandwith on the PCI channel despite low load on the soundcard itself, thus causing dropped frames, since video requires high bandwidth. I don't have any first hand experience but got the impression that audigy(2) drivers behave same way.

Regarding M-Audio's claims: An audiophile (a colleague of mine) uses a SB Audigy for gaming purposes, but whenever its music or DVD movie playback he uses an M-Audio Delta 44 for sound quality. He uses SB Audigy due to EAX hardware acceleration, for hardcore gamers SB Áudigy cards are no doubt the best.

I haven't experienced a SB Audigy2 but believe sound quality to very good. I have just today received an M-Adio Revolution 7.1and all I can say is that I'm thrilled, my speakers (and headphones) have never sounded better (that is with CD's, MP3 format now show some severe drawbacks due to the destructive compression - especially drums, but that is MP3 shortcomings).