PJ101

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Hey, i just found a creative soundblaster live in my dad's shop.. what benefits will I see over my onboard AC '97 audio?
 

D2ModPlayer

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Hello. I'm new to this community as far as posting, but I've been reading the articles since Tom himself reviewed the nVidia TNT and Voodoo 3 quite awhile ago. I've only bothered posting on forums since a year ago, mainly with Diablo II mods to help beta test and improve what I call works of art. An artist showing what he's capable of, but in a digital format. I registered because I thought it was long overdue and thought I could help with this question.

The next few paragraphs are good general advice so I'll leave them there, I forgot to take your system specs into consideration. It sounds like your hardware is new enough to keep the AC 97 unless it's for a reason I suggest later on.

I owned the original sound blaster Live for years and thought it an excellent card. However, the sound card industry has moved along since then, and sometimes even an ac97 can have better sound. If you purchased your machine in the last few years it may even be surround capable. Check in your control panel for audio options or an audio center of some sort. If there's no option to add speakers and have the surround mode then using the Sound Blaster live may be good if you want 4.1 surround (4 speakers) to make it sound better in games for a more environmental effect. For pure sound fidelity in music the onboard may be better unless it's a very old tower. I hope that helps.

I can also depend on the quality of speakers you have. You may not be able to notice a difference in the fidelity of the sound if you have stock speakers with an OEM system. They are generally low quality. Then if the Sound Blaster Live is the only one with surround sound that would be the best to use, but only if you have the available amount of speakers (4).
 

michaelahess

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If it's a live 5.1, it will be better than any on-board audio I've heard. I have just about every one imaginable, and I've listed to most of them on my JBL Studio Monitors. The regular sb live is still good but like the previous poster said, surround is lacking on it. The live has a much better s/n ratio than most on-board audio except the envy if I recall, but the envy never sounded as good to me.

The live will also offload eax processing wheres on-boards may support it, but they don't offload it. You could see upto 5% cpu reduction depending on material and your system.

When it comes to newer cards, they are so very close, most people won't hear a difference. My audigy 2 and X-Fi both sound slightly better than the live with eax, course they support higher versions. Music is almost identical, the live is slightly less dynamic in my opinion. The audigy and X-Fi are so close, any difference is my mind playing tricks on me. You can play the X-Fi much louder without hearing ANY noise however.

Course this is just my opinion from listening to many chipsets. Everyones ears are different and you may think the live sounds bad compared to a alc861 or alc850 :)

I also have a Diamond Xtreme Sound 7.1 that uses the CMI 8768 chipset. It sounds as good as the live, but not quite up to the audigy and X-Fi. A great cheap card though.

I will say in my opinion CMI based chipsets tend to sound better than Realtek, and the Envy falls in the middle when comparing the higher end CMI and Realteks. Now if you can find an MB with a good CMI chip, it will sound better than most integrated ones, but being integrated on the MB will always cause a higher noise floor and thus more noticable noise.
 

Tug

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I would just stick the SBLive in the computer and leave your onboard sound enabled, that way you can compare the two side by side.

By the way, SBLive and many Audigy cards use the AC97 codec also.

What do you do mainly with your sound card - play games, listen to music, record music....?
 

michaelahess

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They don't "use" the '97 codec, they are compatible to the '97 standard. It's like the old Gravis Ultrasounds (best card I ever owned, PnP Pro) they were soundblaster compatible but sounded worlds better. Just cause they say '97 on 'em doesn't mean they all sound the same.
 

PJ101

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I listen to a lot of music and play games as well. I was also wondering if the dedicated card will free up some processor power.
 

SaintsRock

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I have read reviews in the distant past showing a slight improvement in frame rates when using a dedicated sound card versus an on board solution. So if your Dad is generous enough to let you have it for free, fit it now.
 

D2ModPlayer

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One other thing I forgot to mention. Even though it supports EAX it's such an old version it won't do much good unless you use alot of legacy software like the original Half Life, for example. The newer titles won't support the EAX effects but they'll still run.
 

Tug

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They don't "use" the '97 codec, they are compatible to the '97 standard. It's like the old Gravis Ultrasounds (best card I ever owned, PnP Pro) they were soundblaster compatible but sounded worlds better. Just cause they say '97 on 'em doesn't mean they all sound the same.

I wasn't saying anything about the sound of SBLive or Audigy cards, I have them in 4 computers. I was just stating that SBLives and Audigy cards have an AC'97 Codec which is true

The following is a quote from the kX Website:

"The kX Mixer AC97 page allows control over the AC97 Inputs and Outputs (note that all kX-compatible cards have an AC97 codec, with the exception of the E-mu APS and Audigy2 Platinum eX)."

Here is a screenshot from kX Help
http://webpages.charter.net/drw46/examples/ac97.jpg
 

max_normal

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My computer stopped CTDing when I took the SBLive out. I understand from various game issues forums that this is not an isolated problem. Also, SBLive cards use some system RAM and rarely have driver updates to address compatibility issues. IMO the SB has a brighter high frequency response compared to my onboard nforce, but I'd rather lose that than have to restart Oblivion every five minutes.