Decent Sound Card for P4P800?

[outtaping]

Hello,

I'm tired of losing CPU-power running the on board P4P800
sound-chip.

Anyone know of a fairly priced (OEM) PCI sound-card that will not
'drag-down' the CPU? I also fly FS2004 a lot, and the P4P sound chip
really 'chokes' with this sim.

Thanks for any help.

 

[Bronney Hui]

The Sound Blaster Live! Value would prolly go for $30 US and would be
adequate for the job.

 

[outtaping]

The Sound Blaster Live! Value would prolly go for $30 US and would be
adequate for the job.

Thanks, almost got a Value card, but found a 'Sound Blaster LIVE
Digital 5.1' card for $35.00.

Sometimes it's difficult to download newer drivers for the older SB
cards (if any), but for the price, it doesn't really matter.

 

[Bronney Hui]

np, but don't download any driver for the card if you're using XP. Use the
default. I tried all sorts of drivers and it tends to screw up some games.

-bron

 

[outtaping]

np, but don't download any driver for the card if you're using XP. Use the
default. I tried all sorts of drivers and it tends to screw up some games.

Sounds like a good plan, I'll stick with the stock CD drivers.

 

[outtapng]

np, but don't download any driver for the card if you're using XP. Use the
default. I tried all sorts of drivers and it tends to screw up some games.

Got the sound card Friday (SB-Live), and have been testing it. The
speed increase is really great! It's much faster than the on-board
sound chip. The SB CD drivers work fine too.

I'd like to open the case and pour water directly onto that 'ball and
chain' sound chip (sizzle it!), but that's probably not a good
idea..<g>.

 

[Elly]

Got the sound card Friday (SB-Live), and have been testing it. The
speed increase is really great! It's much faster than the on-board
sound chip. The SB CD drivers work fine too.

I'd like to open the case and pour water directly onto that 'ball and
chain' sound chip (sizzle it!), but that's probably not a good
idea..<g>.

I had never known that the sound on P4P800 can drag CPU performance
until I read your post. Mine is a P4P800 Deluxe bought one year ago. I
never bother with the sound since it sounded okay to me. I'll add a PCI
sound card to check it out.

 

[outtapng]

I had never known that the sound on P4P800 can drag CPU performance
until I read your post. Mine is a P4P800 Deluxe bought one year ago. I
never bother with the sound since it sounded okay to me. I'll add a PCI
sound card to check it out.

If using the MB soundchip for lighter games/sims, It's not that bad,
but really struggles with newer games, etc.

The main problem I had was with FS-2004 flight sim, which really
pushes the whole computer, because of the heavy graphics and sound.

Disabling the MB soundchip and installing an SB Live helped in the
following ways (with FS2004).

1. Fixed 'crackling' sound-static for aircraft-sounds and ATC/pilot
voices.
Before getting the PCI-card, for some unknown reason, if I changed
graphic resolution (to any other setting, then back again), the
static-pops went away. With the SB-Live I don't have to do this
anymore. It used to be really big headache changing resolutions every
single time.

2. FS2004 ATC voice-chatter, when 'extremely' busy, used to really
ruin frame-rate (down to 1fps! with a 3.3GHz CPU). I think it was
overloading the MB soundchip; It doesn't happen anymore.

3. Aircraft views (panning left, right, back, up) from inside plane,
used to pause the sim for about .75-seconds. Now panning is almost
instantaneous.

4. When ground/aircraft scenery got very complex, every time an
ATC/pilot voice spoke, there was a small and jerky 'stutter'. That's
almost completely eliminated.

The PCI card just sounds better too. Much more bass and treble to
work with too. I found a good prices at pricwatch.com, searching for
'sb live digital'.

 

[bronney]

Hey,

Sorry to post back late. But I play FS2004 quite a lot but thrown
away my Logitech Wingman Digital when the rudder twist broke .

Now I don't have a hat switch on the usb joystick and don't want to
invest in another joystick until I get my hands on a 6600GT video
card.

I want to know, with say, only keyboard, how can you look around in
the virtual cockpit view? I don't mean zooming and panning, but
actually twisting looking around? I used to do it with the hat
switch. Thanks.

BTW, I had the crackling even with the SBLive! which I think has to do
more with Windows Media Codecs. I find that if I run it in windowed
mode, the spot view crackles. That was before I do the p4p800 upgrade
and was in the CUSL2-C.

After recent 2 formats due to silly SP2 (long story), the crackle's
gone, but yesterday it happened again in windowed mode, and only in
windowed mode when I look left/right. Just FYI.

Man I can't wait till I get the new video card cuz I got another 17"
CRT waiting to be plugged in