(PCGT V) PC gaming is dead, press F to pay respects

[jawafour]

Was just thinking, does anyone use a dedicated sound card anymore?

I remember buying a Creative Soundblaster card (alongside a CD ROM drive) for my PC circa 1993. I have absolutely no idea how my iMac makes sound now... presumably some kind of integrated approach.

[Pedz]

Was just thinking, does anyone use a dedicated sound card anymore?

I do, my PC didn't have an optical out, a sound card was needed.

[Trelliz]

Was just thinking, does anyone use a dedicated sound card anymore?

Not for a very long time. My pc is mainly hooked up to my tv via hdmi and if not i use headphones out the back of the motherboard connectors.

[Tragic Magic]

I don't have a sound card but I wonder if I should invest in one seeing as I have a pretty expensive pair of Sennheiser headphones. Can't afford any upgrades either way anyway.

[False]

Used to, but the drivers are almost universally gooseberry fool for anything other than professional grade.

The best approach these days is to go with an external USB amp.

[Rightey]

I used to have one but I had to take it out when I upgraded to my current GPU (Nvidia 1060) which is so fat that it basically blocks the PCI slot.

I wonder how much of a performance boost they give now a days as back in the day they said you could get up to 10%.

[Alvin Flummux]

Had a sound card in the PC I built ten years back, but my cooling set-up was beyond inadequate and I had to remove the thing. I don't know that I'll ever use another sound card, I don't foresee my having any real need for one.

[Meep]

External DACs are the preferred solution for quality audio these days. The problem running audio from the motherboard is it's an analogue signal used to drive speakers so interference is an issue if you have the circuits clustered right next other things on the motherboard. DACs you can attach through USB and drive speakers from outside the PC case should in theory do a better job.

[Green Gecko]

I still use an old pro audio card in my home theatre PC because the DAC is better but there are often issues with drivers and various comparability for example my volume knob and some games.

But since a got a huge firewire interface for recording with balanced speaker connections (no noise or interference at all) I've used that for years.

I generally have both in use and switch.

So yeah since they're inexpensive these days I'd use a small external DAC maybe with a nice volume knob.

[<]:^D]

ive got a DAC for my quality headphones as running through the PC i could hear interference/electrical whining
i run my speakers through an old Creative soundcard - does the job well and was better than the onboard on my previous motherboard - although i upgraded my motherboard last year so maybe its onboard is better? never tried it!

[Green Gecko]

I doubt it. The same azalia/Intel HD Audio spec is implemented by AMD, Nvidia and Intel host controllers and used wholesale for decades now. The driver you interact with codecs/chips are normally Realtek or Conexant (SoundMAX) or VIA. They do the sound decoding and routing and stuff.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intel_H ... tion_Audio

You might have some fancy chipset with better sheilding/isolation from other areas of the CPU or do 192KHz audio which is literally pointless or strawberry float around with sound using DSP but I'd just turn that gooseberry fool off. In PCs the sound is all pretty much the same.

The only exception might be OpenAL which is how Creative basically moved their hardware accelerated 3D positional audio stuff over to software processing since windows jacked hardware acceleration completely and that has died out since most engines do their own positional audio in software now, such as Source. It's just not worth the hardware when CPUs are more than powerful enough to handle hundreds of audio streams and effects. You might have gained a few FPS and some fancy 3d sound effects 15 years ago.

But if you have a full tower and an old audigy 2 gold or whatever bashing around the sound quality is still generally better. ASIO drivers can also be useful for recording with realtime effects monitoring.

I have an M-Audio Revolution 7.1 which was about 50 quid I still like to use if I can get the drivers to work.

[Knoyleo]

For an utter simpleton who doesn't understand much about audio at all, what does an audio card actually do? Isn't audio quality determined by the contents of the file and the quality of the speakers/headphones you're using? I don't really see what an audio card would do to compensate for our add to either of those.

[<]:^D]

im not an expert but no, youre missing a component of that chain between 'source' and 'output' which is the processing. the source sends a signal via the soundcard, or usb dac etc, which processes it and then outputs it, so the processor (whatever form it takes) is very important. then you also have the issues around the processor shielding and/or build quality which can add unwanted noise or inteference to the output signal, regardless of how good the processor quality is. but im sure an audio expert will say im all wrong but yeah in simplistic terms youve got

sound source/file -> processor -> output -> speaker

[False]

A card allows more dedicated channels for sound output and input. Either useful to you or not. It allows for higher amplification of sound due to the fact there is literally more and beefier circuits to do so. It can allow for EMI shielding - integrated sound cards on the motherboard are usually totally unshielded and simply do the job. It can provide accompanying software which may or may not be useful for you.

There are lots of reasons to have a soundcard in a modern PC.

Heres the thing though, if your use case is "I want music to be louder and gooder on my headphones" then you probably just want a USB DAC.

[Lagamorph]

I just use my Sony PS4 USB wireless headset on my desktop. Does the job well enough for me, but I'm far far from an Audiophile.

[Green Gecko]

It's basically all about signal to noise ratio and dynamic range. Things you get with a better DAC ie the part that actually makes bits into electricity what a speaker turns into sound. For example you can turn your speakers up louder without that terrible hiss (unless your speakers also suck).

The kind of stuff you'll only really notice with uncompressed audio and/or quite sections or silence.

I listen to music surprisingly infrequently so it's more about studio recording and monitoring for me.

You can't guage the quality of a sound if you're hearing 10% distorted audio obviously.

[Lagamorph]

Just do me a favour and no matter what your audio setup is like, never, ever refer to headphones as "cans".

Not even if they're proper canny?

[Victor Mildew]

sorry no can do.

[<]:^D]

i can see your point but i feel comfortable calling them what i want

[Jazzem]

Sweet, sweet cans