IL2 1946 & SoW Sound Cards v Onboard Chipsets

[Feuerfalke]

I've got to say, that I am puzzled again and again how much money people spend on monitors and graphics-card to get the perfect immersion from a game. Never ever would they consider tuning down graphics enough to run them via onboard graphics.

For some odd reason, the same bunch of people insist that running sound through cheap crappy onboard-chips and a 10$ headset provides the best sound available.




I use an x-fi soundcard linked to an HiFi-Amplifier and a HiFi-Headset with a frequency range from 5Hz to 25kHz.
I honestly never understood why people were not shaken by the original sound of 50s or didn't notice any difference between different engine sounds. With a good setup you surely do.

[Igo kyu]

I used to use soundcards, back in the day, but I don't any more because onboard sounds are so much better than those old cards.

I have 5.1 speakers running on the onboard sound in my motherboard, which is apparently Soundmax Blackhawk, whatever that may be. I don't have a problem with sound in Il*2 (Stalker SOC, yes, but doesn't everybody?).

Are you really saying that a £15 soundcard will be better than the soundsetup that comes on a £100 motherboard? Worse, are you saying that an old 32 bit soundcard will be better than a motherboard sound system that replaced a motherboard soundsystem that replaced a 512 bit motherboard sound system?

[Maxtor]

I have onboard sound that supports 5.1 & 7.1, I'm perfectly happy with it and have no qualms about IL2's sound.
(Realtek HD audio on an Asus board, the driver has lots of tweakability & compensation for speaker positions etc), I always build my computers to quite a high spec, but never bother with audio cards.
That said, I'm definitely no audiophile or sound aficionado

[KG26_Alpha]

Originally Posted by Igo kyu

I used to use soundcards, back in the day, but I don't any more because onboard sounds are so much better than those old cards.

I have 5.1 speakers running on the onboard sound in my motherboard, which is apparently Soundmax Blackhawk, whatever that may be. I don't have a problem with sound in Il*2 (Stalker SOC, yes, but doesn't everybody?).

Are you really saying that a £15 soundcard will be better than the soundsetup that comes on a £100 motherboard? Worse, are you saying that an old 32 bit soundcard will be better than a motherboard sound system that replaced a motherboard soundsystem that replaced a 512 bit motherboard sound system?

No

But I build and repair PC's, I have loads of old Creative sound cards that I throw away due to the simple fact they no longer work correctly under Vista & Win 7, I can get them to work but the hassle and cost involved in time isn't worth it especially if its shipped out and the customer does a re installation and is left high and dry finding out how to get their sound to work.

As a minimum spec sound card the one I mentioned in my OP is more than adequate.



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Originally Posted by Feuerfalke

I've got to say, that I am puzzled again and again how much money people spend on monitors and graphics-card to get the perfect immersion from a game. Never ever would they consider tuning down graphics enough to run them via onboard graphics.

For some odd reason, the same bunch of people insist that running sound through cheap crappy onboard-chips and a 10$ headset provides the best sound available.




I use an x-fi soundcard linked to an HiFi-Amplifier and a HiFi-Headset with a frequency range from 5Hz to 25kHz.
I honestly never understood why people were not shaken by the original sound of 50s or didn't notice any difference between different engine sounds. With a good setup you surely do.

I build high end gaming rigs for a living its my own business and i build custom PC's to order. The main problem i find is simply fitting sound cards into PC's, most of my customers want either SLI, Tri SLI or Crossfire setups which leaves little to no space to squeeze a sound card in. I always try to include a X-Fi card into the build but most times its either not possible or I have to physically modify the card to get it to fit. Even then a sound card squeezed between two GPU's is not ideal considering the temps these cards run at.
For me there has been no comparison regarding sound quality, a good quality sound card has always been far better than any onboard option. How ever of late a lot of high end boards are now addressing this and including 7.1channel HD audio has standard.
It does appear that the major high level motherboard manufactures have written off the soundcard and give it little consideration when planning the layout of their boards, which i think is a shame. Obviously this is only an issue when fitting more than one GPU.

[Feuerfalke]

I know your pain, Tree. I have a MicroATX-board with an oversized graphics card, all squeezed into a tiny case. Still, I don't want to miss my x-fi for the world. And since there are many options for fitting such cards, I'd still find a solution. It doesn't need a PCIe2.0 x16 bus to benefit from a soundcard. Normal PCI or the MiniPCI does fine.
And if all goes wrong, I'd still prefer am X-FI-USB solution over the onboard chip.

[brando]

The onboard sound on my Asus Crosshair III combines the best of both worlds: a dedicated PCIe audio slot, with a Supreme FX X-Fi soundcard in it. I find the sound to be equal to, if not better than the X-Fi gamer I had in my previous rig.

B

Yep, that is a very good sound card Brando and it does not interfere with any graphics setup.

[KG26_Alpha]

Originally Posted by brando

The onboard sound on my Asus Crosshair III combines the best of both worlds: a dedicated PCIe audio slot, with a Supreme FX X-Fi soundcard in it. I find the sound to be equal to, if not better than the X-Fi gamer I had in my previous rig.

B

Hi B

Sold a few of those but be careful I've had some heavy handed customers snap the slot off when they have messed around inside the cases fitting "extras" , then expect it replaced under warranty



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[brando]

Err, what, you're calling me heavy-handed now? Well, I dunno, offer the hand of friendship (the only hand I've got!) and this is what I get......

<wanders off, mumbling>