Soundcards?

hey im planning on get a sound card that supports 5.1 and ive also heard they imrpove gaming? is this true? just wondering. if so then can you recommend a nice one pleaase...thanks

get 7.1 audio why not

For gaming I think most of the MoBos have good'enuff soundchips intgrated,
supporting 5:1 surround etc.

Meaning, them voices in the games are packed someway usually,
getting a card with huge specs dont matter if the files are bad from the start,
like, *.mp3's etc. even with *.wav files there's shoud be no problem sound-quality-wise,

But, if you want to seriously edit audiofiles thats a whole different ballgame/money-issue.

I'd say for games, stick with the integrated stuff in MoBo if ya got one runnin surround,
if not, get some cheaper-soundblaster stuff, like that Live! in the link, that oughta do the stuff.

:D

I just installed a X-Fi Extreme and it's very nice. particularly the "crystalizer" function which optimises headphone performance.

I understand that gamers prefer to eschew on-board sound for addon cards because it frees CPU cycles previously used to do the sound processing.
Supposedly, an increase in video performance can result from this but I cannot verify that.

It's all about the difference between an audio processor and an audio codec.

Something has to determine the shape of, then produce the audio waveform. This can be done by an audio processor. Alternatively the shape can be determined by the cpu then converted into the actual wave by a codec chip.

Obviously if the cpu has to do the work it has less time to do other things, which is why gamers prefer audio processors.

Most (but not all) on-board chips are simple codecs.
Most (but not all) add-on cards have audio processors.

Be careful what you get, some of the really cheap ones are just codecs, and even some audio processors still require a lot of cpu time.

Edit: for the latest games, make sure you get one that supports at least EAX ADVANCED HD 3.0