Why should I get a soundcard?

[mr. nails]

Well.. depends on "how" you like to listen to your music.. and how much you like music.
Having Z-5500 with an X-Fi soundcard makes you almost a pro..!

i love music! "how" i listen to it? i have no idea what that means.

[killuminati96]

Getting a soundcard is like turning the treble up on your stereo. The sound is more clear, open and accurate. It just sounds better. If you video game or listen to a lot of music then this is a must have. If you only net surf then you don't need one. It's especially needed if you video game. Games now-a-days come EAX 4.0 and higher ready and stuff. If you don't have this support then you'll have sound problems in the game. GTA San Andreas is the best example! If you don't have a good soundcard then you get the "sound bug" where most sounds dissappear on you and you only hear the rain or radio. I suggest getting a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 or X-FI.

[mr. nails]

Getting a soundcard is like turning the treble up on your stereo. The sound is more clear, open and accurate. It just sounds better. If you video game or listen to a lot of music then this is a must have. If you only net surf then you don't need one. It's especially needed if you video game. Games now-a-days come EAX 4.0 and higher ready and stuff. If you don't have this support then you'll have sound problems in the game. GTA San Andreas is the best example! If you don't have a good soundcard then you get the "sound bug" where most sounds dissappear on you and you only hear the rain or radio. I suggest getting a Creative SoundBlaster Audigy 2 or X-FI.

EAX is up to 5.0 and i've never had this support and have never had problems stating otherwise in games especially sound bug or just sound crashes... not that i'm aware of. so yeah, so far i'm looking into the x-fi xtrememusic version.

[mildthrill]

Yo nails, it sounds like you've done a fair bit of homework on the subject, so I don't have much more to add that you probably don't already know. I'm curious though, if you do a full sound swap (speakers and a sound card); I'd love to know what you hear, difference wise, by swapping out the sound card first and rolling with the speakers you have now, then swap speakers later.

And for anyone else, if you've added a sound card after using the onboard sound extensively (keeping the speakers as a constant) what difference did you notice?

[mr. nails]

so, for black friday i picked up a creative x-fi xtreme music sound card for $60. so far i'm thinking it's meh, but i've only just used it for like 8 hours so not really an opinion as of yet. i was having some problems making my system recognize my usb headphones, but right now it's working. i DO like the fact that i have a fader now. oh, how i miss my sound storm chipset, but i DO hate the fact that i still don't get windows sounds (like at boot up) on all speakers. i kinda figured i would. no? the 24bit crystalizer brings some needed treble to my sounds. i've pretty much just used this card in game mode. i do wish there was an "on the fly" tab or something to switch between modes. that would make it less tedious and probably done more often. anyone have comments on the listening modes? do i need to install the software pack? all i've did was install the latest drivers and that's it. don't really like installing shit on my hdd that i really don't need (damn hp printers and their bloated software). as of now, i'm only happy for the fact that the drivers worked and so does the card. i'll go into more depth once i've used this card more.

[tesco]

GTA San Andreas is the best example! If you don't have a good soundcard then you get the "sound bug" where most sounds dissappear on you and you only hear the rain or radio.

That's not true all you need to do is turn off surround/5.1/7.1 in the windows sound options and then gta turns to stereo...

[killuminati96]

GTA San Andreas is the best example! If you don't have a good soundcard then you get the "sound bug" where most sounds dissappear on you and you only hear the rain or radio.

That's not true all you need to do is turn off surround/5.1/7.1 in the windows sound options and then gta turns to stereo...

The sound bug has been well discussed on multiple sites and Rockstar even made a "fix" on the patch. I had the sound bug and when I got an EAX 4 soundcard the problem went away. Don't argue with me man. I had the problem myself and know what I'm talking about. Regardless of EAX video gaming support the big advantage I mentioned was how much better music sounds. You gotta have nice speakers tho. You can't expect good sounding music on cheap speakers. I'll tell ya what I did. I got a "Belkin Y Cable Splitter" cable. I hooked one end to my card and the other into my Hi-Fi stereo system. My pc audio is going into my stereo which makes my games & music real loud and have good bass.

[mr. nails]

I got a "Belkin Y Cable Splitter" cable...

i'll have to look into that.