SoundBlaster Live! PCI card makes game run faster???

[GundamF91]

I'm wondering if running PCI SoundBlaster Live! can make games run faster (framerate), ie. Battlefield 2, compared to when running onboard audio chip?

 

[potato28]

It won't make the FPS go up, but it'll increase the overall audio quality.

 

[Sunrise089]

I was actually under the impression that adding a sound card was one of the best performance gains (in gaming) you could make after GPU and CPU.

 

[Throckmorton]

It will if you switch your audio rendering to hardware instead of software. When I do that though with my Santa Cruz, I get a lot of noise like I'm hearing stuff I'm not supposed to, and voice over becomes choppy.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: Throckmorton
It will if you switch your audio rendering to hardware instead of software. When I do that though with my Santa Cruz, I get a lot of noise like I'm hearing stuff I'm not supposed to, and voice over becomes choppy.

Santa Cruz is another story, it has its own implementation of EAX.

you might gain few FPS, only if you have single core solution..

..but sound is way batter and richer and what not. It is like different experience.

 

[Modelworks]

years ago having a hardware sound card would add lots of fps, but that was when cpu power was a lot slower.
Now its not going to make a lot of difference.

Also some of the newer chipsets used in onboard audio are quite nice.
Not at all like the software based sound cards of the past.
http://www.realtek.com.tw/prod...vel=5&Conn=4&ProdID=86

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
years ago having a hardware sound card would add lots of fps, but that was when cpu power was a lot slower.
Now its not going to make a lot of difference.

Also some of the newer chipsets used in onboard audio are quite nice.
Not at all like the software based sound cards of the past.
http://www.realtek.com.tw/prod...vel=5&Conn=4&ProdID=86

No EAX support beside 1.0 and 2.0 which is in software:

EAX? 1.0 & 2.0 compatible

"compatible" is the word. EAX is on version 5.0.

 

[Modelworks]

EAX is dead and creative with it hopefully.

 

[postmortemIA]

Originally posted by: Modelworks
EAX is dead and creative with it hopefully.

Not at all, I'm enjoying it on Bioshock, Medieval II, etc.

Surely is better than $5 onboard chipsets, they are cheap for reason...

 

[Modelworks]

Originally posted by: postmortemIA

Originally posted by: Modelworks
EAX is dead and creative with it hopefully.

Not at all, I'm enjoying it on Bioshock, Medieval II, etc.

Surely is better than $5 onboard chipsets, they are cheap for reason...

ok, load up vista and a dx10 game and do that 🙂


They are cheap because most of the hardware needed to support the chips is already on the motherboard.

 

[postmortemIA]

they are cheap because there's no hardware. Decent sound card costs as much as whole motherboard... good sound always had a price, there's no such thing as good $5 amplifier 😀

but if cheap speakers and cheap software sound is right for you, I have no objection.

 

[Ghouler]

I just saw this thread here and was wondering what it is that makes some people lie about things like that?
ALC888T codec is impressive but dedicated sound cards are always better then integrated ones, this is exactly the same with graphics. It is not only about data thruput but also quality of components used...

Sure, Microsoft castrated latest Windows. Vista does not support Direct X hardware extensions such as EAX natively.

But EAX HD is still available under Vista. And so is hardware accelerated audio, because:

(1) there is ALchemy patch that brings this functionality back to Vista - if you want it for any of the EAX games

(2) any new game that uses OpenAL does not even require this patch - it works straight away.