Soundcard in gaming

[spooony]

This is a issue which ended up in numerous arguments on different forums without really a clear answer from both sides. But still are a soundcard any use in games these days? Windows 7 with dx sound which Microsoft abandoned and not going to worry about. seems like soundcards has just become software emulation package with a card thrown in the deal. Is there a advantage using soundcard over onboard?

 

[its phillip]

That depends...if you want features like dolby headphone or whatever, you'll need a sound card that has it. If your onboard sound is really crappy (like mine is at work), music and games aren't as enjoyable as they could be with a discrete sound card.

 

[Shock]

Onboard sound cards are innately bad for a variety of reasons. First and foremost is the distortion and interfearance you receive with them. Even the best onboard sound will have a fair amount of interfearance just because of how a motherboard works. A discrete sound card allows for much less interfearance and will usually solve any sound releated issues someone might encounter.

I've been building systems for a long time now and every time I've run into a sound related issue, like popping, hissing, humming, a discrete card has fixed the problem every time. You don't have to spend a great deal of money on them either these days. An Asus xonar DG 5.1 card is barely 20 bucks and comes with a headphone amp built in. There are definite areas where having a sound card is a bonus.

 

[krzywica]

http://www.amazon.com/Behringer-UCA202-Audio-Interface/dp/B000KW2YEI/ref=wl_it_dp_o?ie=UTF8&coliid=I3J1OILD9PEA71&colid=ZT588N5CKJ7P

 

[its phillip]

I bought one of those recently from a user here

 

[Fenix]

The other thing about onboard sound vs add-on card is that with the onboard sound there is a lot of software emulation which takes valuable CPU processing away from the game that you are playing (which may translate into a couple of FPS, not earth shattering but still a performance decrease). Whereas with the card all processing will be handled by the card itself.

 

[krzywica]

The other thing about onboard sound vs add-on card is that with the onboard sound there is a lot of software emulation which takes valuable CPU processing away from the game that you are playing (which may translate into a couple of FPS, not earth shattering but still a performance decrease). Whereas with the card all processing will be handled by the card itself.

This has been a mute point for about 7 or 8 years....ever since the inception of the dual core cpu.....

 

[Shock]

This has been a mute point for about 7 or 8 years....ever since the inception of the dual core cpu.....

Unless the game is multi-threaded it wouldn't make a difference. However, most new games coming out are highly threaded and just have the CPU handle all of the sound. Having a sound card does still have a slight performance benefit if the game enables hardware acceleration, albeit insignificant.

Hopefully more and more game companies produce highly threaded games, so having a powerhouse CPU isn't the key to gaining that extra edge.