On-Board Sound or Sound Card?

  • Thread starter Thread starter Halmyre
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Halmyre

I've just bought an Asus motherboard which has on-board sound (SoundMAX ADI
AD1986A). However, I'm scrapping an old PC which has a PCI Creative SB Live
1024 card - would this give a better quality than the on-board sound?
 
I've just bought an Asus motherboard which has on-board sound (SoundMAX ADI
AD1986A). However, I'm scrapping an old PC which has a PCI Creative SB Live
1024 card - would this give a better quality than the on-board sound?
Click to expand...

SoundMAXes tend to have fairly noisy inputs at least, but the SB Live
1024's were very much built down to a price. OTOH, I'm using one here
and it's not noticably hissy on playback.

Your OS of choice can probably handle multiple soundcards. Stick the
SB in and try both.

Cheers - Jaimie
 
Halmyre said:
I've just bought an Asus motherboard which has on-board sound (SoundMAX
ADI
AD1986A). However, I'm scrapping an old PC which has a PCI Creative SB
Live
1024 card - would this give a better quality than the on-board sound?
Click to expand...

Depends what you are doing? For Windows' bings and bongs, no. For most
games, no. For music recording and mixing, maybe. Tell us what you will be
doing with the PC (besides MS Office, and internet porn).
 
I've just bought an Asus motherboard which has on-board sound (SoundMAX ADI
AD1986A). However, I'm scrapping an old PC which has a PCI Creative SB Live
1024 card - would this give a better quality than the on-board sound?
Click to expand...

Yes, while a SB 1024 isn't a high end card with all the
bells and whistles of some, it's sound quality is
significantly better than that onboard sound.

There are at least two mitigating factors.
1) Creative drivers tend to be overly complex and poor, and
their cards tend to hog the PCI bus which can cause reduced
bandwidth for the card and/or other PCI devices... sometimes
causing reduced performance of the other PCI device or
interruptions in the sound from the Creative card.

2) Depending on the quality of the sound file and
sensitivity of the amp (or headphones?) coming after the
sound card before the (physical) speaker, any differences
might be masked to the point of being inaudible.

In short, try the card because if it works w/o hitches in
your system then it will sound at least as good and
potentially better.
 
Halmyre said:
I've just bought an Asus motherboard which has on-board sound (SoundMAX ADI
AD1986A). However, I'm scrapping an old PC which has a PCI Creative SB Live
1024 card - would this give a better quality than the on-board sound?
Click to expand...

The driver for Soundmax on my computer, adds reverb which cannot be disabled.
There were bugs in the EAX implementation. The Soundmax chip also gave a click/pop
about every 10 minutes or so, at random.

This is why you have to test each potential sound solution. The Analog Devices
CODEC may be fault free, but the software might make the built-in sound less
than useful. It all depends on whether Analog Devices has put any effort into
improving their drivers, whether their solution has merit.

I use a separate sound card now, and it has none of those faults. The performance
of the card is not "amazing", but neither is it as annoying as the Soundmax
driver issues.

Paul
 
CBFalconer said:
Please do not use html in Usenet. Articles should be in pure text.
Click to expand...

He happily provided both plain text and HTML, perhaps you should use a
competent newsreader? You, however - please reduce your sig to four lines or
fewer, with a single delimiter. As the second is assumedly enforced due to
advertising from your free usenet account, I'd suggest removing your
personal one - I can't imagine it would be of use to anyone, anyway.
 
He happily provided both plain text and HTML, perhaps you should use a
competent newsreader? You, however - please reduce your sig to four lines or
fewer, with a single delimiter. As the second is assumedly enforced due to
advertising from your free usenet account, I'd suggest removing your
personal one - I can't imagine it would be of use to anyone, anyway.
Click to expand...


Wrong, this is not a HTML medium this is usenet.

Many competent newsreaders will show BOTH the HTML and plain
text, and many competent users of those news readers will
not have HTML working because there's no reason to invite
that security risk (how well are newsreaders really
patched?!) when everything is supposed to be plain text.
 
Halmyre said:
I've just bought an Asus motherboard which has on-board sound (SoundMAX ADI
AD1986A). However, I'm scrapping an old PC which has a PCI Creative SB Live
1024 card - would this give a better quality than the on-board sound?
Click to expand...

This sound engineer has tested lots of sound cards:

www.pcavtech.com/
 
Depends what you are doing? For Windows' bings and bongs, no. For most
games, no. For music recording and mixing, maybe. Tell us what you will be
doing with the PC (besides MS Office, and internet porn).
Click to expand...

How dare you! I'm a perfectly respectable citizen, and to even suggest that I
would soil my mind with filth is absolutely disgraceful.

(punchline coming...)

So, just the porn then.
 
kony said:
Wrong, this is not a HTML medium this is usenet.

Many competent newsreaders will show BOTH the HTML and plain
text, and many competent users of those news readers will
not have HTML working because there's no reason to invite
that security risk (how well are newsreaders really
patched?!) when everything is supposed to be plain text.
Click to expand...

Thanks for reinforcing what I was saying - use a competent newsreader that
can let you select whether you wish to use plain text or HTML, functionality
which is often provided. Anyone using a client that doesn't support
multipart messages needs to upgrade - there's no need for messages to be
purely plain text.

But yes, kony, even though it doesn't affect you, keep arguing in favour of
messages being in plain text based on a standard defined in 1987, you're a
true champion.
 
BluePlanet said:
Thanks for reinforcing what I was saying - use a competent
newsreader that can let you select whether you wish to use plain
text or HTML, functionality which is often provided. Anyone using
a client that doesn't support multipart messages needs to upgrade
- there's no need for messages to be purely plain text.

But yes, kony, even though it doesn't affect you, keep arguing in
favour of messages being in plain text based on a standard
defined in 1987, you're a true champion.
Click to expand...

Of course you can ignore the fact that html messages can carry all
sorts of vicious attacks. You are evidently practiced in reloading
your system.
 
Somewhere on teh interweb BluePlanet typed:
Thanks for reinforcing what I was saying - use a competent newsreader
that can let you select whether you wish to use plain text or HTML,
functionality which is often provided.
Click to expand...

And should never be used. Usenet was designed as a plain text environment.
Anyone using a client that
doesn't support multipart messages needs to upgrade
Click to expand...

Isn't the place where you should insert 'IMO' (that's "In My Opinion" for
you newbies).
- there's no need
for messages to be purely plain text.
Click to expand...

Yes there is. Usenet (non-binary groups like this one) was designed to be
plain text and there are those of us who like it that way. It's safe and
fast. ISP all over are dropping usenet support due to the high bandwidth and
the low user-base. Anything other than plain text exacerbates this problem.
But yes, kony, even though it doesn't affect you,
Click to expand...

But it does affect him, for the reasons given above, and more.
keep arguing in
favour of messages being in plain text based on a standard defined in
1987, you're a true champion.
Click to expand...

Mate, (and I use the term loosely) if you want to see pretty colours or
anything other than plain text I suggest you go to one of the many web
forums that deal with hardware. Some of them even leech and mirror usenet.
Straight usenet obviously isn't for you.

Don't let the door hit you where you think on the way out.
 
Yes there is. Usenet (non-binary groups like this one) was designed to be
plain text and there are those of us who like it that way. It's safe and
fast.
Click to expand...

Fine up to here...
ISP all over are dropping usenet support due to the high bandwidth and
the low user-base. Anything other than plain text exacerbates this problem.
Click to expand...

But not here. ISPs are dropping/throttling/blocking Usenet access
because it's >5Tb per day of illegal binaries - with a tiny, tiny
volume of text groups tucked away in a corner.

HTML in Usenet posts has absolutely no significance in bandwidth from
an ISP's point of view. It is significant to us readers, as you say.

Cheers - Jaimie
 
1) Creative drivers tend to be overly complex and poor, and
their cards tend to hog the PCI bus which can cause reduced
bandwidth for the card and/or other PCI devices... sometimes
causing reduced performance of the other PCI device or
interruptions in the sound from the Creative card.
Click to expand...

I suggest trying the kxaudio drivers.
 
I've just bought an Asus motherboard which has on-board sound
(SoundMAX ADI AD1986A). However, I'm scrapping an old PC which has a
PCI Creative SB Live 1024 card - would this give a better quality than
the on-board sound?
Click to expand...

I find that onboard sound cards tend to be more cpu intensive. Might just
be my idea though.
 
Thanks for reinforcing what I was saying - use a competent newsreader that
can let you select whether you wish to use plain text or HTML, functionality
which is often provided. Anyone using a client that doesn't support
multipart messages needs to upgrade - there's no need for messages to be
purely plain text.

But yes, kony, even though it doesn't affect you, keep arguing in favour of
messages being in plain text based on a standard defined in 1987, you're a
true champion.
Click to expand...


Sorry, but you're wrong. This is not a web forum it is
usenet. The whole point is that it is plain text based.
 
Fine up to here...


But not here. ISPs are dropping/throttling/blocking Usenet access
because it's >5Tb per day of illegal binaries - with a tiny, tiny
volume of text groups tucked away in a corner.

HTML in Usenet posts has absolutely no significance in bandwidth from
an ISP's point of view. It is significant to us readers, as you say.
Click to expand...

Untrue, many don't even carry binary groups and are running
their news servers beyond capacity already.
 
Untrue, many don't even carry binary groups and are running
their news servers beyond capacity already.
Click to expand...

*That's* because most ISPs put their news-servers in back in 1995,
when it was a popular service, and have never looked at them again.

Cheers - Jaimie
 
I find that onboard sound cards tend to be more cpu intensive. Might just
be my idea though.
Click to expand...


For playing 2 channel audio or software-generated
environmental effects in 2 channel audio, the difference in
processing overhead is negligible. For gaming environmental
sound effects like with EAX, the difference can be much
larger.
 
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