good soundcard

[M Berki]

Got some good 5.1 speakers I am using the onboard 5.1 sound on my nforce2
motherboard. The sound is great with mp3's and DVD's but not so great with
games. I am thinking of buying a seperate 5.1 card in particular a hercules
fortissmo 2. My budget is up to £15. Should I stick with onboard or go for
hercules ( the blue pcb matches my GFX card and mobo) or a creative model.

Thanks.

 

[Miss Perspicacia Tick]

Got some good 5.1 speakers I am using the onboard 5.1 sound on my
nforce2 motherboard. The sound is great with mp3's and DVD's but not
so great with games. I am thinking of buying a seperate 5.1 card in
particular a hercules fortissmo 2. My budget is up to £15. Should I
stick with onboard or go for hercules ( the blue pcb matches my GFX
card and mobo) or a creative model.

Thanks.

PMSL!! You state in the subject you want a "good soundcard" and then state
you have £15!! You're not going to get a "good" card for what is,
essentially, pocket money. A Hercules Fortissimo 2 is going to set you back
three times what you're prepared to pay! According to Dealtime, the only
card that falls in your budget is the Philips Dynamic Edge 4.1 which is, not
to put too fine a point on it, crap. That's at MicroDirect and it's out of
stock. Insight has it for £20. Oh the SB Live Player is £15 - I'll sell you
mine for that.

But, IMNSHO, you're not going to get a "good soundcard" for £15!

 

[John]

Got some good 5.1 speakers I am using the onboard 5.1 sound on my nforce2
motherboard. The sound is great with mp3's and DVD's but not so great with
games. I am thinking of buying a seperate 5.1 card in particular a hercules
fortissmo 2. My budget is up to £15. Should I stick with onboard or go for
hercules ( the blue pcb matches my GFX card and mobo) or a creative model.

Thanks.

Whats so bad about the sound card? Usually the comments I hear are
that most of the onboard sound which tends to be 5.1 - is good for
games but not for music /recording. Like for instance the one on my
board Asus a7n8x deluxe people say is very good for games but tends to
have poorer noise levels for recording than some of the better add on
cards. However , one thing I noticed - some of the onboard sound has
been criticized by many for stuttering problems with some saying its
not the boards fault or its a driver issue etc and others saying its a
major problem (one of the reasons for possibly the refurbs .returns of
many newer boards).

I noticed the bus (I could be wrong) just plain seems to be
overburdened or hogged. I put in a Maxtor promise card for some extra
HDs and got the worst suttering problems you could imagine. No matter
what I did - took all the other cards out, moved them around and kept
track of IRQ conflicts etc notthing solved it. Tried various drivers.
I ended scrapping it. And I still get it once in a while if Im not
careful. Just seems like the bus is overburdened or something.

 

[kony]

Whats so bad about the sound card? Usually the comments I hear are
that most of the onboard sound which tends to be 5.1 - is good for
games but not for music /recording. Like for instance the one on my
board Asus a7n8x deluxe people say is very good for games but tends to
have poorer noise levels for recording than some of the better add on
cards.

Exactly. Games generally have median-quality audio output, which in
itself is often why they don't sound as good as "possible". Onboard sound
solutions typically aren't given the board real-estate or component budget
for better filtering. To get both good 5.1 sound and the space,
components, the sound card will not be cheap... decent old sound cards are
cheap sometimes, but only 2 channel, not 5.1.

However , one thing I noticed - some of the onboard sound has
been criticized by many for stuttering problems with some saying its
not the boards fault or its a driver issue etc and others saying its a
major problem (one of the reasons for possibly the refurbs .returns of
many newer boards).

I noticed the bus (I could be wrong) just plain seems to be
overburdened or hogged. I put in a Maxtor promise card for some extra
HDs and got the worst suttering problems you could imagine. No matter
what I did - took all the other cards out, moved them around and kept
track of IRQ conflicts etc notthing solved it. Tried various drivers.
I ended scrapping it. And I still get it once in a while if Im not
careful. Just seems like the bus is overburdened or something.

Presumably you also moved around the Promise card. I don't know the
specifics but it may be possible to use something like WPCRedit to change
latency value for sound and/or Promise card, though it would seem you
can't get optimal performance for both. Indeed the PCI bus is a major
bottleneck on a modern system, particularly for these two parts, sound and
drive controllers.

 

[John]

Presumably you also moved around the Promise card. I don't know the
specifics but it may be possible to use something like WPCRedit to change
latency value for sound and/or Promise card, though it would seem you
can't get optimal performance for both. Indeed the PCI bus is a major
bottleneck on a modern system, particularly for these two parts, sound and
drive controllers.

And when I say it stutters , I mean it STUTTERS. Its not a slight
intermittent stuttering, its more like completely garbled sound.
In some slots its the most garbled sound you can imagine.
In other slots it lessens a bit.

Thats why I had to resort to using the SATA controller and getting IDE
to SATA converters for my hard drives. No problems as long as I do
that and stick to the 4 IDE + 2 sata configuration and dont try to add
hard disks via an add on IDE card. Why dont I use the cdrom and
burners and other lighter drives on the maxtor card ? Ive always heard
conflicting things about add on IDE cards and their ability to work
with CD and DVD drives. I tried them before and they didnt work right.
And Ive read some articles where they say they dont work and some that
say they do work.

I tried the Promise in every slot with all other cards removed except
sometimes my SBLIVE. I tried it with that removed too and just using
the onboard sound. Nope. And different drivers for both sound sources.

Theres been an ongoing argument with some popping up once in a while
claiming that its a "defect" with nforce boards in some MB groups and
some regulars there who swear they dont get that problem. So who
knows. Maybe its rare combo of either components and software or maybe
some use their PC in certain ways and others dont that bring out the
problem or a setting thing as you suggest. I dont want to start a "the
Pentium is way better than an AMD" thread like some do when they hear
any problems with AMDs. Generally I like my Asus deluxe board and am
not having that stuttering now after I chucked that Maxtor/Promise IDE
card. My impression though is I dont have that much headroom or
something in the PCI bus after that experience and some posts claiming
they get stuttering with some games that seem to be heavy duty. But
once again maybe Im totally offbase about what the real problem is.


Another thing I posted about the SOYO Dragon 1.0 board at Newegg for
$49 - 10 rebate. Last time I checked its still going on though they
keep raising and loweing the price all the time.

Some reviews say it doesnt seem to work with graphics cards above the
9600. Not even sure if it works with the XT. I see one guy say it
works with the 9600 and then several that say their 9700-9800 locks up
and theres a voltage issue or something with the board.

 

[kony]

And when I say it stutters , I mean it STUTTERS. Its not a slight
intermittent stuttering, its more like completely garbled sound.
In some slots its the most garbled sound you can imagine.
In other slots it lessens a bit.

Did you try the newer nForce 2.4(n) driver?
I have an A7N8X-Dlx around here somewhere with a different PATA RAID card
in it, believe It's SiI chipset, didn't *notice* stuttering sound but then
the RAID card isn't running primary drives, just additional storage. If I
get a chance I'll briefly test whether it's stuttering with access to
those drives. Did it need be a large file transfer or many small files,
or ALL the time? Was the audio anything in particular or ALL audio
playback? Did you have the environmental effects turned, and/or EQ turned
on or off? If those EQ & effects were on there's another thing to try.

Thats why I had to resort to using the SATA controller and getting IDE
to SATA converters for my hard drives. No problems as long as I do
that and stick to the 4 IDE + 2 sata configuration and dont try to add
hard disks via an add on IDE card.

That is the odd part. The SATA controller is a separate chip, right?
It's on PCI bus, should have similar issue. Had you tried disabling the
SATA feature when running the PATA card?

Why dont I use the cdrom and
burners and other lighter drives on the maxtor card ? Ive always heard
conflicting things about add on IDE cards and their ability to work
with CD and DVD drives. I tried them before and they didnt work right.
And Ive read some articles where they say they dont work and some that
say they do work.

Yeah it's a mixed bag... I dont' recall which cards need which
configurations, but do recall that some need at least one HDD attached to
be active and allow use of optical drives. One card I have doesn't seem
to support booting to CD. The Promise Ultra cards claim to support
opticals but the FastTrack don't. FWIW I have a few m'boards with the
Promise FastTrack chip, bios swapped with one for the Ultra, and have been
running optical drives off of it OK for a couple years, though I can't
remember if that box allows booting from the attached opticals or not.

Have a few SiI RAID cards that do allow opticals, but haven't tested
enough to know if there are any limitations.

I tried the Promise in every slot with all other cards removed except
sometimes my SBLIVE. I tried it with that removed too and just using
the onboard sound. Nope. And different drivers for both sound sources.

I'm surprised that the SBLive didn't cause more problems that other
components.

Have you tried adjusting the BIOS PCI latency setting?

Theres been an ongoing argument with some popping up once in a while
claiming that its a "defect" with nforce boards in some MB groups and
some regulars there who swear they dont get that problem. So who
knows. Maybe its rare combo of either components and software or maybe
some use their PC in certain ways and others dont that bring out the
problem or a setting thing as you suggest. I dont want to start a "the
Pentium is way better than an AMD" thread like some do when they hear
any problems with AMDs. Generally I like my Asus deluxe board and am
not having that stuttering now after I chucked that Maxtor/Promise IDE
card. My impression though is I dont have that much headroom or
something in the PCI bus after that experience and some posts claiming
they get stuttering with some games that seem to be heavy duty. But
once again maybe Im totally offbase about what the real problem is.

Well I was mentioning not having stuttering with a different RAID card,
but then it wasn't running a RAID either, just single drive spans.
Performance of drives seemed fine but perhaps a RAID0 would reduce
remaining throughput enough that I wouldn't seen audio problems.

Another thing I posted about the SOYO Dragon 1.0 board at Newegg for
$49 - 10 rebate. Last time I checked its still going on though they
keep raising and loweing the price all the time.

Some reviews say it doesnt seem to work with graphics cards above the
9600. Not even sure if it works with the XT. I see one guy say it
works with the 9600 and then several that say their 9700-9800 locks up
and theres a voltage issue or something with the board.

Don't know, I've never been a fan of Soyo, seems to be a bit overpriced
for what you get, unless some of their really fancy colored boards fit
into a case theme or something. My impression is still that nForce2 is
the best bet for an Athlon, with KT600 a close second if you need SATA but
not versatile FSB/overclocking. I waited a while for the KT880 boards but
they're taking too long to hit the market, won't be worth the debugging
this late into the Socket A era.

 

[kony]

Did you try the newer nForce 2.4(n) driver?

Oops!

I meant, nForce 4.2(n) driver.
ie- 4.20 for Win9x or 4.24 for 2K, XP.

 

[John]

Did you try the newer nForce 2.4(n) driver?

I just installed the newest ones so Ill check it again since I have
the Maxtor Promise laying around here. I wouldnt mind solving that
problem since it would imply I dont have such little headroom . And
Id like the added flexibilty of adding the card if wanted to for some
reason.

Of course now everything is fine as long as I avoid the add on card
and hopefully by Xmas Ill have a 64 bit.

This was before I had the IDE to SATA converters which I bought
because of the problem. So I only had the conventional IDE two
channels available. I was running 2-3 CD/DVD drives and had
2 hard disks so I was running out room and didnt have the converters
yet or a SATA HD.

I tested it with ONLY the hard drives - two Maxtors on the Promise to
free up the two channels for the CD / DVD drives.

It would range from complete 100% mush on the slot near the graphics
card , I think it shares a IRQ with the graphics card.

To briefly fooling me that all was well for about 10-20 seconds and
then garbling up intermittently and severely in some of the other
slots.

I have an A7N8X-Dlx around here somewhere with a different PATA RAID card
in it, believe It's SiI chipset, didn't *notice* stuttering sound but then
the RAID card isn't running primary drives, just additional storage. If I
get a chance I'll briefly test whether it's stuttering with access to
those drives. Did it need be a large file transfer or many small files,
or ALL the time? Was the audio anything in particular or ALL audio
playback? Did you have the environmental effects turned, and/or EQ turned
on or off? If those EQ & effects were on there's another thing to try.

Ill try that. I dont remember the details but I remember vaguely going
through it quickly and turning everything off.

That is the odd part. The SATA controller is a separate chip, right?
It's on PCI bus, should have similar issue. Had you tried disabling the
SATA feature when running the PATA card?

Yeah , thats what I was wondering. But it defintely though not
dramatically , gets better in different slots . Gnerally the slots
where its sharing with another heavy duty item so I thought it might
imply there wasnt enough headroom there. OF course it could be
something totally different. Its an ongoing though intermittent
topic in the ASUS group. Ive seen several threads where someone will
pop up and claim the boards are "defective" and others ridicule him
and say they are nuts. The person claiming this usually is talking
about games - garbled sound in games and how he and many other people
he knows has the same problem , while others will ridicule him and say
they dont have the problem at all.

Ive never had the problem until I tried to add the card except for in
rare circumstances when my PC was a bit screwed up , usually the data
on my HD was a bit corrupt from virus infestation or something. I just
did another wipe to install raid and have new install so I should try
it again since I also have the new nforce drivers.

I'm surprised that the SBLive didn't cause more problems that other
components.

Yeah I thought it was that obviously. Until I took it out and had the
same problems.

Its REAL fun turning it off and taking out the Promise card and
putting it into all the slot over and over again with the SBLIVE. Then
doing the same for the SBLIVE.

Then taking the SBLIVE out and moving the promise card over and over
to each slot. Each time it works ok for 20 seconds playing the intro
of an MP3 you think you got it and then a second later garbled sound.

Have you tried adjusting the BIOS PCI latency setting?

Nope Ill try that.

 

[kony]

Then taking the SBLIVE out and moving the promise card over and over
to each slot. Each time it works ok for 20 seconds playing the intro
of an MP3 you think you got it and then a second later garbled sound.

Come to think of it, when I initially received the A7N8X, I tested it
against DOA & function by plug-n-playing an existing Win98SE installation,
simply because it fast and easy, but point being, the audio did sound what
could be called garbled. Also I noted that video playback was at an
exceptionally high framerate. On Win98 the resolution was to reduce the
audio acceleration setting in Multimedia Properties. Don't think the box
board is in, is still running Win98 though, maybe Win2K or XP, I'll let
you know if it faulters while using the PATA raid card.

 

[kony]

<snip>

As a followup, I checked the audio on that A7N8X board, and it worked fine
in following scenario:

PCI latency 32, the bios default.

Win2k, "used" to be a clean install on this motherboard, w/ multimedia
props set to Full Hardware Acceleration, Best Sample Rate Conversion for
playback & record.

nForce Driver 4.24

SiI (0680 chipset) PATA RAID card in last PCI slot, IRQ shared with
nothing (except empty, 1st PCI slot). RAID card was previously in the 4th
(2nd to last) slot where it also worked. Current driver from SiI website
was used, IIRC. Example of card;
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=15-104-214R&type=Refurbish
http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=15-104-214

Audio IRQ "20" was shared with the nForce and 3Com integral network
adapters, all 3 USB controllers, & 1394.

SiI onboard SATA RAID was disabled, but had both onboard and a 3rd PCI GbE
NIC enabled, along with all USB, 1394.

CPU was only running at 1.6GHz on 200MHz FSB/Mem... never felt the need to
upgrade that box, "yet", LOL.

Audio was analog out, EQ enabled, Environmental Effects off. Then enabled
Environmental Effects, turned EQ off and on again. Speaker mode tried at
all, from headphone through 5.1.

Watched 640x480 Divx5 clip over the LAN, MP3 audio @ 192Kbps, while
transferring a 2GB file from drive attached to RAID card, to drive on
motherboard PATA port... averaged about 53MB/s. Then copied entire OS
partition (different OS, multi-boot scenario) to/fro same drives, roughly
3500 files. Tried WAV and MP3 also. Audio never skipped a beat. I dont'
have a free Promise card to test on this box though, and video card in it
isn't good enough for very demanding game test, but at the moment I don't
see any signs of PCI limitation, problems.

Well that's probably more info than you wanted but too much may be better
than too little. I couldn't get the audio to skip no matter what, my
suspicion would be that it's the Promise card you have, or maybe just
it's driver.

 

[John]

Well that's probably more info than you wanted but too much may be better
than too little. I couldn't get the audio to skip no matter what, my
suspicion would be that it's the Promise card you have, or maybe just
it's driver.

Huh maybe its the Promise card. Maybe the silicon graphics cards are
way better.

The funny thing is Maxtor was bundling these cards with their big hard
disks because of the gig limit problerm on some boards.

 

[kony]

Huh maybe its the Promise card. Maybe the silicon graphics cards are
way better.

The funny thing is Maxtor was bundling these cards with their big hard
disks because of the gig limit problerm on some boards.

Generally the FastTrack cards seem to do well, the last benchmarks I saw
(unfortuntely I can't remember where I saw them) showed the Promise and
Highpoint (software-RAID) cards to be slighty faster than SiI, but the SiI
is so much cheaper I felt it a better option to buy a pair of them,
keeping one as a spare. My intention was not for utmost performance from
it, just support for 4 more drives. Even so I can't complain about the
performance. At some point I might throw a PCI vidcap card in that box,
will be more revealing how close I am to saturating the bus.