Greetings,

Contemplating getting Soundblaster X-FI or something to replace my onboard sound chip. I mostly want it for the recording features, but if it would actually make a difference to gaming performance I might bump it up on the priority scale.

Thoughts?

I would have thought you'd get a very small increase in frames as few sound duties have been taken away from the CPU. I doubt you'd notice the difference though.

They do, but they'd rather reduce FPS than cause some increase. It is all because of advanced sound processing (that EAX, EAX HD and A3D stuff) which stresses not only the sound chip, but CPU as well. (I remember myself solving some extreme FPS losses due to messy sound processing).

There are cards like some Gaming X-Fi models which are claimed to reduce CPU stress during EAX processing, but I haven't seen any convincing tests. If you want your new sound card more for recording or listening music than gaming, I'd go for some M-Audio producs rather than anything from Creative, but I'm not an expert when it comes to comparing sound chips.

EDIT: I forgot to say that FPS impact would be very small to none unless there is some bug in sound driver or the applicaion which uses it.

Hehe, some sites claim "up to 15% improvement in gaming performance" which indeed sounded a little awry to me. My onboard sound sure doesn't go very loud either, it would be nice to have some oomph... I generally have EAX or equivalent enabled in games, so perhaps getting away from onboard sound would help a tiny bit? I wonder where they get this "15%" claim, that's pretty extravagant. Thanks for the input thus far.

notice the "up to". they're not guaranteed 15% in all cases

Unless you're running a home theatre, I doubt you'd relly notice the difference in sound quality anyway.

They certainly do in iRacing. Not so sure about LFS.

A lot comes down to the drivers, I'd say. The new Creative beta drivers for the Xtreme Gamer (vista 64) smoothed out performance a bit I feel- but unfortunately they're a tad buggy (weird choppy sound in Stalker for instance). I've rolled back to previous driver, sound is good but performance not as good. Hopefully Creative will sort out those issues soon and we'll have a driver with good sound quality and performance.

I tend to buy sound cards (creative) out of habit and loyalty to that company, probably stemming from the extreme gratitude I originally felt when I installed my first soundblaster and said good bye to speaker beeps and boops for ever!

it takes some load of the cpu so, yes

I noticed a huge increase when i first bought my audigy2, though i guess modern processors are a lot better at processing onboard sound these days.

I find that i got about 1fps more since i got my new sound card. Creative sound card and creative speakers are a good combo :P

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Unless you're running a home theatre, I doubt you'd relly notice the difference in sound quality anyway.

I definitely disagree there. I notice an absolutely massive difference in quality from a crappy on-board to a nice X-FI.

Quote :

i guess modern processors are a lot better at processing onboard sound these days.

That's what I'd really like to know. In the past buying a dedicated soundcard was a no-brainer, if you were a serious gamer you just did it. But these modern foo-dangley motherboards, who knows?

Sound Cards do improve your experiance as i stated above
it mosty always takes the load of the CPU no mather wich and u get i better sound

Quote from Scrabby :

it ALWAYS takes the load of the CPU

Well, not always. I'm sure there are certain cases where poorly written drivers or something like that could adversely affect performance.

Quote from wheel4hummer :

Well, not always. I'm sure there are certain cases where poorly written drivers or something like that could adversely affect performance.

i didnt said that

It also depends on sound settings. Full blown 7.1 surround obviously is much more intensive than plain stereo. But to be honest, I didn't really notice any difference between a SB Live Digital and my onboard Realtek chipset.

Also don't focus on Creative only. Their hardware department does a perfect job at creating a good soundcard, but their drivers are made by some monkeys at the local zoo. The fact that there are 3th party drivers for most Creative cards says enough.

If you want good sound fidelity don't buy creative, also remember that vista drivers are not the best drivers out there, maybe you should go for an M-Audio as MadCatX said or maybe some soundcard with god DAC and an Envy chip.

Quote from jonny__27 :

notice the "up to". they're not guaranteed 15% in all cases

For sure. I just found it suspect that such a number could ever be acheived. So assuming that even half of that is plausible, that's still worth it performance wise.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Unless you're running a home theatre, I doubt you'd relly notice the difference in sound quality anyway.

Nah, I can hear quite a bit of distortion with the onboard. I also wish to have the ability to vibrate my brain inside my skull with decent SPLs; something that's currently impossible.

Quote from DeadWolfBones :

They certainly do in iRacing. Not so sure about LFS.

Is that so? Details please! I'm not that concerned with LFS performance since I run 16AA 16AF & max driver quality settings and can only bog my machine down to 80FPS. But iRacing, Age of Conan & Crysis will be my mainstays for the year.

Quote from Electrik Kar :

gratitude I originally felt when I installed my first soundblaster and said good bye to speaker beeps and boops for ever!

Ah, that was amazing wasn't it?

386/16Mhz... I had a SoundMaster II for awhile but nothing supported it so I got Sound Blaster... I remember playing Links 386 trying to hear the "digitized audio" (remember that catch phrase?) through the PC speaker. Good times!

Quote from The Moose :

I noticed a huge increase when i first bought my audigy2, though i guess modern processors are a lot better at processing onboard sound these days.

Define huge? What system was that one - I gather not a recent one?

Quote from Electrik Kar :

foo-dangley

Quote :

I remember playing Links 386 trying to hear the "digitized audio" (remember that catch phrase?) through the PC speaker. Good times!

Here's some others... Prince of Persia, Carmen Sandiago (deluxe version), 4D Sports Driving, err... the Sierra Quests- all bought to life through the miracle of Sound Blaster.

Quote from Crashgate3 :

Unless you're running a home theatre, I doubt you'd relly notice the difference in sound quality anyway.

You will, trust me - if you become an X-Fi user expect to suddenly be able to pick up on the poor DAC of your MP3 player, phone etc. I love it, and although it wasn't cheap it sounds a LOT better than I thought it could.

Didn't really notice an FPS drop, but in BF2 I noticed decreased RAM usage (on my old 3 GHz AMD / 1 GB RAM / 7950GT PC, the lack of RAM meant I could play all out on high in BF2, but got stutters as it ran out of space in the RAM) making things ultra smooth, and it sounded better.

FWIW do NOT get an X-Fi XtremeAudio - it's just a rebadged audigy and has none of the features you want (i.e. HW acceleration). Get an XtremeMusic - almost as cheap as the gamer, and moddable.

So the ExtremeMusic is just as good as the other ones then? What would I be "modding" on my soundcard? Are there any other brands or things you recommend Jakg?

XtremeAudio - POS.
XtremeGamer - Good.
XtremeMusic - Same HW as more expensive models, includes (iirc de-activated) X-RAM. Can be modded.
Fatality, Elite, Pro etc - XtremeMusic + useless features ()

For £50 (the price of an XtremeMusic) theres nothing else on the market for the home gamer / occasional music recorder i'd recommend. For ~£100 you can get a Auzentech X-Fi Prelude or the Asus Xonar which are both based off the X-Fi chipset.

Modding guide is here - http://www.overclock.net/sound ... e-x-fi-mod-will-void.html

It's soldering stuff like better OPAMPS on the card and adding extra magnetic sheilding to the card etc. No idea if it's up your street, though...

The XtremeMusic is what I use, its brilliant. The difference in sound quality was massive when I switched to it and I couldn't imaging playing games without it now.

Another point to remember - the only flak I ever see of X-Fi's is from people who DON'T own them (or any decent sound card) and have NO experience with them, and yet assume they make no difference. Even on my £20 Creative 2.1 P380's I noticed the difference...