# Onboard sound card VS PCI sound card



## Tan DJ (Jan 1, 2007)

Hi all,

I have a system with an Intel D845GRG motherboard which has an "Audio subsystem for AC '97 processing using the Analog Devices AD1981A codec featuring SoundMAX Cadenza"

Recently I managed to score a PCI sound card (from my mother-in-law's old computer) that has a label on the back that says it is from Creative Labs, model number: CT4740.

Will this card provide any better performance/quality than the built-in one on my mother board?  Some of my old games have a bit of a "stuttering" problem that I think might be caused by the built-in sound card.

This card doesn't appear to have any connectors for connecting to the front audio ports, so would it be a correct assumption that if I used this card, the front audio ports would no longer be useable?

Also, if I inserted this audio card, would I need to do any configuration of the MB to make the sound go through the PCI card, or is that something that would be available in the OS?

I'm either going to use the card, or sell it on e-bay, so even if I'm not going to use it, I'd like to be able to connect it up to confirm that it works.


Regards,

Tan DJ


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## Jimmy 2004 (Jan 1, 2007)

Normally I'd say that the PCI card would be slightly better because it would take some load off the CPU, but in this case I'd say stick to the AC'97. The Creative card looks like it is very old and I doubt Creative still offer driver support for it, so it probably wouldn't run as well as newer sound cards like the AC'97, because those drivers are still updated regularly. You could try connecting it and see if it sounds better, but I think the difference would be negligible so I would stick to the AC'97.


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## peach1971 (Jan 1, 2007)

You can measure the performance of both, onboard and PCI with RightMark Audio Analyzer.
http://audio.rightmark.org/index_new.shtml

But I´d also say got with the AC´97 in this case.
The CT4740 doesn´t feature EAX which offers a real improvement for in-game sound.


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## AshenSugar (Jan 1, 2007)

EAX is over rated, and the 4740/47xx are just sblive variants, nothing fancy, ur ac97 will probbly gave the same or better perf with the advantage of having newer driver support.

i would also advise that you search the forums b4 you ask these kinda questions, the onboard vs pci/addin card sound things been talked about like 15+times since i been here!!!!


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## Scheich (Jan 1, 2007)

Theres a little performance loss, maybe 5%. What´s more important is the audio quality. It´s signifantly worse than even average old sound cards. Earphone output is distorted at high output levels and when there should be silence, theres a little noise instead.

This board cant handle many irq too well, therefor it would be best to turn off the onboard sound in the bios. 
And no, theres no connection to the front connectors.

If you are using anything newer than win98 with this mobo, the stuttering will most likely come from irqs conflicts.
In others words, you may want to buy a new mainboard.


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## ktr (Jan 1, 2007)

AshenSugar said:


> EAX is over rated,



i dont know about that man...when i play red orchestra with eax on, its like a whole new gameplay.


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## DaMulta (Jan 1, 2007)

ktr said:


> i dont know about that man...when i play red orchestra with eax on, its like a whole new gameplay.



FTW


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## Deleted member 24505 (Jan 2, 2007)

i just got a x-fi extreme music and it rocks.i can even hear cloth rustling in 2142 now.


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## AshenSugar (Jan 2, 2007)

my 1988 soundmax is working great after some driver tweaking thanks to KET, no quility issues at all, and perfs better then the 3 addin cards i tested(old cmi8738,audigy3,sblive5.1)

ur best bet with onboard sound is ALWASE to update the drivers to the newest you can find for that chip, even if they are from another board maker(like asus or intel) 

also i would update ur bios if you havent, thats alwase a good idea, if you get problems with audio quility set the pci latancy to 64 if you can, sometimes boards, specly older intel ones need that done for their onboard audio.


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## tkpenalty (Jan 2, 2007)

tigger69 said:


> i just got a x-fi extreme music and it rocks.i can even hear cloth rustling in 2142 now.



LOL!!!

I tried my friend's PC with the Fatal1ty FPS Sound card installed. I could hear a guy throwing a medkit IN THE COMPLETELY CORRECT POSITION WITH TWO CRAPPY SPEAKERS, it was real... I thought I was in 2142 (yay for snowboarding)! There wasn't any stuttering before any major sound events occured.


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## Carcenomy (Jan 2, 2007)

The only major bonus I'd see in running a CT4740 or equivalent would be for older games. The Vibra128Ds I've owned have always been pretty good for DOS support, critical if you want to play something like Duke Nukem 3D or Death Rally with proper SB16 support.

I wouldn't agree totally with the performance arguments... I only just gave up my poor old 845D based system with that very same AC97 setup. There's no way that horrible contrivance is better than the Ensoniq AudioPCI/SoundBlaster 128/ViBRA128D. I only used the AC97 for three weeks until I picked up an original Live with the matching Cambridge SoundWorks FPS1000 speakers. Faaaar better


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## ktr (Jan 2, 2007)

XFI should be fairly decent for the fact they can support 2-3 times more voices than the average sound card.


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## AshenSugar (Jan 2, 2007)

ktr said:


> XFI should be fairly decent for the fact they can support 2-3 times more voices than the average sound card.



ah but the human ear and brain cant prosess that many, voices, read up and you will know that creative just uses that to sell cards to uneducated foolz who buy things because of a brand name not because they are really better.

if you want a high end audio card grab something from auzentech, there cards are far and above the winners when compared with anything creative offers!!!!!

and they update drivers regularly for those cards/chips where creative takes years to upgrade anything.........


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## Tan DJ (Jan 4, 2007)

AshenSugar said:


> i would also advise that you search the forums b4 you ask these kinda questions, the onboard vs pci/addin card sound things been talked about like 15+times since i been here!!!!



Yeah, I did that, but couldn't find anything about the ct4740.  I already knew that in general the PCI card will be better than the onboard, but I was having trouble finding out anything about the ct4740.

My problem with my existing system is several of my games have a bad occasional stutter, one game (theme park world) the game freezes while it is stuttering, and does nothing until the stuttering stops.  Another, one of the kics games, the stuttering stops when you click the mouse button.  A couple of other games that the kids like to play don't stutter, but every voice clip has the last half a sylable of each sentence missing.

I'm not real concerned about the sound quality at the moment as my speakers are not the best - $20 ones from Tandy. 

The only reason I was considering the ct4740, was that I got it for nothing.

Cheers,
Tan DJ


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## AshenSugar (Jan 4, 2007)

i would advise a card based on the CMI8768 chipset then, drivers are better then that old sbive card.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829130002
its 19bucks
drivers can be found (up to date ones) on the cmedia forums, they are updating them regularly, these cards also support DTS and DolbyDigital in hardware!!!!

good stuff!!!!!  and kills the 4740/4760 cards


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## Carcenomy (Jan 4, 2007)

Tan DJ said:


> The only reason I was considering the ct4740, was that I got it for nothing.
> 
> Cheers,
> Tan DJ



Go for it. The old SoundBlaster128s might not have new drivers, but it's because they're GOOD SOLID CARDS. They don't NEED new drivers. Just throw it in and go nuts, it'll cause no problems.


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## tweakboy (Jan 4, 2007)

Dedicated sound means the CPU can be free to do other tasks,

Onboard sound will use CPU a lot, and slow down your games and pc,

gl,


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## ktr (Jan 4, 2007)

tweakboy said:


> Dedicated sound means the CPU can be free to do other tasks,
> 
> Onboard sound will use CPU a lot, and slow down your games and pc,
> 
> gl,



its very minimal. most benches say ac'97 vs the xfi only gave the xfi and advantage at most 2-4fps...now is it worth speeding 150+ smackers for the increase? I would say no, use the money on upgrading you gcard or get some more memory.


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## AshenSugar (Jan 4, 2007)

Carcenomy said:


> Go for it. The old SoundBlaster128s might not have new drivers, but it's because they're GOOD SOLID CARDS. They don't NEED new drivers. Just throw it in and go nuts, it'll cause no problems.



no the reasion they lack new drivers is that creative dosnt want to support them they want to support/sell newer cards that make them more profit.

also creative driver support  has alwase sucked, and sucked hard core to!!


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## Jimmy 2004 (Jan 4, 2007)

tweakboy said:


> Onboard sound will use CPU a lot, and slow down your games and pc,



Although it is true that dedicated sound often reduces the load on the CPU it doesn't use a _lot_ of CPU relative to what the games are using once you consider the performance gain you'll see. For a similar price to something like an X-Fi most people could buy a better CPU which would improve overall performance a lot more.


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## AshenSugar (Jan 4, 2007)

truth is anymore with HD audio onboard most people are far better off using onboard sound with the latest drivers and use the $ they would have spend on a sound card to get a better cpu and more ram.

if in the case of this system you need addin sound then go sith a CMI8768 (or better) chip based soundcard, driver support stomps creative and via into dust!!!!
even then if you go with an auzentech card you could still afford a better cpu or more ram because even their cheapest card(58bucks) is better then x-fi


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## Carcenomy (Jan 5, 2007)

You are clearly retarded if you think C-Media soundcards are superior. The CMIs are a $10 OEM piece of crap for a reason... they're a piece of crap. There's no way, NO way those incompatible piles of incompatible junk can usurp a Creative. They use ugly software 3D, have damn near no compatibility mode, and are just a plain ugly device... which is why they're so cheap.

The drivers are updated often for C-Media cards because they're poorly coded from the start. It's like patches on EA games. The older model Creative he has (which is fully supported I might add - all the drivers AND SoundBanks are available still) is a considerably better card that will be considerably more stable than any AC97 or C-Media crap you could dredge up.

Given I use the onboard on my new motherboard (ASUS P5B Deluxe... so it's 8-channel HD somethin), but it won't be staying that way - NONE of the cheap crap does EAX. Most games use EAX. See the problem here?


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## AshenSugar (Jan 5, 2007)

read some reviews of auzentech audio cards, cmedia use to have problems but since they steped their driver support up(via forums) they have started to really shine!!!!!

and c-media updates them by request to try and work out spicific problems, creative ignores problems and blames the game maker, read their forums, if you think creatives drivers are great, you're wrong!

adi on asus boards fully supports eax2.0, any higher is not allowed by creative, they wont licence it out to anybody, its their only way to make people buy their x-fi cards....

try these 
http://www.extremeoverclocking.com/reviews/sound/Auzentech_X-Plosion_1.html


> Performance Summary & Final Conclusions:
> 
> The Auzentech HDA X-Plosion is a product I think will start to bring about some big changes in the sound card industry. Intel brought back Dolby Digital Live technology to the PC with the HD audio specification and implementation in current Intel Express Chipsets. Entrepreneurs saw the potential in DDL and other new audio enhancements (like DTS Connect), and implemented it in standalone sound cards.
> 
> ...



or the sub 60$ XMystique (cmi8768+ based)


> Although there are certainly several soundcard manufacturers around offering up respectable options, I think Creative’s Sound Blaster line most readily springs to the minds of most gamers when the topic comes up. In fact, I have only purchased two soundcards in my life. The first time, I spent $20 dollars on a low-end card (the name of which I cannot recall) years ago when the card in my old machine crapped out on me. The only time I spent any real sum of money on a card was when I was building a serious gaming rig and figured that the on-board sound chip probably wouldn’t perform as well with my new 4.1 speaker setup as a Sound Blaster Live 5.1 Gamer would.
> 
> My SBL 5.1 Gamer served me well for several years (and through several machines), and I saw no need for an upgrade until it began its descent towards the hardware tomb which is the trashcan. It has recently been acting up – crackling loudly in the background of my music, constantly forgetting that I have not two, but four speakers, and sometimes simply refusing to utilize EAX support in games. It was, then, with arms wide open that I accepted the review of HiTec’s new HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 Gold. Timing couldn’t have been better. Let’s look at the features.
> 
> ...



http://www.ngohq.com/home.php?page=articles&go=read&arc_id=29



> Introduction
> As you probably already know the Audio market is being dominated by Creative Labs. From the current view it looks like a monopoly, and as you probably know, monopolies are very bad for the consumers. For a very long time now I have tried to find an alternative for the Sound Blaster series but unfortunately I couldnt find a real competitor. Few weeks ago I read at NvNews about a new sound card named HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 Gold with Dolby encoding support and many cool features. I pulled out a few strings and managed to get a sample of this card. The one million-dollar question now is does the HDA Digital X-Mystique 7.1 Gold offer a real competition to the Sound Blaster series? Read this review to find out.
> 
> 
> ...



im gonna give ya a bit more on the Xplosion card, its the newest mid range card(there top end is for audio files and pros only, 200+bucks)
http://www.thinkcomputers.org/index.php?x=reviews&id=376&page=4


> Testing
> 
> The first test is the music test. We put the DTS Connect vs. the Dolby Digital Live. The track we tested was Matt Darey's 2005 New Years Eve set. It is an hour and a half set, but I listened to the first 15 minutes to hear the differences between the DTS Connect and Dolby Digital Live. After listening to the 15 minutes of the set almost 10 times on both settings i would have to say the DTS sounded a bit better. Don't get me wrong it sounded amazing on both settings, but the DTS seemed to play more effortlessly and more crisp than the Dolby Digital Live.
> 
> ...



http://www.rage3d.com/reviews/sound/auzentechxplosion/index.php?p=7



> Conclusion
> 
> AuzenTech’s maturation in the sound card market is the single most significant development in PC audio over the last few years, aside from the release of Creative X-Fi.  Why?  Gamers and HTPC enthusiasts finally have an opportunity to use a viable product other than the often bemoaned Creative sound cards that are equated with ticks, software bugs and random work-arounds.  We finally have a product that allows for add-in card support of DDL.  We finally have accompany that is not resting on it heels adding features and a refresh product one year after their push into the US market.
> 
> ...


 note that the mentioned bug with stay alive was fixed with a driver update(and x-mystic can be fixed by using c-media drivers dirrectly from the CMI website insted of auzentechs)

http://www.nvnews.net/reviews/hda_xplosion/page_3.shtml


> OPERATION
> 
> As far as benchmarking goes, I used Audio WinBench and Rightmark Audio Analyzer for the synthetic benchmarking. For real world usage, I used a rather rudimentary method. I opened up the task manager and checked CPU usage while running iTunes to play some of my favorite mp3s.
> 
> ...



seems they all dissagree with you, as has ever review of the auzentech/bluegears sound cards i have found to date, i think your living back in 1997/1998 or something!!!!

as to creative driver support, it sucks, they NEVER fix anything in a timely fassion, they ignore bug reports, and this after they charge you thru the arse for their cards.

truth is that cmedia's current lineup is killing creatives for the avrage user, its all about the support you get, and cmedia/auzentech give you GREAT support, if you find a driver bug, post it, you will get a responce witin a few days from their driver team, oh yeah, and they are making new drivers for even their disscontinued chips like the 8738, full vista support!!!! 

creative will get you drivers when they feel like it, if they feel like it, and if they dont work properly, well thats your problem!!!!!!


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## ktr (Jan 5, 2007)

AshenSugar said:


> they steped their driver support up(via forums) they have started to really shine!!!!!



I just check it out and they have nothing but complaints and few drivers that are dated about 3-4 months now. But they do have some recent vista "beta" drivers...but dated 3 months ago??

http://www.cmedia.com/forums/viewforum.php?f=6&sid=45648dd973822c712cd576a467199c14



AshenSugar said:


> and c-media updates them by request to try and work out spicific problems, creative ignores problems and blames the game maker, read their forums, if you think creatives drivers are great maby your the one who is retarded!!!!



C-media is telling most of the posters ...

"C-Media is a chip/solution vendor, not a consumer product company. C-Media did not produce, market, or sell you your sound card as a finished product. If you want to seek compensation, you should find out who manufactured your sound cards and contact them."

and most of the thread have 0 replies...hmmm.




AshenSugar said:


> adi on asus boards fully supports eax2.0, any higher is not allowed by creative, they wont licence it out to anybody, its their only way to make smucks like you buy their shitty x-fi cards....



WHY NOT! EAX is the product of creative, therefore the have all rights to hold there "property to themselves" 

If you cant beat them, join them...if you cant join them, die!!!!

^^pretty sad but true^^^



Not to bash on c-media or you, i am personally ALL up on anything that is better and cheaper, but really i dont see much out of c-media...

i would fork over 40 bucks and get a refurbished audigy 2 zs from creative's ebay store, than fork over 20 bucks on a cmedia card. 

http://cgi.ebay.com/Creative-Sound-...QtcZphotoQQcmdZViewItem?hash=item170067487190

with audigy2 zs's eax4.0 and all, i would say its the best sound card to support quality for 95% of games out there...


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## Grings (Jan 5, 2007)

Do x-fi's actually do dolby live and dts? as ive got a dd/dts receiver (yamaha too) and am still using my old nforce2's soundstorm for its dolby digital live, and would really like to use my newer pc through the receiver instead(my current mobo hasnt even got spdif, but i did try my mates a8nsli dlx a while back, and its spdif didnt do either format)

If not i'll get one of them auzentech's instead, seen a few good write ups on them now


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## AshenSugar (Jan 5, 2007)

ofcorse there are alot of complaints, check any companys forums, and i have beenthere recently, yeah some dont get responces, but alot of them ask really stupid questions, or ask questions that are already answered, every time i have posted there with clear and polite requests i have gotten a FAST responce(within 5days) 

as to creative quility, if you can get the drivers to work properly sall good, but check creative forums, they are nothing but complaints about problems that have PLAUGED their cards for years!!!!

ms is trying to do away with "eax" as it is now, moving to use OpenAL based sound in vista, most game makers are starting to see that eax3/4/5 arent getting them any extra sales but causting them extra on game dev, most off the shelf avrage gamers dont buy an addin sound card or if they do its a cheapo one with via,cmi,Crystal (cirus logic) or an old cheap creative card that only supports eax2 and lower.

i work at a computer shop, we sell i would say 50:1 other brands:creative  cards because honestly, people dont want to spend the extra$ to get a creative card when its not gonna give them any real benifit and likely will cause them problems.

lets see i will take the first 2 pages of creatives soundblaser forums and post images of them, how many of the posts are gonna be complaints?
how many will be left without a responce?

check their forums i found 3 responces from admins/creative staff out of all the posts i checked(not the stickys) 

read the 2nd to the last responce in the last image(creative_support_again2)  thats how anybody whos delt with creative support feels!!!!


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## AshenSugar (Jan 5, 2007)

AFIK creative dosnt do eather!!!

AFIK only cmi8768/8768+/8787/8788(the best) do all that



> Full user opinion
> Oops..I posted my review on the wrong X-Fi. I purchased X-Fi Xtreme, and was quite satisifed on the sound. However, once I purchased the Auzentech HDA X-Plosion 7.1 DTS Connect with its Dolby Digital Live and DTS Connect features, I was just amazed, and felt this X-Fi was outdated. Listening to all my mp3 music encoded in Dolby Digital Surround system, and also into DTS bitstream, playing Quake 4, and Doom in Dolby Digital Surround and DTS bitstream, this is called COOL!


http://reviews.cnet.com/Creative_So...essageSiteID=9&messageID=1788237&cval=1788237

think that reviewer says it all for what your asking, and to be clear, cmi 8768 and up can ENCODE DDL audio not just decode/play it!!!!

http://www.cmedia.com.tw/?q=en/pci_audio


as to comments about cmedia forums, i was just reading, most of the responces i saw about cmedia not making products just being a card maker where from people who arent employed by cmedia.

and alot of the problemes listed are easly fixed if you fully remove the drivers that came with the card b4 you install the latest ones.

oh and ktr, show me a creative driver update for the sblive 5.1 thats fairly recent, the newest ones i could find where around 3 years old!!!!!

cmedia has updated drivers for the 8738, a chip that hasnt been made for years!!!!
i had one in 2001/2002 when 4ch audio was a new thing, and cmedia is updating its drivers, even making vista drivers for it!!!!!
does creative had working vista drivers for the orignal sblive cards? even beta?


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## Grings (Jan 5, 2007)

The creative might be slightly better in games through cheapie speakers, but them auzentechs are in a different league when it comes to signal quality, over the past few months ive seen a lot of bad press about the output of x-fi's when plugged into proper audio equipment like £700 amplifiers with £1200 speakers and such, which is what im more interested in, with equipment like this the 24 bit crystaliser makes a mockery of music. im looking for something to play through my co-ax input in my dd/dts amp, but have tried an x-fi through my other amp ( a creek with no bass or treble knobs, theyre designed for a pure, balanced sound) and it sounded awful and overblown with the crystaliser, and weak and flat without it

please note that i am fully aware the chip in the x-fi is far superior, but a ferrari on 165/13 tyres isnt gonna be able to get all its power down is it, especially with a crap driver lol


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## AshenSugar (Jan 5, 2007)

Grings i duno if i would agree that x-fi has a better chip, because if you check the forums(creatives) you will see that there are alot of people with alot of hardware and software related problems with x-fi.
also x-fi dosnt support DDL or DTS, so i would say the 8788 is superior, specly if its on that auzentech card http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829156002
sure theres no eax3-4-5 support, but thats just a software thing, if creative would add eax 3-4-5 to their OpenAL project you would see alot of companys takeing advantage of it, some better then others, but as i understand it from a buddy whos a game programer, the cmi8768 and up all have the hardware to beable to run EAX3+, its just that creative wont allow it because its the only selling point they have for the x-fi now days.

ms is pretty much forcing their hand tho with vista, because they are FORCING OpenAL as the primary standred and making EAX run thru OpenAL.
as i read it this may even come into a dx9 update(openal support) at a later date.

your correct tho, x-fi sounds poor even on cheap headphones you can hear the diffrance between the xmystek(sp) my buddy kenny bought and the x-fi his bother went for(they each had XXX$ to build a pc, kenny went with the bluegears/auzentech card and an x1800gto his bother got a 6800le and x-fi card, the bord and chip are the same, i could tell the diffrance even with my old crappy altechlancing headphones(26bucks on clearance at target) and with kennys zalman headphones(5.1ch) OMFG, movies sound so nice, kills his bothers x-fi, specly with its clicking and poping that comes and goes


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## Deleted member 24505 (Jan 5, 2007)

grings,x-fi does do dts.











upto now i am quite impressed with this x-fi extreme music.i have had no problems with it as yet.
my music sounds better,and my games sound fantastic.

you pays yer money,you takes yer choice.


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## Tan DJ (Jan 5, 2007)

Wow!  Never thought a simple question could create so much lively debate!  It's been fun to read it all though.

I guess when I get around to upgrading my speakers, I'll also think about upgrading my sound card.  So the question is:  Will the CT4740 stop the stuttering in Theme Park world?  Or is that a different problem?  Like running a win95 game on winXP?

Ashensugar suggested to set the PCI latencey to 64.

I've got "PCI Latency Tool", so do I just set the "Sound, video and game controlers" class to 64?  Current value is 32.

If this fixes Theme Park World to work properley, I won't bother using the CT4740 (except maybe just to make sure it works.  Then maybe try selling it on e-bay.  Although with all the reports of new cards being available so cheaply, I don't know that there would be that many buyers for an old card.

Cheers,
Tan DJ


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## ktr (Jan 5, 2007)

AshenSugar said:


> Grings i duno if i would agree that x-fi has a better chip, because if you check the forums(creatives) you will see that there are alot of people with alot of hardware and software related problems with x-fi.



people only post to complain...same goes at the c-media forum. Also I would say that there is a much...much...much higher population of Creative sound card owners than cmedia...therefore more posts. 



Tan DJ said:


> Wow!  Never thought a simple question could create so much lively debate!  It's been fun to read it all though.



Welcome to TPU forums...lol.

So much brand loyalty in this forum, heck! what can you say... people has their choices. But this in all spreads more knowledge when doing these "lively debates"...


really i have no care for the c-media nor xfi sound cards...its all about the audigy series...hands down. I have used multiple cards, but i havent see any issues or mass complaints on these cards. Being a old, popular card now, the drivers and software are almost (biting my tongue) perfect...


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## xvi (Jan 5, 2007)

I'm quite happy with my Turtle Beach Montego DDL. Games seem to like it. Music sounds amazing. Features to boot.

Creative's cards are made for gaming. They're going to have more memory, support more streams, etc.. They're going to be more compatible and they're more popular.

I'm pretty bummed out about Creative's card quality, though. When my Sound Blaster Live 7.1 MP3 fried, I bought an Audigy 2 ZS. A few weeks later when my Audigy 2 ZS fried, I bought a Montego DDL. The Montego DDL has been running for a few years now and works well with every game I've come across. Windows Vista has drivers for the CMX series chipsets, so you won't have to worry there.

Anyways, back to what this topic is about.. Onboard sound will take CPU power. *ANY* PCI sound card will take the load off the CPU. Yes, the performance difference is only 2-5 FPS, but you also get better sound quality, more input/output ports, better features, etc.. If you ask me, it's worth it.



ktr said:


> its all about the audigy series...hands down. I have used multiple cards, but i havent see any issues or mass complaints on these cards. Being a old, popular card now, the drivers and software are almost (biting my tongue) perfect...



When the Audigy card worked, it was pretty cool. I'll agree to that. Good quality sound that was backed up by Creative's compatibility.


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## AshenSugar (Jan 5, 2007)

kte you should NEVER say such a thing, you do realise you just made urself a target for some evil force to cause ur card to explode in flames in ur system due to a driver error 

and yes try 64 latancy, if that dosnt work try higher, if that dosnt work u can try the 4740, if that studders get a non creative card(creative cards studder bad on some boards/systems due to creative not properly testing their stuff for compatability with a wide range of hardware)  i have never had a problem with my turtle beach card thats CMI based doing that, but my live and audigy cards have done that to me,hence they dont get used unless i have to use them anymore!!!!!


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## AshenSugar (Jan 5, 2007)

xvi said:


> I'm quite happy with my Turtle Beach Montego DDL. Games seem to like it. Music sounds amazing. Features to boot.
> 
> Creative's cards are made for gaming. They're going to have more memory, support more streams, etc.. They're going to be more compatible and they're more popular.
> 
> ...


this is nolonger true, infact some/many older pci cards will use MORE power then current HD audio or even some(non realtek) ac97 codecs, for example my sblive uses more cpu then my ADI1988 (hd audio) or my cmi9761a(ac97 5.1, on a vnf3)

newer or better addin cards can be good, BUT you gotta look at what you board comes with b4 you assume you need/want an addin card.

Montego DDL which uses the Cmedia 8768+ same as the "low end" auzentech card, but the auzentech card is higher quility 

the Turtle Beach Riviera uses chipset: C-Media CMI8738-MC6 and this is still a good card, just use the latest drivers from c-media forums, they are even working on vista Xear for it!!!!(what they use for their newer cards)

i have yet to hear anybody diss the Turtle Beach Riviera or montego cards for audio quility!!!!

alot of it is that some people dont check for updated drivers for their cards, with cmedia and via and such you need to NOT use the ones on the cd, get the latest versions from the chip maker!!!!!


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## tkpenalty (Jan 5, 2007)

If you ask me, Even the Audigy Value blows away the AC 97', then I experience Fat1lity and my life has changed....


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## xvi (Jan 5, 2007)

AshenSugar said:


> Montego DDL which uses the Cmedia 8768+ same as the "low end" auzentech card, but the auzentech card is higher quility



More capacitors. Slightly cleaner audio. Yeah, I know.. I'm using X-Plosion 7.1 DTS drivers (Well.. I do when I boot into XP). I know the drivers don't do as much as the card, but..

The Montego's price fit in to my starving-college-student-budget, too. Auzentech didn't quite make it.


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## Grings (Jan 5, 2007)

anyone know of anything higher range than either the auzentech OR x-fi? yes theyre both high end to a degree, but with some proper cd players the preamp can be £500 worth of electronics alone, yet both these cards cost less than the cable im gonna plug into them! ideally id like something with proper rca jacks(analog) AND a co-ax(digital) so it can go into both amps (receiver for movies, 2 channel amp for music)


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## AshenSugar (Jan 5, 2007)

tkpenalty, it depends on the chip used and if you have updated the drivers, honestly, realtek chips below HD audio versions(anything nforce4 or older for example) is gonna suck because realteks older offerings sucked arse, their hd audio is quite decent, not great, but kills ac97.

cmedia 9761 and up with current drivers(from cmi forums) easly sound as good as your audigy cards when setup with a decent set of speekers, this ADI1988 tho, damn, its just kickass now that ket made that driver kit for it!!!, spec wise its acctualy better then x-fi in many ways, read about it at analogdevices or the soundmax website(the datasheet/whitepapers) 

i agree, alot of old ac97 sucked hard, but then again back when it was orignaly made it was only really ment for basick pc sound for office work and such, and IMHO even the more recent 8ch realtek chips(pre hd audio) are blah at best. 
but you gotta remmber just because most makers use realtek dosnt mean that all ac97/onboard sound is bad, alot of it is drivers and checking what ur board has on it b4 you buy the damn thing.

its like my buddy who got a 180$ board but didnt look the audio chip or the 3rd party raid controler or firewire chip maker b4 choosing it, he assumed it would be good, turned out the raaid chip had POOR perf, you had to dissable NCQ to beable to use it with sata2 drives, it was just crap, the board also had the 8ch realtek chip on it with some kinda booster card/addin thing, POS, sounded worse then my old OLD compaq 233mmx with an awe64 in it!!!!!
the firewire chip had poor perf and had driver issues, all in all the board was crap, but he thought it must be good because it was 180bucks after all(120 more then i spent) 
the funniest part was that my vfn3-250(nforce3 with cmi9761a audio) sounded better and tho i didnt have firewire or extra sata ports it worked flawless, and the onboard sound acctualy worked great in games(when somebodys walking up behing you you hear it correctly) and the sound quility is extreamly good compared to even my sblive5.1plat or audigy3 card( weird fooking card i got from a client who never even opened it!!!!)

i cant stress this enought tho DRIVERS MAKE ALL THE DIFFRANCE, i was forced to install the drivers from the cd on that same system once(net was down and i had to find an audio file for a wake(friends father died of cancer and they needed some stupid "free as a bird" song off an external hd, but  all the files where labled with numbers not names)  and OMFG, it was BAD, i had to dissable 5.1, and tweak the EQ because it sounded really pathetic(almost as bad as the drivers that come with 8ch realtech based mobos  )

honestly even i couldnt belive it, the diffrance was shocking, i even tryed to game, it was weird, with 5.1 enabled i could hear walking "above" me whenever something was walking around in the room with me!!!!, my own foot steps sounded like they where behing my head ROFL.


this audio i have now, well Asus dosnt update the win9x drivers properly!!!, ADI makes good hardware, but it took KET hacking up the drivers to fix the problems with the EQ(if it was enabled u got cracklin and poping)  its working great now!!!!  im acctualy gonna get new wires for my 5.1 speeker set today and rewire it because the old ones are frayed and chewed up(damn kittens and puppys) if there was a way i could recorde how this sounds i would


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## AshenSugar (Jan 5, 2007)

Grings said:


> anyone know of anything higher range than either the auzentech OR x-fi? yes theyre both high end to a degree, but with some proper cd players the preamp can be £500 worth of electronics alone, yet both these cards cost less than the cable im gonna plug into them! ideally id like something with proper rca jacks(analog) AND a co-ax(digital) so it can go into both amps (receiver for movies, 2 channel amp for music)



honestly that new auzentech card is the best i think ur gonna find for pc audio, there are options that have more in/out plugs but they are based on older chips with lesser abilities mostly made for people who record music and such.

most expencive isnt alwase best, the auzentech cards cheaper then the x-fi and its audio quiltiy is heads and sholders better.

this is the most expencive audio unti they have at the egg
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829110003
but its not really what ur looking for 


theres this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829153001
Razer Barracuda AC-1 7.1Gaming Soundcard its cmi8788 based to   and i challenge anybody to say its not a great gaming soundcard!!!!!(read the reviews, people replace x-fi's with it and are quite happy to do so!!!)


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## Casheti (Jan 5, 2007)

Carcenomy said:


> Go for it. The old SoundBlaster128s might not have new drivers, but it's because they're GOOD SOLID CARDS. They don't NEED new drivers. Just throw it in and go nuts, it'll cause no problems.



I have spare Soundblaster 128  Never tried it tbh...


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## xvi (Jan 5, 2007)

I'm going to guess you're talking about something like what M-Audio has to offer.

This card, for example, is a bit overkill.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829121125

The Barracuda looks pretty interesting, though. It'd be interesting to see some reviews on it.


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## Grings (Jan 5, 2007)

that razer certainly looks cool, but hell why cant someone like mark levison, musical fidelity or rotel make something uberquality, with an external dac with valve preamps and such

and id love to see a new high end yamaha chipset turn up


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## Solaris17 (Jan 5, 2007)

since this thread seems as if we are reccomending cards may i recmmend something out of the box that i tried for a while? turtlebeach catalina sound card those cards come very close or in my case better in sound quality than creative and their far cheaper. drivers are a little bit more of a pain in the ass to find but they operate better much better iv had install issues and the like with my creative drivers "no sound card detected" WTF do you mean its right their i can see it! "you must have a sound card to be able to download the creative driver" i cant because their isnt a driver to begin with which means you dont know i have one...........................ya i was pissed but i like turtle beach if my cousine didnt steal it id still have it id give them a look.


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## AshenSugar (Jan 5, 2007)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/CustratingReview.asp?item=N82E16829153001
read the user reviews then

http://forumz.tomshardware.com/hardware/Razer-Barracuda-review-ftopict214090.html


> I've spent a couple of days with the barracuda..I also own an x-fi xtreme music. I compared them best I could..I really don't care for the C-media chips..I tried a Turtle Beach Montego DLL about 6 months or so ago..All it was really good for was music..It really sucked for games..I used BF2,FEAR,Far Cry,and Swat 4..Each has different gun sounds and such..In BF2,the cards were so close it isn't even funny..The x-fi uses alot of reverb..The cuda was nice and clean..Sometimes the voices would crack..I used the latest drivers by both developers..I had the sound in BF2 on ultra for the x-fi..Honestly,even on that setting and the Cuda on hardware and hi quality..They sounded almost the same..I thought the X-fi would have been better because of the eax 5.0..but it wasn't..On Swat they sounded very close too..But the Cuda was cleaner..very obvious..On far cry,which I love how punchy the weapons sound,the guns were about the same..the music was better on the cuda,but I turned it down so I could hear the sounds being pinpointed..The cuda was very convincing,but I think the x-fi was a little better at far out objects exploding and hearing the voices..On FEAR..the gunfire is pretty faint anyhow..That's one thing that bothers me about the game..The gun fire should be like the other games..its like your wearing earmuffs or something..Both cards shined in this game..I think the cuda had better music,but it was very close..The cuda is just a diff experience..oh..another game I used for comparison was city of heroes..The cuda won that one hands down..The sounds were so much better..with the x-fi they almost seem too screetchy..never noticed it before I tried the cuda..way cleaner sounds..I had it on dolby digital..ask any questions you have also..would love the feedback.. On the music front..I used Journey and nickleback..The cuda was awesome..the cuda uses the new C-media oxygen hd DSP..I think they finally did something right..A sound card that sounds as good if not better than the x-fi with dolby digital ,dts and optical outs..I have always loved soundblaster..never any problems..But I don't like the market being cornered either..If I missed anything I will add it later..Kudo's for Razer developing a really good sound card..I don't know if the Xmeridian is the same..I don't think it is..I think its probably another theater card..I think Razer developed this card primarily for games..Props to razer..it gets the hard as a rock award from Irocem!



i like reviews by users who can test with real world systems and side by side, this just echos what the reviews i have found say, and what te newegg reviews say.

the thing is that this razor uses the EXECT same chip as the high end auzentech card, but i would guess that the auzentech card is acctualy a little better due to the quility of filters and such they use(look at the card!!!!)

i wont be buying one till they price drop drasticly since this boards onboard audio is excelent!!!!

Grings, yahama stoped the pc chipset buisness many years back, mainly because it wasnt making them much$ and creative had a strangle hold on the market.

and your board(just looked it up) has the NASTY realtek chip, driver updates could help some but honestly i see why u want a better card, after what you have now even the 20% 8768 card on newegg would blow you away!!!!


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## AshenSugar (Jan 5, 2007)

Solaris17 said:


> since this thread seems as if we are reccomending cards may i recmmend something out of the box that i tried for a while? turtlebeach catalina sound card those cards come very close or in my case better in sound quality than creative and their far cheaper. drivers are a little bit more of a pain in the ass to find but they operate better much better iv had install issues and the like with my creative drivers "no sound card detected" WTF do you mean its right their i can see it! "you must have a sound card to be able to download the creative driver" i cant because their isnt a driver to begin with which means you dont know i have one...........................ya i was pissed but i like turtle beach if my cousine didnt steal it id still have it id give them a look.



hard to find now, and its cmi8768 based, this is the current equivlant!!!
its 18.99+shiping
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829130002

its agreat buy, as long as you get the drivers from cmedia forums!!!!

i know 12 people who got them recently, nobodys had anything but good to say about them!!!!
infact my buddy sent his x-fi in for rma(it totaly died) got one as a hold me over because creative said it would be a minimum of 4-6 weeks for rma, up to 8 weeks(eww)  hes now desided to sell his brother the x-fi and buy a higher end CMI card from auzentech(found them on his own after ipointed out this card and he liked it) 

really i think hes just tired of the problems hes had with the x-fi he spent neerly 350for, its had the crackling, the poping, the slow downs in windows, the card redetect every reboot, all that and more, and hes worked around it, hacked his own driver sets, and then the card dies.....and its gonna take a minium of 4-6 weeks to get a new or fixed one!!!!

his only complaint about this card has been over and over bitching that its red!!!!(he thinks reds a girly color)


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## Solaris17 (Jan 5, 2007)

thats the thing i got cmedia drivers and my catalina worked fine i cant say much for the standard drivers i skipped those and whent stright for the cmedia ones. i think im going to get a montego here pretty quick its good stuff with the right drivers.


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## AshenSugar (Jan 5, 2007)

go for the auzentech version, its a few bucks more and has beter audio quility(better filters and such)

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.asp?Item=N82E16829127001

they use the same chip, just that the auzentech is made for better audio quility.

the card listed above(up a post or 2) uses almost the same chip, im gonna grab one pretty soon to keep around, then im gonna give away some of these other cards i have, tired of having a little box of extra cards i dont use ever!!!!


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## Grings (Jan 5, 2007)

yes its well shit, a friends got an a8n sli dlx and even though its same crappy realtek it still sounded a lot better than my dirt cheap asrock

however for music ( as mentioned earlier) im still using the coaxial dolby digital live output from an asus a7n8x deluxe which while it has a good clean sound, is getting old and my mate keeps bugging me to sell it to him


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## AshenSugar (Jan 5, 2007)

lol, friends who want ur old stuff hehe.

try updating the drivers on that card, use driver cleaner pro in safe mode to fully remove the old dirvers first, then install the latest ones from realtek, that may help alot.

if not, try that 18$ card see what u think, i bet you will be shocked at the quility over even the a7n8x audio!!! and the auzentech cards, well u would poo urself 

http://www.cmedia.com.tw/?q=en/pci_audio
that has a chart showing what chips support what fetures!!!


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## Grings (Jan 5, 2007)

AshenSugar said:


> if not, try that 18$ card see what u think, i bet you will be shocked at the quility over even the a7n8x audio!!! and the auzentech cards, well u would poo urself



i doubt it, nvidia soundstorm rocked (it was a dedicated dsp which encoded/upmixed to dd live and cost nvidia too much to make, which is why theyve used normal codec chips since, and the asus has a good quality co-ax, better than other nf2's ive got (abit, leadtek(now dead), and an aopen xc cube)


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## Tan DJ (Jan 7, 2007)

Back to the original thread-

I just tried Theme Park World with the PCI latency updated from 32 to 64, and it has not had any effect.  It still stutters just as bad.

(By stuttering, i mean every now and then the game will pause and it will repeat about 1 second of sound between 5 and 20 times before going on again.  It is so anoying.)

Is this caused by my hardware setup, or is it just an artefact of trying to run an old Win95 game on WinXP?


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## Casheti (Jan 7, 2007)

You can do compatibility mode.

Right click the icon for the game, click compatibility tab, and then Windows 95.


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## xvi (Jan 7, 2007)

Tan DJ said:


> Back to the original thread-
> 
> I just tried Theme Park World with the PCI latency updated from 32 to 64, and it has not had any effect.  It still stutters just as bad.
> 
> ...



Hey. I think I have Theme Park World, too. It was pretty glitchy on Windows XP, if I remember right. I'll dig the CD up and try to install it again. Try the compatibility mode and also see if there are any game patches that you can download. Sometimes, problems like this are due to the game itself.

You can find the V2.0 Patch here.



			
				www.themeparkworld.com said:
			
		

> Fixed in V2.0
> Generic
> 
> * Halloween ride Tentacle Terror now breaks down correctly.
> ...


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## AshenSugar (Jan 7, 2007)

* Dual Voodoo3 cards now supported.



ROFL


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## xvi (Jan 7, 2007)

AshenSugar said:


> * Dual Voodoo3 cards now supported.
> 
> 
> 
> ROFL



No system is a system without Dual Voodoo. *rolleyes*


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## hat (Jan 7, 2007)

the only difference is the quality of the sound. Unless you want to spend 200$ on a sound card for some really good sound with loads of features, I suggest you stick with the onboard. Unless you get a sound card with X-RAM, you wont be noticing any real difference in permormance.


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## AshenSugar (Jan 8, 2007)

as stated b4 many times creative has yet to prove xram does anything for game perf


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## ktr (Jan 8, 2007)

AshenSugar said:


> ms is trying to do away with "eax" as it is now, moving to use OpenAL based sound in vista, most game makers are starting to see that eax3/4/5 arent getting them any extra sales but causting them extra on game dev, most off the shelf avrage gamers dont buy an addin sound card or if they do its a cheapo one with via,cmi,Crystal (cirus logic) or an old cheap creative card that only supports eax2 and lower.



i did some reading  ...majority from the wiki  

*1) OpenAL is hosted (and largely developed) by Creative Labs with on-going support from Apple.*

Speak of the devil  

*
2) EAX has nothing to do with actual 3D audio positioning. Positioning is done by Microsoft's DirectSound3D API. An alternative to DirectSound3D, called Open Audio Library (OpenAL), surfaced in 2003 in several titles. OpenAL allows direct hardware acceleration of audio, like DirectSound, including EAX. *

So basically the comment "ms is trying to do away with "eax" as it is now, moving to use OpenAL based sound in vista" is false because eax and OpenAL are different. Also M$ already has Directsound, why do they want to replace their own product?

*
3) Creative was not content with the situation when the world bestseller didn't use hardware DirectSound, to say nothing of the latest EAX, which would have allowed high-quality 3D sound algorithms.[..]Support for DirectSound + all existing EAX4 features was hardly introduced by rewriting the audio code from scratch. Creative had to overhaul the entire OpenAL and release a special new version. *

Creative is not happy being one of the worlds highest provider of soundcards, which lack Directsound. To implement DirectSound, Creative would have to rewrite the audio code from scratch, which will cause Game Devs to recode the game (and possibly any software that produces sound) and drivers to be remade. So Creative had to overhaul and implemented OpenAL so that they can achieve a similar DirectSound, w/o the trouble.

OpenAL has nothing to do with replacing EAX, but accepting it as a practical counterpart for DirectSound.  

*
4) Programmers should use OpenAL API for full control of all available modes and functions. To get maximum gains, we should unpack samples from OGG, MP3 formats into on-board X-RAM, when a game level is being preloaded into memory. But even old applications can benefit from X-RAM, as samples will be cached.*

X-ram in layman terms is audio cache and cache is "A temporary storage area where frequently accessed data can be stored for rapid access." Frequently used sound samples will be decompress in to raw data and will be quickly accessible. If  "Programmers should use OpenAL API", average reported FPS performance to +25% 

(tested on a modified UT2k4 which used OpenAL API ; basic is the same xfi card with x-ram force off)







Xfi is mainly good for gaming, but doesn't show performance gains in synthetic tests.

"Does X-RAM provide real advantage in games? It does, but it can be said for sure only about new games that were created in cooperation with Creative programmers. There are only a few such games so far, but they are all hits: DOOM3 1.3, DOOM3:ROE, Quake4, BattleField 2, BattleField 2:SF. Taking into account that EAX5/X-RAM SDK has been released only recently, we have some grounds for optimism – we may have more games soon. But as OpenAL is too slow to take roots among developers because of its differences from DirectSound, we can make a conclusion that the situation will not change much here."


In conclusion, it seems Creative holds the upper hand in future audio products. Also, i have a feeling that is post is gonna get raped with arguments. This post is to inform you that there was intention from Creative for X-RAM...not to say creative is the best and everything else is crap, because i say X-fi sucks (basically a beta sound card), but seems to have potential


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## AshenSugar (Jan 8, 2007)

not gonna rape it, just point out that MS dosnt want to deal with EAX dirrectly but from what i have read wants to deal with it via OpenAL, they are trying to standrdise everything so that games can be developed easyer for all platforms(such as xbx360 and pc's getting the same titles without huge perf diffrances and porting delays) 

Creative dosnt like playing nice with other companys, many have tryed to work with them to improve OpenAL so it would gain wider use, but they are lot like Nvidia they want things their way or they arent gonna play with you.

And i have at least 5 or 6 fairly current games that use openal, alot of game makers are starting to imbrace it for a few reasions, one major one being its more cross platform then directsound, openal can work on any os, so they can support mac(current macs) with alot less effort if they just use OAL insted of ds, and yes game devs are starting to see linux/unix(osx is a form of bsd unix) as a market, mainly from what i have seen due to Apple moving macs to PC chips allowing far easyer porting(just a recompile to run on unix insted of win32) 

i know some people who are game devs, they all say the same thing , now that mac is PC/x86 based they are working to support it, mac users will spend more for their games per copy then pc users will(i have seen them spend 2x as much or more to buy a game!!!!) this wouldnt work with directsound or d3d because ms dosnt want dx to be crossplatform, BUT openAL is crossplatform....blah 

basickly when i said what i said i wasnt being clear about what i ment, eax as it is now isnt friendly with diffrent types of hardware or with Vista, but using OpenAL to access/support EAX is more....friendly i guess you could say, it means ms wont have to deal with trying to give xbx360 EAX3-4-5-6-----support(they couldnt leigaly because creative dosnt licence them out)

corse ms could just buy out creative, im sure bill can afford it ....humm that might not be all bad, at least ms is better at patching stuff they make so its at least useable


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## Tan DJ (Jan 8, 2007)

xvi said:


> Hey. I think I have Theme Park World, too. It was pretty glitchy on Windows XP, if I remember right. I'll dig the CD up and try to install it again. Try the compatibility mode and also see if there are any game patches that you can download. Sometimes, problems like this are due to the game itself.
> 
> You can find the V2.0 Patch here.




I got Theme Park World to work using this WinXP fix: http://www.adamhearn.co.uk/games/themeparkworld/tpwwin2kfix.html  It doesn't work at all if I set the compatibility mode.


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