Does the Sound Card affect performance?

[Mike B]

I wondered if the sound card affects performance, framerate wise. Like say,
if i have onboard sound.. fairly crappy onboard sound, would it affect my
fps.

If so, what is the best sound card to get which has a minimal hit on
performance?

 

[Vellu]

It might, in a game that has a lot of 3D positioned sound (30+ channels). As
to which card offers best performance, I have no idea. Creative Audigy
series is atleast advertised to offer performance. But in comparison with
onboard audio, I believe almost any current audio card will be an
improvement. In more ways then just performance.

 

[Andrew]

But in comparison with
onboard audio, I believe almost any current audio card will be an
improvement. In more ways then just performance.

That is true for some onboard sound, but certainly not all.

 

[Glzmo]

That is true for some onboard sound, but certainly not all.
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It all comes down to how CPU dependant the soundchip is. The less CPU
dependant the soundchip, the more CPU cycles are available for everything
else in the system.

 

[JAD]

sound cards are only as good as their drivers. Having processing done on card is a plus but if your setting 3d, eax, surround, quad
etc. if the drivers suck the game can falter and crash. Many game problems with crashing that are stubborn troubleshooting problems
often lead to sound related stuff.

 

[John Russell]

I wondered if the sound card affects performance, framerate wise. Like say,
if i have onboard sound.. fairly crappy onboard sound, would it affect my
fps.

If so, what is the best sound card to get which has a minimal hit on
performance?

Someone ran the 3dmark sound tests to see the difference and if you have a
powerful card it really dosn't matter. All I can remember about them was the
Audigy was the best "card" for lowest cpu loadings, but the winner was the
nforce2 soundstorm APU!

 

[Mark]

Yes, really cheap ones would use your CPU to do most of the work.

Generally speaking you get what you pay for. As others have said if you
want all the extra sound processing effects
3D spatial, environment effects etc, then a good card would do a lot of the
work on board rather than asking the cpu to wok things out.

In my own experience Audigy 2 is one of the better cards in this respect
when doing 3D and EAX etc.

Also some cheaper cards with inferior performance and poor drivers you might
end up disabling much of the hardware acceleration in Direct Sound (via
dxdiag program) if you have problems.

Regards,

Mark

 

[DaveW]

On-board sound uses CPU cycles, so you get lower frame rates.

 

[John Russell]

On-board sound uses CPU cycles, so you get lower frame rates.

I'm afraid the arrival of the Nvidia soundstorm APU means you can't
generalise this way.

 

[Darthy]

I wondered if the sound card affects performance, framerate wise. Like say,
if i have onboard sound.. fairly crappy onboard sound, would it affect my
fps.

If so, what is the best sound card to get which has a minimal hit on
performance?

Typical onboard sound, yes. Same with video... hence, Intel's
on-board solutions tend to be the shittiest. with their "3DExtreme" -
extreme what?!

I think the SUPER Video card reviews should include onboard video.

 

[Strontium]

-
Darthy stood up at show-n-tell, in
(e-mail address removed), and said:

Typical onboard sound, yes. Same with video... hence, Intel's
on-board solutions tend to be the shittiest. with their "3DExtreme" -
extreme what?!

I think the SUPER Video card reviews should include onboard video.

WHY? Mr. 'uptight, I can't handle WPA'? WHY?