Upgrading Sound

[Shim]

Hi there, I currently have Dolby 5.1 onboard sound (MSI nForce2) and was thinking of upgrading to an Audigy 2 or maybe even that new X-Fi. I just wanted to know if there will be a significant enough improvement to justify buying the soundcard?

My speakers aren't anything fancy. 5.1 Creative Inspire.

Thanks.

 

[astrallite]

Upgrade your speakers before upgrading your electronics. General rule of thumb.

 

[TunaSoda]

Hi there, I currently have Dolby 5.1 onboard sound (MSI nForce2) and was thinking of upgrading to an Audigy 2 or maybe even that new X-Fi. I just wanted to know if there will be a significant enough improvement to justify buying the soundcard?

My speakers aren't anything fancy. 5.1 Creative Inspire.

Thanks.

More stable sound, and if you game, much better framerates

 

[astrallite]

Well...

If you game this day and age at 800x600, and on very specific games do you see this "maxed out" 17 percent gain...+17% of 20fps is still only 23fps. So no, I don't think it makes "that big" of a deal, when a $50 better video card will give you about 5-10fps higher, and a more linear gain that's doesn't force you to play at 800x600 to see these "great" benefits.

 

[TunaSoda]

Well...

If you game this day and age at 800x600, and on very specific games do you see this "maxed out" 17 percent gain...+17% of 20fps is still only 23fps. So no, I don't think it makes "that big" of a deal, when a $50 better video card will give you about 5-10fps higher, and a more linear gain that's doesn't force you to play at 800x600 to see these "great" benefits.

I pulled down my console in Half-Life Multiplayer and typed in cl_show fps 1 and it was showing I was running at 32fps, I then un-installed the onboard sound driver, shut the machine down, stuck in a $69 Audigy Value sound card, started up the machine, disabled onboard sound in bios, then when I did the same thing in Half-Life it read 71fps
(both times at 1280 res)

How do you explain that?

 

[astrallite]

I have no idea what test conditions you did or whether you pulled those numbers out of a hat, but average FPS numbers on anandtech, hardocp, even those released by Creative at 800x600 res of all groups does not show an average fps boost like that.

Likely for you SPECIFICALLY, I explain that with "you have exigent circumstances."

 

[Clob]

Those are realy unsound numbers. In Americas Army I went from 42 fps (soundstorm) to 48fps (audigy 2) using a fixed spot in the game...