Currently i'm using the oboard AC97 sound on my Abit KD7-Raid mobo. Now i hear people slating all forms of AC97 whenever the chance arises but personally i don't think mine sounds as terrible as everyone makes out. Now am i correct in thinking that you can get different standards of AC97 depending on mobo/manufacturer? I just use sound for listening to mp3s and playing games. usually i use my big Quart headphones which give a really nice sound or my Yamaha speaker/subwoofer combo. its just left - sub - right kinda setup not 5.1 surround or anything. All i want to know is, will getting a decent soundcard enrich my life? will i see a noticeable difference in my music sound and games? A friend of mine has a sonic fury(i think) sound card he could sell me. and i know not to touch creative with a barge pole What do you suggest i do? EDIT: Whoops now i feel stupid... i could of sworn i clicked on the hardware forum If a mod sees this could they please kindly shove it in the right place... been a long day lol
Moved IMHO for sound cards, don't go near Creatives offerings any more, look at the Sonic Fury if you're on a budget (should be cheap second hand and quite cheap new), and the Terratec cards for higher end, for serious high end (more music creation biased mind) look at M-Audio cards.
i can...i cant stand onboard sound...sounds horrible and tiny...treble is shrill and bass non existant, or completly out of place...
Huh...YEAH I used to have an Audigy 2...sold it and was on onboard for about a week. Now that is the Sound Storm and I picked up a M-Audio Revolution...simply beautiful!!!
I have to say i, the onboard Audio on my KD7 Raid is very good, it's actually better than my old Live 1024, which surprised me somewhat!
lol, I've found an odd thing about using higher quality audio stuff. I went from a SBLive! 1024 with a pair of Panasonic rp-ht355 headphones to a SoundStorm with a pair of Sennheiser HD575's, while games, DVD's, audio CD's etc sound sooooo much better, quite a lot of my MP3's sound quite bad. Basically, I've found that with the lower quality setup you don't really pick up on how badly some MP3's are encoded, where as with a better setup you can hear any & all imperfections. Kinda like the saying "Ignorance is bliss, until you realise just how ignorant you are".
I would rather have no sound than put up with onboard. but thats me. i know lots of people who are fine with it. i use mine for a lot of music and recording so i need a decent card. having said that though i bought an audigy. it has the worst drivers ever (even the ones i paid for) ive had it a year and its only just working now that im using 3rd party drivers. I had to run my computer with onbaord sound for a couple of weeks while i found funds for my card. it was very unstable and didnt work that well in games. this has been my experience of a lot of onbaord sound. although some work perfectly! so to sum up.....buy a soundcard.
Hmm i feel to back up Creatives by saying my x-gamer is awesome... anyways.... Total difference... I found out that when using headphones w/mic it makes it alot cleaner to listen to.. Also i love the fact that i have surround sound for my com...!!!Totally worth it i won't go back to onboard.. plus you get a lil bonus from ur cpu not much but its there!
I have a SB Live! 5.1 and its alright but the drivers are horribl IMO. I tried onboad sound on my Abit BH7 and the sound wasnt that much different then my SB Live! 5.1. I am shopping for a new sound card and I wont go with Creative. What do you guys think of: Guillemot Hercules GameSurround Fortissimo III 7.1 - RETAIL = 47 and TURTLE BEACH SANTA CRUZ - OEM = 60 I play games sometimes but mostly listen to mp3s.
I use the Santa Cruz and when I switched from onboard to that, I noticed the same thing hack'n'slash did. My mp3s sounded like crap. Then I looked at the quality of them and noticed that they were all at like 92kbps. Since then, I went to EAC/LAME and, let me tell you, I noticed the difference. Also if you are watching movies you will notice the diff as well. The sound will be more directional rather than always in front of you.
I used a soundblaster live value card- but then swapped to my onboard sound ac97 (its an msi kt3 board) and thought that was better. Am I mad, or have others found the same- or is the sblive card really bad.
I just ditched my sb live value card in favour of the soundstorm onboard my asus a7n8x dlx and to my mind it sounds better and that's going direct into a proper seperates system and speakers too. I am only using two channels though.
i just switched my Ac97 on board sound for a creative Vibra 128 stoopid onboard sound broke so there was only sound coming out of my left speaker so that did the job for me
