Soundstorm, hardware accelerated?

[boyla001]

Is it? I have an Asus A7N8X-E deluxe going to some crappy 2.1 speakers. I want to know if it's worth buying an Audigy2 if the SS is hurting my FPS.

Jeff

 

[Valkerie]

Audigy 2 ZS is better. Heavy sound processor workloads off of the CPU.

Your soundstorm will kill the CPU.

 

[boyla001]

it's that bad, huh?

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Valkerie
Audigy 2 ZS is better. Heavy sound processor workloads off of the CPU.

Your soundstorm will kill the CPU.

Ummm... I've heard the exact opposite. Unfortunately I didn't keep a link but the SS is supposed free up CPU cycles. And does so better than many sound cards.

Thats's one reason I opted for this particular mobo. But the wifey won't let me buy digital speaks

Ah well, I just OC a little higher to compensate

 

[agnitrate]

Originally posted by: Valkerie
Audigy 2 ZS is better. Heavy sound processor workloads off of the CPU.

Your soundstorm will kill the CPU.

Lurk more.

Soundstorm is hardware implementation.

 

[imported_Kensai]

Originally posted by: Valkerie
Audigy 2 ZS is better. Heavy sound processor workloads off of the CPU.

Your soundstorm will kill the CPU.

It's a hardware implementation... Probably one of the best onboard sound offered by a chipset..

 

[boyla001]

so I can save my money instead of buying an A2? Being a college student, I don't have alot to go around. Trying to save up for an A64 cpu/mobo and maybe a 6600gt. I don't need super res and 100fps.

 

[Concillian]

When tested in it's heyday Soundstorm offered lower CPU utilization than comparable Creative products. More current Creative products are probably better, especially in that they offer support for EAX 3 and 4.

It is compatible with EAX and EAX2 and is hardware accelerated.

In most cases, even software sound doesn't really hurt FPS, because most people run at a resolution and with video settings that make the video card the primary bottleneck. There is generally plenty of CPU left over. For example, when I was playing BFV, I had an Athlon XP Mobile, and I ran some benchmarks, turning my CPU down 200 MHz at a time at my normal settings. I got to 1400 MHz before I saw ANY difference in my framerates.

Similarly, now that I have an A64 and play WoW and BF2, I initially set my system up OC'd as far as I could go (~2.5GHz from 1.8GHz). I played for a while like that, then decided to see what it was like the stock 1.8GHz speed. Surprisingly, I noticed no difference with a pretty solid video card (x800XL) at my normal settings.

Be careful to note resolutions and video settings when ever anyone is talking about FPS of a game being impacted by CPU. Normally it's not as large an issue as they might have you believe. Also it may or may not have a noticeable difference, because rarely will CPU impact the times when you have LOWEST FPS. My experience in turning down my CPU notch by notch in BFV showed that when the average FPS dropped it was almost always the highest FPS places that were dropping, while the low FPS places were staying relatively the same. This review shows a similar effect to what I observed in the "Memory and CPU section near the bottom portion:

http://theinquirer.net/?article=23973

Lastly, I find headphones + games are a very good combination. 3D positional audio works pretty well in headphones. At least to me it felt better than using a 5.0 setup.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: boyla001
so I can save my money instead of buying an A2? Being a college student, I don't have alot to go around. Trying to save up for an A64 cpu/mobo and maybe a 6600gt. I don't need super res and 100fps.

If you're looking for better gamer performance, spending it on a new processor or videocard is a better area to upgrade than your soundcard

 

[Fern]

Originally posted by: Concillian
When tested in it's heyday Soundstorm offered lower CPU utilization than comparable Creative products. More current Creative products are probably better, especially in that they offer support for EAX 3 and 4.

It is compatible with EAX and EAX2 and is hardware accelerated.

In most cases, even software sound doesn't really hurt FPS, because most people run at a resolution and with video settings that make the video card the primary bottleneck. There is generally plenty of CPU left over. For example, when I was playing BFV, I had an Athlon XP Mobile, and I ran some benchmarks, turning my CPU down 200 MHz at a time at my normal settings. I got to 1400 MHz before I saw ANY difference in my framerates.

Similarly, now that I have an A64 and play WoW and BF2, I initially set my system up OC'd as far as I could go (~2.5GHz from 1.8GHz). I played for a while like that, then decided to see what it was like the stock 1.8GHz speed. Surprisingly, I noticed no difference with a pretty solid video card (x800XL) at my normal settings.

Be careful to note resolutions and video settings when ever anyone is talking about FPS of a game being impacted by CPU. Normally it's not as large an issue as they might have you believe. Also it may or may not have a noticeable difference, because rarely will CPU impact the times when you have LOWEST FPS. My experience in turning down my CPU notch by notch in BFV showed that when the average FPS dropped it was almost always the highest FPS places that were dropping, while the low FPS places were staying relatively the same. This review shows a similar effect to what I observed in the "Memory and CPU section near the bottom portion:

http://theinquirer.net/?article=23973

Lastly, I find headphones + games are a very good combination. 3D positional audio works pretty well in headphones. At least to me it felt better than using a 5.0 setup.

Great post!!

I've found the same with similar proceedures.

I get so tired of the "OMG that CPU will bottle your vid card" type-post so prevelent around here.

Wish we could get a "stickey" debunking that rubbish

 

[Boobers]

There is a dark side to SoundStorm. To truly reap the benefit of SS, you must use the digital output connected to a dolby decoder. The SS then uses it's dolby digital live ENCODER to produce a digital signal that passes out the digital output to a dolby DECODER in your amp. Sounds good, but...

In newer games, you will find that the SS ENCODER cannot combine all the sounds produced by the game into the siganl it passes out the digital output. In other words, there will be some sounds missing from the final digital output.

Even the cheapest audio card listed above will outperform the SS, but you will have to use the multi-channel analog outputs for surround sound... the cheaper cards do not do dolby digital live ENCODING. Their digital outputs will only PASS a dolby source signal (like from a DVD) through the digital output. All other sounds output through the digital output will be stereo or dolby pro-logic... not true surround sound like the SS can do...