The newest NF4 standalone drivers includes NVidia sound driver

[Promethply]

Just installed the NForce 6.53 standalone NF4 chipset drivers from NVidia website, which includes the NVidia sound driver for the realtek sound chip.

This new driver somehow decreased CPU utilisation to around 7% in my system when playing MP3 files.

 

[imported_itr]

you shouln't be using more than 5% of the cpu when just playing mp3 files. i usually get about 1% cpu utilization with my audigy 2 zs.

 

[Promethply]

I got similar cpu usage to yours when using my old sound blaster in my old system, but then it was a hardware solution just like yours.

Initially when using the realtek driver, the CPU utilisation was more like 18%, so considering that my current system's still using the onboard realtek chip, there is a significant decrease in CPU usage.

 

[LED]

What Mobo do you have as some do not take the NForce Audio driver from NVidia and have their on on the Manu site

 

[Promethply]

The NForce 6.53 standalone NF4 chipset driver is for motherboards using the Nvidia NF4, NF4 Ultra, and the NF4 SLI, such as the ASUS A8N-SLI/A8N-SLI deluxe.