ON board Sound card or PCI-E one

[HiJack]

never thought of disabling my onboard HDA. I'm going to do that just now, and give it a whirl. I currently use an ASUS Xonar SC, that pushes sound through a 5.1 A/V receiver.

Any problem with the ASUS drivers?

[javelina1]

Any problem with the ASUS drivers?

 

No issue at all. The SC is working just fine. Via the control panel, I'm using ASUSTeK driver 7.12.8.1794 (as of March 2011).

[Bucic]

No issue at all. The SC is working just fine. Via the control panel, I'm using ASUSTeK driver 7.12.8.1794 (as of March 2011).

From my experience with both Creative and ASUS I can say you can easily forget about the driver versions with ASUS. You install the latest ones and off you go. I can't list the issues, that forced me to swap Creative drivers back and forth, from the top of my head right now but the issues were real (Audigy 2).

[Gloom Demon]

I have ran a mission with sound turned on and sound turned of (muted in the DCSW settings, of course) - FPS is the same in both instances. I would guess, that getting a dedicated sound card would bring some performance gains only on a system with one CPU core. While DSCW utilizes only two cores there shouldn't be any performance increases - check it out for yourselfs.

[Abburo]

Muting sounds, even in game settings does not stop them beeing processed, so your results does not shows anything.

 

Asus, Creative ... always will be a subjective choice. The goal here is to improve sounds, and both are doing their jobs very well.

[Gloom Demon]

That would be rather odd - perhaps you would run a test to substantiate your view? ;-)

[SkateZilla]

I have ran a mission with sound turned on and sound turned of (muted in the DCSW settings, of course) - FPS is the same in both instances. I would guess, that getting a dedicated sound card would bring some performance gains only on a system with one CPU core. While DSCW utilizes only two cores there shouldn't be any performance increases - check it out for yourselfs.

 

You can try to Run DCS With All/Onboard Sound Chips Disabled in Windows Device Manager.

It may not show results either, as the system would still processing the X-Audio Commands and Stack. But it's worth a try.

 

I know early DX9 days when Creative's Drivers were a utter mess, that's how we (X-fi Testers) confirmed they were the drivers or IRQ the Cards were put on by windows (leave Audio Enabled, Games would crash, disable Creative Sound Card in Device Manager, games ran fine.)

Edited December 16, 2013 by SkateZilla

[Gloom Demon]

I think, it is not only that but also the way DCSW utilizes CPU cores right now. We have one core loaded by DCSW and one core loaded with the sound engine. I guess, that these two do not interfere with each other. So even if we free up one core from working with the sound engine that does not take the burden of the other core running the game itself. So even if there would be a performance boost from using a standalone sound card, we wouldn't see it on CPU's with multiple cores. That's my reckoning at least.

[c0ff]

Muting sounds, even in game settings does not stop them beeing processed, so your results does not shows anything.

 

Actually, it does stop processing. Registering sources positions and parameters takes negligible time. Rendering is done only when there are sounds that can be heard. If there's none - rendering degenerates into zeroing the sound buffers.

Edited December 16, 2013 by c0ff

[c0ff]

So even if there would be a performance boost from using a standalone sound card, we wouldn't see it on CPU's with multiple cores.

You can't see a performance boost from using a standalone sound card.

 

With XAudio2 API any sound card is just a pipe to stream the resulting digital audio outside the computer, in either analog form (via digital-to-analog conversion) or in a digital form (like through the S/PDIF connector).

 

Dedicated hardware audio renderers, like Creative cards are things of the past. They accelerated the task of resampling and mixing up to 64-128 audio buffers when CPUs were weak. The problem with accelerators is their rigid nature. They were designed around DirectSound3D API, which is very primitive by todays standards.

[SkateZilla]

You can't see a performance boost from using a standalone sound card.

 

With XAudio2 API any sound card is just a pipe to stream the resulting digital audio outside the computer, in either analog form (via digital-to-analog conversion) or in a digital form (like through the S/PDIF connector).

 

Dedicated hardware audio renderers, like Creative cards are things of the past. They accelerated the task of resampling and mixing up to 64-128 audio buffers when CPUs were weak. The problem with accelerators is their rigid nature. They were designed around DirectSound3D API, which is very primitive by todays standards.

 

So Outside of me Forcing Specific Effects via Creative's software,

 

All the Audio Rendering/Channels are done via CPU Processing and just outputted to the Default output device?

 

 

I cant say if you get a Perf. Increase using a Dedicated Sound Card, but I Can say, Specific Gaming Cards make everything sound better, Music, Games, DCS, and Movies.

At least it did for at least 8 people that I've built systems for.

 

 

I've seen users say a dedicated sound card fixed issues, but it was prolly a CPU->NB->RealTek Bottleneck?

Edited December 16, 2013 by SkateZilla

[danilop]

^^

Thanks for clarification Dmitry.

 

So the only real advantage (for gaming) of good dedicated sound card nowadays is better analogue audio quality (better audio path - op amps, better shielding and resulting SNR, THD and such), right?

[SkateZilla]

^^

Thanks for clarification Dmitry.

 

So the only real advantage (for gaming) of good dedicated sound card nowadays is better analogue audio quality (better audio path - op amps, better shielding and resulting SNR, THD and such), right?

 

 

That's how I've seen it since about 2007.

 

nothing uses EAX or Proprietary Hardware Direct Sound anymore,

Windows Vista and Above, the Audio Stack was Changed.

 

Infact, I have games/software that use Hardware Positional Audio Via GPU.

[danilop]

That explains it :D

 

Been out of loop for a while PC soundwise (basically around 2007 got rid of my recording studio stuff and all necessary hardware for digital sound work on PC back then - like TC Electronics and UAD DSP cards and such) You couldn't do much without serious DSP power back then.

 

Nice to know!

[c0ff]

UAD is still alive and kicking. Besides being an ultimate copy-protection bundle, DSP processors have one main advantage - they provide a 100% guaranteed response time, which is critical for real-time work.

General purpose CPUs can't do that - all they can is to give something like 99% guarantee when loaded way less than their theoretical capacity. That's why on pro-audio forums it is advised to keep CPU load meters below 50% (or so) for doing any real-time audio work.

 

The downsides of DSPs are:

1) you must code for a specific DSP

2) they evolve a lot slower - actually, this is because of their latency guarantees. Modern general-purpose CPUs gain throughput at the expense of the latency. GPUs are the extreme example: huge throughput with huge latencies.

 

 

But, returning to our Audio API talk: none of the audio API's ever allowed direct DSP access. And there's not enough demand to create something like Direct3D or OpenGL for audio, if it is possible at all - nobody knows.

OpenAL is nothing like OpenGL apart from the name.

[c0ff]

So Outside of me Forcing Specific Effects via Creative's software,

 

All the Audio Rendering/Channels are done via CPU Processing and just outputted to the Default output device?

Yes.

 

I cant say if you get a Perf. Increase using a Dedicated Sound Card, but I Can say, Specific Gaming Cards make everything sound better, Music, Games, DCS, and Movies.

At least it did for at least 8 people that I've built systems for.

That's true. Depending on your demands, most or all on-boards audio cards are, ahem, "way less than stellar".

 

I've seen users say a dedicated sound card fixed issues, but it was prolly a CPU->NB->RealTek Bottleneck?

Yep. The "problem" of "RealTek" sound cards is that RealTek sells controller chips and driver-kits to OEMs. It is up to the OEM to build a sound card from this, and adjust the driver to their specific configuration. Then there's a myriad of chip revisions, driver versions, and wildy varying levels of skill among OEM driver teams.

[kk0425]

I have a Creative XtremeGamer PCI card that I can't use anymore due to the location of my PCI slot in relation to my PCI-E x16 slot for my GPU. What would be an equivalent card to replace that except in a PCI-E x1 for about $100? I don't really have a preference on ASUS or Creative, but I never really had issues with the Creative card in most games. I think Killing Floor was the only one and I had to disable a setting in the game to stop it from crashing.

 

$100 isn't a hard limit either, I can go up to $200 no problems if it's worth the benefits. I play with a headset on all the time, but I do have a stereo I use sometimes for playing music when I want to relax. This is the headset I'll be using after Christmas. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826249083

Edited December 17, 2013 by kk0425

[SkateZilla]

I have a Creative XtremeGamer PCI card that I can't use anymore due to the location of my PCI slot in relation to my PCI-E x16 slot for my GPU. What would be an equivalent card to replace that except in a PCI-E x1 for about $100? I don't really have a preference on ASUS or Creative, but I never really had issues with the Creative card in most games. I think Killing Floor was the only one and I had to disable a setting in the game to stop it from crashing.

 

$100 isn't a hard limit either, I can go up to $200 no problems if it's worth the benefits. I play with a headset on all the time, but I do have a stereo I use sometimes for playing music when I want to relax. This is the headset I'll be using after Christmas. http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16826249083

 

wouldnt it just be easier to get a PCI Riser cable to put in the slot and run to the card?

 

ie:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-32-Bits-Riser-Card-Extender-Flexible-Extension-Cable-Ribbon-/281150865396?pt=US_Drive_Cables_dapters&hash=item4175e5bff4

[kk0425]

Didn't know they made such a thing. But I don't think it would work since my motherboard has slots for each open space on my case. Unless I can fit the cable to the card without it hitting one of the empty PCI-E x1 or x16 ports. I would honestly love to go with that solution if possible.

[SkateZilla]

Didn't know they made such a thing. But I don't think it would work since my motherboard has slots for each open space on my case. Unless I can fit the cable to the card without it hitting one of the empty PCI-E x1 or x16 ports. I would honestly love to go with that solution if possible.

 

What case do you have?

 

My X-Fi is on my Aux Slot of my HAF 922

[javelina1]

wouldnt it just be easier to get a PCI Riser cable to put in the slot and run to the card?

 

ie:

http://www.ebay.com/itm/PCI-32-Bits-Riser-Card-Extender-Flexible-Extension-Cable-Ribbon-/281150865396?pt=US_Drive_Cables_dapters&hash=item4175e5bff4

 

now that is cool. learn something new... :thumbup:

[SkateZilla]

now that is cool. learn something new... :thumbup:

 

 

Good for those cases with Auxillary Bracket Slots for USB Ports (ie HAF 922). or Small form factor cases that have sideways Brackets for USB Ports etc

 

I actually had my 2nd GPU in the Aux Slot and Used a Ribbon Cable to connect it to the PCIe-16x slot, that way primary card got all the air it needed from the fan on the bottom of the case, and the secondary when it needed it got air directly from the 200mm side fan.

PCIe 16x Riser Cables

 

But if you have shorter boards/taller cases and open slots below the bottom of the mainboard, you can use a ribbon cable to mount a card to those open slots and run the ribbon up to the slot on the mainboard.

 

you can also use PCIe-16x Riser Cables to move the GPU's Up a slot on the top or down a slot on the bottom. or as I did, re-locate it to an Auxillary Slot.

 

Another note, I built a system for a friend using an X-Fi card, Since he used the front bay I/O Drive for headphones/mic/SPDIF out, to make room for other cards, we mounted the X-fi to a ribbon cable then put it on a foam pad and mounted it to the bottom of the mainboard tray between the bottom of the Mobo and the PSU and left it 100% Internal (no back plate outlets.) as all the slots were being used by his GPU's and the Gap in the middle was used to install an exhaust fan.

 

But we were able to run Speaker lines into his case through air vents to the sound cards 3.5mm jacks.

Edited December 17, 2013 by SkateZilla

[mmtaraval]

Not sure of how much of this is marketing, but this guy seems to be shooting straight:

 

[kk0425]

What case do you have?

 

My X-Fi is on my Aux Slot of my HAF 922

 

Using this case:

http://store.antec.com/Product/clearance_items/df-85/0-761345-15238-9.aspx

 

with this motherboard:

http://www.asus.com/Motherboards/M4N98TD_EVO/

 

I could *maybe* use the second PCI slot, but then I would pretty much be blocking a fan on a 780 GTX. And yeah I know, the motherboard isn't the greatest. Planning on a spring upgrade to an i5 or maybe i7 and RAM so I may just hold off until then anyway. I'm kind of planning just in case EDGE ends up being more than my current setup can handle.

[trooph]

Im just gonna leave a link here

 

Im not an expert about this topic but i feel like these guys have something to say about audio...