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Will Audigy improve FPS?

B

bigbangtech

Senior member
Will upgrading from onboard sound to say an Audigy Value increase a game's FPS? Does it really accelerate sound enough to do that?
 
Well first it will give you a much better quality sound. By the sound card processing the sound vice having your CPU have to handle the additional task it will help your FPS. As for how much I am not really sure.
 
It depends on the quality of the onboard sound. Your FPS will always go down with sound but who wants to play games with no sound? Soundstorm has a low cpu usage for example. The Audigy has its own DSP so it takes the load off the processor thus allowing the processor to work with the GPU for graphics. There is still a performance penalty but not a great one
 
My K8NHA Grand mobo has Realtek ALC655 6-Channel AC'97 CODEC. It seems to be pretty common, and I guess probably pretty slow huh?
 
Short answer: Yes.

Long answer: It'll vary from game to game. In highly CPU dependant games you will see a larger increase because important CPU cycles will be free from audio processing duties. In highly video card dependant games, you might not even see a difference.
 
If you are refering to the original Audigy, then no it will not improve fps over the ALC650. Here is a quick look at the Audigy vs the Realtek link You will get better audio quality, but wether the drivers and flat out bullsh!t specs of the audigy being 24-bit/96kHz is worth paying extra for is your call.
 
Actually, guys Onboard sound is on the Northbridge chip, it uses that. not the CPU. That's where the performance increase is coming from if you are using any other northbrige features like onboard network controller or Raid you should stay away from using the sounds. If you're not then sound alone is no sweat for the north brigde, and you may notice a slight defference, but not enough to justify the purchase.
 
In most cases, your CPU is not limiting framerates, and you will not see any performance improvement through a soundcard upgrade.

Most people rn their games in a state where the video card is the primary bottleneck. In these cases CPU utilization means very little. If you are CPU bound, then yes you will see an improvment, but as I said, few people are actually limited by their CPU.

Analog quality will certainly improve over your Realtek POS. But I don't find it something very noticeable when in game. Music, definitely, but not really games.
 
Originally posted by: Concillian
In most cases, your CPU is not limiting framerates, and you will not see any performance improvement through a soundcard upgrade.

Most people rn their games in a state where the video card is the primary bottleneck. In these cases CPU utilization means very little. If you are CPU bound, then yes you will see an improvment, but as I said, few people are actually limited by their CPU.

Analog quality will certainly improve over your Realtek POS. But I don't find it something very noticeable when in game. Music, definitely, but not really games.
Click to expand...

I saw a great difference from Envy 24 onboard, then Soundmax 1980 and my actual Audigy 2. It was like night and day, specially in games like Collin McRae 4. The change was awesome, and music quality is much much better. Positional audio is also a lot better and sound effects are sweet in EAX HD games.
 
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