sound cards

Are most of you guys and gals using onboard sound or have you dropped some cash on a nice sound card? I assume if I am going to be wearing headphones there isn't much point in throwing in some nice sound card. Am I right in that assumption or will there be benefits from getting a nice card versus whatever my motherboard has. I do a lot with capturing audio from vinyl so I guess if it helps with that then it may be worth it.

Although your just using headphones you will still see a performance increase in your system with a soundcard. Back in the BF42 days I thought the very same thing. I just ran the onboard sound. I had a decent machine and i would get laggy when i was near the action. At first i thought it was just cpu or memory. Well basically i was correct. My onboard was using the processor and my memory to do it's thing. I bought an audigy gamer at the time and all my issues went away. That was due to the card having it's own hardware processing and memory. Keep that in mind.

I use an old Soundblaster LIVE!, and have a nice set of Monsoon speakers (2) + subwoofer. I use headphones with mic for gaming, I can hear ppl sneaking up on me, and hear the arty launching plenty good (a sometimes difficult thing to hear in BF2). I wouldn't change my sound unless I had money to throw away - it's working well for me. You can get a more modern Soundblaster than I use for about $30.

Pal has a kick-ass soundcard, and he'll be along shortly to tell you about it, I'll wager.

I would at least use SOME soundcard, and avoid siphoning away CPU time away by using on-board sound. When I put together a computer for my ex's boy, we could'nt figure out why the games were stuttering. I put a cheap soundcard in, problem fixed. That was several years ago. Processers have greatly improved, and on-board sound has as well, but I just can't warm to the idea of on-board sound. Not when a cheap board can save me a few FPS!

When quad cores (or better) become common, then maybe I'll get used doing things with the processor that used to have dedicated hardware. I think sound will probably go that route eventually, and I also think physics processing boards are doomed for the same reason.

awesome info, thanks

Yeah switching from the onboard to the Audigy2 I nmoticed huge differences even with just a cheap set of headphones. I often have to take off my headphones because I hear a weird sound I think is in my house because it's so realistic, only to realize that it's the game sound.

One of the bf2 maps has a weird random sound, it took me about 6 months to stop pulling off my headphones each time I heard it... it sounded like my cat crying.

Well, I am the opposite of all the last post. I had an Audigy card on my last box and it gave me lots of problems. Also before that I had a Soundblaster card which had problems with some games. I vowed never to spend the money again if I got a good onboard one. Latest motherboard has a very good Realtek system which worked better than the Audigy. I do have a dual CPU, so I have not seen any problems yet. I would suggest using your onboard system first and then check for problems. You can then decide to buy a sound card if needed.

Onboard sound also leaves a slot free and one less heat source in the case (something to think about).

Varg wrote:
I would suggest using your onboard system first and then check for problems. You can then decide to buy a sound card if needed.

Even though I find added soundcards to be useful, I can't fault the logic here. Don't cost nuthin' but time to try it.

Sorry varg, I strongly disagree on this one man. Get a Creative X-Fi card, period end of discussion! Even with headphones on it has f-in surround sound man!!! When playing BF2 I hear everything!!! I am unsure how it does it but I hear helicopters flying from behind me, tanlks around buildings beside me etc... it is surround sound with only normal headphones. It is AWESOME!!!! It has really helped my game play as I can hear jeeps and tanks from behinds locations I never heard before as well.

Even without the surround the sound quality is really noticeably better! Also they only cost $100 for the basic unit without the extra memory on it or faceplate. No need to get the very best one, the $100 one is fine.

They are all exactly the same except the memory and no games use that yet as far as I know. The sound quality between all of the models is no different. I have the older one as well as the top of the one with the face plate and extra memory so.

I admit Doc seems to hear arty sooner than I do. I expect it is not meant to be that way and is not true to the game 😉

I will say that "some" people have had problems with them on certain MB's. They get a crackle sound etc.. my old game machine had it. I think it was the slower PCI channels etc...

Anyway my new box I build last year has never had a problem with it! Just get one from a local store and if you have problems for any reason, return it. Simple as that!


I have owned a lot of sound cards over the years and when I got the X-Fi I was really impressed. I truly did not think it was going to be that much better than My Audgy 2 but is really was!

Built in sound on MB's is not as good, to me anyway. It does for anything but the basics. They also "usually" use more CPU cycles as it renders a lot through the computer. A stand alone card will use built in hardware for all the rendering and processing etc... Taking fewer CPU cycles.

I would like to point out that I play by sound as much or more than by vision. In fact, sound is so important to me, that when I started playing BF42 online with TeamSpeak, I actually got worse because I lost the 3D sounds I had with my speakers.

In 11 years of building my own computer, I have owned 3 sound cards.

Creative Labs Soundblaster 24 - Old ISA card. I didn't upgrade until ISA was no longer available.

Creative Labs Soundblaster Live Platinum - I was shocked at how much better this sounded. However, I had problems with spacial recognition using headphones. Let's say a plane was straffing me. I could tell the X axis of the sound, but I couldn't tell if it was in front of me or behind me. With speakers, this was not an issue.

I figured there would be no reason to upgrade my sound card ever again. Then Paladin started talking about the XFi and I read a few reveiws. The reviews basicly said it was worth the upgrade, especially if you played with Headphones, due to the 3D surround sound.

I bought an XFI and it is everything I read. It instantly improved my game because I could again play by sound with headphones. I am able to pinpoint helo's, hear footsteps nearby, which I then compare against the hud. If I don't see an arrow, then I know it's the enemy and I know what direction they are coming from. I think the few times I have been accused of cheating were this exact situation.

For me, hands down, the XFi is worth it.

Atomm wrote:
I bought an XFI and it is everything I read. It instantly improved my game because I could again play by sound with headphones. I am able to pinpoint helo's, hear footsteps nearby, which I then compare against the hud. If I don't see an arrow, then I know it's the enemy and I know what direction they are coming from. I think the few times I have been accused of cheating were this exact situation.

For me, hands down, the XFi is worth it.

It is STILL amazing to me how it does that so well using normal headphones, just amazing.

This is of course also AWESOME with movies giving you 5.x surround quality through headphones. (See below)

While on the subject there is a small stand alone gadget from Creative called an XMod that you plug into a normal USB port. It works right out of the box. It's powered by USB, and it defaults as your sound card once it's plugged into a computer, no driver is required

It then has a line out and headphone jack on it. So it sits between your device(computer) and headphones.

The device has the crystallizer function as well as the CMSS 3D sound. There is a big knob on it to adjust it easily. http://www.creative.com/products/product.a...p;product=15913

So this device will add the 3D effect to normal sound cards etc... Cost is about $80.

This is mainly for those with laptops etc... Drix this means you man.

You can also use it for Ipods or home system if you want as it also has a line input as well so you do not need a computer to use it. You will still need to power it through a USB cable though so that part totally sucks as it does not have batteries. It probably would drain them very fast anyway so... You can buy small adapters that plug into the wall and they have a USB port on it to power devices such as this. I use one all the time.

Yes I have one 😉 I have not tested it with games or anything though.

I have used it in the car between my Ipod and speakers though. I then used a car adapter to USB connector to power it. That is why I got it in the first place, to imporve my sound in the car. 😉

I am unsure if it is exactly the same quality as a stand alone X-Fi etc.... It should be though.

Can you tell I am a huge Creative fan 😉

X-Fi all the way! 😀

sindy wrote:
X-Fi all the way! 😀

Out voted on this topic 😆

I am sure the X-Fi is a good card. I will take a peek at it this summer, who knows I might go back to the 3D Surround "crackle."

Yes Paladin, I was one of those who suffered that 😢

Varg wrote:
Out voted on this topic 😆

I am sure the X-Fi is a good card. I will take a peek at it this summer, who knows I might go back to the 3D Surround "crackle."

Yes Paladin, I was one of those who suffered that 😢

I admit man, if it does that on your system do not bother with it. Creative, as much as I do like them, dropped the ball on that issue.

Some people have fixed it and others have not. It just seems to depend on your MB. If you have that issue the card will just annoy the crap out of you and it is not worth it. I removed it from my old machine and went back to the Audigy 2. I could not take that noise anymore 😉

Lucky for me the new computer that I game on works fine. I am happy as that is the computer I really need it on so...

You could always get an Audigy 2 and an Xmod 😉

Varg wrote:
Out voted on this topic 😆

I am sure the X-Fi is a good card. I will take a peek at it this summer, who knows I might go back to the 3D Surround "crackle."

Yes Paladin, I was one of those who suffered that 😢

I am one of the lucky ones I guess. However, I can't say that it has not been the biggest pain in the ass when it comes to compatibility issues. If something needs a special setting to run a new program on my comp I can put money on it being the sound card... *sigh*

BUT, the sound quality is unmatched. I had no idea it really made that big of a difference, but it does. I listen to alot of music on my computer as well as gaming and it works well for both. 😛

I remember reading back in the BF1942 days that someone had tested the resource use of various on board soundcards irrespective of the quality of the sound. They found that some of them were utilizing up to 15% of system resources during gaming (BF42 being one of them). Some of the nforce boards were much lower than that - like in the 5% range however.

When I switched from onboard sound to a SoundBlaster Live, I saw a big difference not only in sound quality but overall performance. Saw a big jump in sound quality when I purchased an Audigy2 last year as well. The performance bump wasn't there, but the surround sound made a big difference.

Depending on your current system, an upgrade to an SB card may or may not make much difference in performance. For someone like myself who is running an older system and who doesn't have a lot of money to put into new parts, a soundcard was a great upgrade for less than $100.


I did have some crackling issues with my Audigy, but after several Creative Driver installs with no luck I went hunting around for a bit I found out that it was caused by something in one of the VIA 4-in-1 driver sets that had been released a while back. Updated to the newest ones and the issue went away.

FYI, I can't vouch for this particular cards goodness, but the is a flavor of the x-fi for somewhere in the neighborhood of $55 on newegg right now.

Bubbaspanky wrote:
FYI, I can't vouch for this particular cards goodness, but the is a flavor of the x-fi for somewhere in the neighborhood of $55 on newegg right now.

Link Link Link Link Link... LINK 😆

Seriously Bubba, sheesh, you have to keep up the standards Doc set for price alerts 😉

lexx wrote:
Link Link Link Link Link... LINK 😆

Seriously Bubba, sheesh, you have to keep up the standards Doc set for price alerts 😉

Fine then here. I refrained from the link so people would use Atomm's link to newegg.com which GRB gets a percentage of those sales for referring. In any case here is a regular link
X-Fi

I will mention offhand that if you're planning on upgrading your OS to Vista anytime soon, you might want to hold off on the high end sound card purchase. M$ rewrote the sound driver setup for vista from the ground up. As it stands, your hardware sound rendering isn't supported. Though Creative is working on driver work arounds presently. None have yet been released.

The reasoning for was simply to move the sound setup out of the main kernal, as sound card issues caused an large number of crashes on any windows system pre-Vista. That said, I've had no problems with it. It should be said Vista will work with your sound card, just without the EAX and other bells and whistles. So like I said, if you're in the market and upgrading OS, hang on a bit till Creative gets it's new drivers straight. Your on-board should suffice till then.

Course most of this doesn't matter with the vast majority sticking with XP for the time being. Still, I recommend Vista. But one /must/ know what they are doing on setup to keep the user "protections" from being a total pain in the arse.

Drix wrote:
I will mention offhand that if you're planning on upgrading your OS to Vista anytime soon, you might want to hold off on the high end sound card purchase. M$ rewrote the sound driver setup for vista from the ground up. As it stands, your hardware sound rendering isn't supported. Though Creative is working on driver work arounds presently. None have yet been released.

The reasoning for was simply to move the sound setup out of the main kernal, as sound card issues caused an large number of crashes on any windows system pre-Vista. That said, I've had no problems with it. It should be said Vista will work with your sound card, just without the EAX and other bells and whistles. So like I said, if you're in the market and upgrading OS, hang on a bit till Creative gets it's new drivers straight. Your on-board should suffice till then.

Course most of this doesn't matter with the vast majority sticking with XP for the time being. Still, I recommend Vista. But one /must/ know what they are doing on setup to keep the user "protections" from being a total pain in the arse.

I run Vista on my laptop but am not on my desktop yet just because of game issues. I would still get the X-Fi. That is good advice Drix but I would go for it anyway as it cannot be any worse 😉

Sindy has one and runs Vista. She did have some pains but got it working well as far as I know. I am unsure how it handles the Surround though.

I have vista and there is a beta driver from creative that is working fine. So far anyway. The only thing missing is the command center thingy... but that's all there in Vista, u just have to find it. 🙂

If anyone cares I just seen an XMOD at Best Buy for $40 on sale.
That is half price.

Maybe be worth it for some.

New sound card coming out. It's not a Creative, but it's made using licensed Creative tech. Probably gonna be pricey, but I thought I'd pass it along.

http://www.hardwarecanucks.com/audio/1451-...relude-pic.html

cool cool