General sound card question

[clintwestmetal]

I have never used a sound card, has always been the onboard sound.

My question is, as a gamer, what sort of improvements would I actually notice if I got a decent one?

 

[JoeUbi]

Well I have a Creative Soundblaster X-Fi Platinum. The best way to state the difference between integrated and the X-Fi is like going from 8-Track Audio to Lossless Digital. The sound quality is just amazing. To really notice the difference you gotta have a good set of speakers or headphones. I usually use Shure E2c for my earbuds and for speakers, I hook it up to a Harmon Kardon Reciever and the reciever runs Definitive StudioMonitor 450's (http://www.definitivetech.com/loudspeakers/studiomonitor/studiomonitor.html)
Also to get the most out of the SoundCard you gotta configure the sound to your liking. For gaming the advantages are... Full EAX 5.0 (No other sound card supports) Support, Full OpenAL support, 128 Voices, up to 96 khz Audio, 24-Bit sound processing, CMSS-3D Virtualization (best virtual surround out). Also true 7.1 Audio. Also some models come with built in "X-RAM" which is basically somewhere where the sound is cached, it is supported by a few games, but the list is getting longer over time. If your looking for a good gaming card, I'd recommend the X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty Pro Series, it comes with X-RAM. Or if you don't have teh cash I'd check out the X-Fi XtremeMusic. Whatever you do, don't get the ExtremeAudio, it is not a true X-Fi.

 

[Slobogob]

I assume the biggest advantage would be the newest EAX and most likely a little higher sound quality.

 

[clintwestmetal]

would it also have an effect on FPS?

My system is-

Athlon XP 2200+
Radeon 9800pro
1.25GB RAM

 

[Slobogob]

Unless you take the X-fi gamer edition, which is said to increase FPS mildly (around 2% at most), other soundcards will probably reduce your FPS a little since they need memory bandwidth and some processor time. And before you ask, no, the Gamer edition of X-fi is not worth it.

My opinion on that is, that good sound effects can improve a game a lot more than 1 or 2 frames. I´m using onboard sound right now, but i had a Soundblaster live once. Games are more immersive with good sound. On top of that you don´t need to upgrade your soundcard every other year, so buying one is far from a bad investment.

Looking at your system specs though, i´d save the money to buy a new system. No matter how good the sound is, if the graphics are like crap, sound isn´t going to save the day.

 

[Slobogob]

Whatever you do, don't get the ExtremeAudio, it is not a true X-Fi.

I´m quite curious about that. Can you elaborate?

 

[clintwestmetal]

Looking at your system specs though, i´d save the money to buy a new system. No matter how good the sound is, if the graphics are like crap, sound isn´t going to save the day.

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/CPU-recommendations-ftopict210896.html

That's what I plan to do if I can muster up enough cash, cannot afford anymore than that. That way I get to re-use my RAM etc.

 

[Slobogob]

Looking at your system specs though, i´d save the money to buy a new system. No matter how good the sound is, if the graphics are like crap, sound isn´t going to save the day.

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/CPU-recommendations-ftopict210896.html

That's what I plan to do if I can muster up enough cash, cannot afford anymore than that. That way I get to re-use my RAM etc.

Looks like a reasonable plan. You can get a lot of the things you need off ebay. A lot of people sell their 939 boards to go core 2 duo.

 

[JoeUbi]

Whatever you do, don't get the ExtremeAudio, it is not a true X-Fi.

I´m quite curious about that. Can you elaborate?

I am pretty sure it's the ExtremeAudio, but it's the only card in the X-Fi series not built with an X-Fi DSP.

 

[clintwestmetal]

Looking at your system specs though, i´d save the money to buy a new system. No matter how good the sound is, if the graphics are like crap, sound isn´t going to save the day.

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/CPU-recommendations-ftopict210896.html

That's what I plan to do if I can muster up enough cash, cannot afford anymore than that. That way I get to re-use my RAM etc.

Looks like a reasonable plan. You can get a lot of the things you need off ebay. A lot of people sell their 939 boards to go core 2 duo.
would you say ebay is normally reliable for computer components?

 

[Slobogob]

would you say ebay is normally reliable for computer components?

If you don´t buy from people with a bad reputation, you should be fine. I bought almost my whole computer off ebay. 3 Month ago i bought a Pentium D 820 for 100 Euro, 1 Gig DDR2 533 for 23 Euro, 1 Gig DDR2 for 43 Euro and a 775 Mainboard for 23 Euro (new!). I´m careful if it comes to ebay, but i´ve yet to get a defective part. The only things i´d never buy off ebay are harddrives, since they involve mechanical parts, and stuff that just screams "overclock me!".

 

[Slobogob]

Interesting. I had a feeling they would do something like that.

 

[clintwestmetal]

ok well i'll have a look on ebay cheers.

 

[Slobogob]

Good hunting!