Who Killed PC Audio, and will Soundcards Ever Be a Thing Again?

Lifelite said:
I've never had a front panel plug that didn't have bad feedback.
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Yea that's true but I'd say that it's on the case manufacturers side. Panel plugs are an afterthought in most cases. I recently retired my ZxR with Sparkos discrete opamps and now use the ZxR's ACM module, basically its the volume knob with a dual mic integrated and dual phone/mic plugs. The ACM uses 3.5mm plugs and I plug that into my MB's ports, and it works awesome, no added noise in the path. The AMC wires are well shielded, nice and thick and sleeved.
 
I used to have a CL Audigy 4 Pro, well before I had started moving to Win7 and newer computers over the years, and it was pretty great, honestly. On my current motherboard, Asus Maximus Gene V, it's got the Supreme FX whatever on it...... I'm really struggling to feel like there's anything I'm missing with this solution versus the Audigy. Yeah, it was really cool, and had a software suite that was totally overkill, but for my 2 channel speakers I've got now, and headphones occasionally, the onboard seems amazing.

Maybe I'm just settling in my old age???
 
BigDov said:
I used to have a CL Audigy 4 Pro, well before I had started moving to Win7 and newer computers over the years, and it was pretty great, honestly. On my current motherboard, Asus Maximus Gene V, it's got the Supreme FX whatever on it...... I'm really struggling to feel like there's anything I'm missing with this solution versus the Audigy. Yeah, it was really cool, and had a software suite that was totally overkill, but for my 2 channel speakers I've got now, and headphones occasionally, the onboard seems amazing.

Maybe I'm just settling in my old age???
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oh man I had the audigy3, i loved that! So easy to connect anything to it and line noise was pretty nonexistant for what I needed. Im with the rest here now, hdmi out audio. Where I fail though is it outputs to my monitor to speakers lol. It is a terrible setup but my receiver is older and is not hdmi equipped. PC audio for me sucks. Can't wait to upgrade.
 
Darunion said:
oh man I had the audigy3, i loved that! So easy to connect anything to it and line noise was pretty nonexistant for what I needed. Im with the rest here now, hdmi out audio. Where I fail though is it outputs to my monitor to speakers lol. It is a terrible setup but my receiver is older and is not hdmi equipped. PC audio for me sucks. Can't wait to upgrade.
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Why you no toslink?
 
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cortexodus said:
I remember Doom 3 with the X-Fi Fatal1ty (which is still in my main rig) being one of the most amazing audio experiences. You could hear WHERE the enemies were with incredible precision. FEAR was a great game for audio, as well. The physical audio occlusion effects were so cool. I've been waiting for audio to "come back". All of my friends over the years have given me shit for ranting about how fucking awful PC audio has been since the late 90's.
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My friends all laugh at me for having a sound card (it's an old X-Fi XtremeMusic from 2006). It still works with Windows 10. It also has 128 channel audio, for the "crackling flames" that you aren't going to get on a 32-channel mobo solution.
 
I wish they still made motherboards with no added sound or network devices. I always preferred to buy my own sound card and NIC.

And don't get me started on built-in video!!!

The whole idea was to have the ability to replace those devices when they died or something new came out.
 
1) Creative being a bunch of a$$-hats sales wise, driver wise, legal wise.
2) the ubiquitous AC97 standard was more than enough for 95% of the market that made everything creative did expensive by comparison
3) Microsoft killing off HAL for sound cards.
 
DrLobotomy said:
I wish they still made motherboards with no added sound or network devices. I always preferred to buy my own sound card and NIC.

And don't get me started on built-in video!!!

The whole idea was to have the ability to replace those devices when they died or something new came out.
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They're partially there so you have a fall back when your discrete card dies or removed for whatever reason. And with the scarcity of PCIE lanes, hell no do I wanna start wasting slots with add in cards that cost no resources to integrate.
 
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necrosis said:
I just think it was because onboard autio stopped sucking goat balls.

Most people went "Its got audio onboard. Why buy an add in card?"

Not to mention multi channel dieing off because everyone is wearing headsets with mics for online gaming now.
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My take is "Most" people never knew what good 3D positional audio was to begin with. I mean it, the first time I put on my Medusa's and could here the footsteps, kicked soda cans, and the sound as they scrabbeled around on their knees, and could just by sound, estimate where they were and drop a 'nade on them, I knew what good sound was. I can't tell you how many times I was sniping with the Barret 50 and heard something behind me, spun around and no-scoped a guy just as he came around a corner, called a cheater, all that. Good 3D positional audio was like playing poker with extra cards up your sleeve.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
I'm with you. I trust my DAC and my headphones a lot more than I do some LED Gamer USB headset with the cheapest DAC chip they could find in the headset itself.
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Right but I have tried to use that ame old HT Omega sound card which I still have, and find 5.1 or 7.1 surround sound headphones with separate audio jacks for center, and left /right, etc.... it still never sound right. Not even close to what i remember when I had this kind of setup on WinXP.
 
I don't know who killed PC audio, but I'd like to kick his ass. I long for the days when I was more than content with my Monsoon or Klipsch Promedia 2.1 connected to a Soundblaster card. Now, I blow far too much $$ on DACs, amps, speakers, subs... :banghead::banghead::banghead:
 
I enjoyed watching the vid, I thought it was pretty good. I can't call myself an audiophile cause to tell the truth I've never heard one of those systems that I could never afford in a million years so I have nothing to compare it to. What I do know is what my ears like and don't like. I have always been a pc user that has used a sound card from day one. It's just the way I started so it became the norm and just what I did. Many years later a sound card I was using went bad and I said what the hell I might as well save some space and try onboard sound for the first time. The experience was like, "it's sound but something is really missing from this experience". My ears simply did not like what was going on. Didn't take me long to know I wasn't happy, said hell with this and I bought another sound card (soundblaster z). My ears became instantly excited again and got back the "missing" experience. My onboard sound journey was brief and I ain't going back there no more. I guess if one had always used nothing but onboard sound, you wouldn't know what you were missing. Oh and all this is on speakers, not headphones. I just can't wear the damn things. I don't want anything wrapped around my head unless it's a female. Homey don't play headphones.
 
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If you want top notch sound quality, use a home theater system with HDMI. For stereo only, get a set of monitors with a built in DAC, like the Vanatoo speaker system.
 
jonainpdx said:
If you want top notch sound quality, use a home theater system with HDMI. For stereo only, get a set of monitors with a built in DAC, like the Vanatoo speaker system.
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Are you telling me that a Home Theater system with HDMI is comparable to my old 7.1 card with 7.1 analogue audio under WinXP ?

I suppose I am questioning whether you have experienced the best of the older generation and know that this will meet or surpass it?

And what do I do for when I need a mic with headset ?
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
Or if you play older titles with OpenAL or EAX support through Alchemy. Still, you'd need one of the older X-Fi models, as the newer creative soundcards lack the EMU20k2 DSP chip.

That is quite frankly the only reason I still keep my X-Fi Titanium HD in there. When I use the optical out to my DAC, it gets the DSP processed sound.

As time goes on I seem to use it less and less though.
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The Z series has Alchemy as well. I haven't really played any old games in forever that I have to use Alchemy for, so not sure how the X-Fi vs Z Alchemy rendering sounds.

Have you actually compared and found a difference?
 
Mike89 said:
Oh and all this is on speakers, not headphones. I just can't wear the damn things. I don't want anything wrapped around my head unless it's a female. Homey don't play headphones.
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I'm with you, man! I worked in talk radio for several years and grew to loathe headphones. I can't stand the damn things on my head. I tried a HiFiMan 350, a couple months ago, and had to sell them after less than a week.
 
cyclone3d said:
The Z series has Alchemy as well. I haven't really played any old games in forever that I have to use Alchemy for, so not sure how the X-Fi vs Z Alchemy rendering sounds.

Have you actually compared and found a difference?
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No, I had just assumed it didn't work on the Z series, as it doesn't have the DSP chip (or at least so I had thought). I guess I was wrong?
 
I'd love a good home theater on my PC setup, BUT that means:

1. Buying a receiver just for the PC/Office room
2. Somehow finding a place to put my rear speakers

Right now I have my rear speakers sitting 2 inches away from my front. I personally don't like using headphones except for certain games, and I haven't tried a 5.1 headphone setup before.
 
Zarathustra[H] said:
No, I had just assumed it didn't work on the Z series, as it doesn't have the DSP chip (or at least so I had thought). I guess I was wrong?
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It doesn't have the same chip that the X-Fi/Audigy/Live cards had, but it does have a DSP.

Guessing they rewrote some of the code or just some driver code for it to work.
 
I still have a X-fi sound card, but it tends to bsod every now and then. I now use HDMI.
 
What I heard was "Get ready for your socks to be blown off in a few months".

With AMD's new stuff and Creative's new stuff, I am getting really exited for some great PC components coming out this year.

PLEASE DON'T SUCK!!!
 
If Asus and Creative would follow in the footsteps of how often Realtek releases drivers. Creative has shafted customers for years with lack of caring and support. So screw them. Asus also has very bad driver support.
 
cyclone3d said:
What I heard was "Get ready for your socks to be blown off in a few months".

With AMD's new stuff and Creative's new stuff, I am getting really exited for some great PC components coming out this year.

PLEASE DON'T SUCK!!!
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That right there is the new calling card of the OCP crowd. "PLEASE DON'T SUCK".
 
ecmaster76 said:
MS removed audio from the kernel space in Vista because Creative and other audio vendors were responsible for a significant amount of blue screens.

5.1 is doable without Dolby - HDMI supports PCM. And if you have a dolby encoded source you can bitstream it over HDMI to a receiver or other licensed decoders. Considering you can get a pretty decent receiver for under $200 its hard to justify a sound card
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Right, I remember using my Creative card on a VIA motherboard, and the two companies just blamed each other for their shit drivers. But every other game, I'd either have a blue screen, or an audio dropout requiring a restart. I was SO HAPPY when Vista moved the drivers to user space - once they got the transition worked-out (first year), the drivers were solid.

Really, the thing that killed PC Audio was onboard getting so good. The Realtek drivers back in 2005 were total shit, but today there's nary a problem.

Also, the analog issues of yore have been mostly tackled at low-cost, and used by everyone (because it's China, there are no trade secrets). I used to cringe at the noise from motherboard audio, but I've only encountered ONE motherboard in the last decade with a crappy-enough sound output that I'd want to replace it. Every other one was perfectly listenable.

Also, multi-channel EAX audio was already on it last-legs when Microsoft killed it. Let's not play games with that BS, most people didn't have multi-speaker gaming setups. And any old sound card could do a passable job at positional audio on two speakers. That, and 3 GHz microprocessors were so much faster than these "accelerators" that they made no difference in games.

http://techreport.com/blog/21742/are-sound-cards-still-relevant
 
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Wierdo said:
Nothing about Creative destroying Aureal through lawsuits, losing their case against them but still driving their competition out through legal costs?

Aureal's surround sound was miles ahead at the time, after they died the market for sound cards languished under the litigation obsessed Creative's semi-monopoly.

The market was not healthy to begin with, was just proprietary technology and a company protecting its turf with litigation.

Glad MS stuck it to them personally, the company was quite anti-consumer - for example obsoleting products through driver updates and threatening customers who fix that problem themselves - and anti-free market. Just wish an open standard came along to fill the space in surround audio.

And I don't miss the bloated 500mb driver suites either.
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lcpiper said:
Are you telling me that a Home Theater system with HDMI is comparable to my old 7.1 card with 7.1 analogue audio under WinXP ?

I suppose I am questioning whether you have experienced the best of the older generation and know that this will meet or surpass it?

And what do I do for when I need a mic with headset ?
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I have and a proper home theater setup will blow the shit out of any PC-centric audio solution unless you are using a home theater in a box in which case it would likely be comparable as most PC-focused audio equipment isn't much better than a lower end home theater in a box. As far as headsets go, I just use a mono headset with a mic on the rare occasion I play a multi-player game.
 
I have not had a problem with my new sound card from Creative. I have a Ausu Z170-AR and the sound was weak. i could turn up everything and still not hear ppl talking in movies. games seemed weak also.

Granted i skipped Vista. Run onboard audio since win7. But even my old sound card worked great on my old dell/gatway systems.

but of course the card and speakers are in my old junk box and i have a newer 7.1 system, a blue tooth system, a 3.1 and headphones. I could not be happier with my sound now.

I just got the Sound Blaster Audigy Fx for the PCIe x1 slot of 40 bucks but it helped alot. My sound levels go up when i turn up the volume like you would hope. No mobo back ground noise , no fan noise, nothing but what i want to hear and more.

Even the top of the line mobos with creative chips on them will still not give 100% of what the card will do. but gets you close. With most ppl not buying the 300-400 usd mobos then they will be stuck at the 32/64 channels needing a sound card if they want everything out of a games audio.

and one last thing. pci slots give top priority to video over onboard audio. That can also leave a delay in sound on some systems.

And i never had a problem with front panel jacks. besides low volume
 
I had a Monster Sound MX300 with the Aureal 2... It was such a sad sad day when years later I come to find that the reason my computer would crash after 5-15mins of gaming was because the sound card was dying. Had I the knowledge then, as I do now, I'd have known it was 90% capacitor related and fixed the card (it wasn't mobo, as the sound was the one holdover in a new build). I tell you what... a friend gave me an SB Live! and that was seriously the worst sounding crap I'd ever heard. It was so bright and lacked depth. I used it for awhile, but not too long. I was never a real audiophile, I'm just like Mike89, I know what my ears like; however, even as a mid teen with only that Aureal card under my belt for PC audio experiences (I won't count the onboard on our 2nd computer, or the sound/gameport/IDE controller card in our 486), it was a night and day difference between those two cards. I missed that warm audio the Aureal provided. :(

I believe when I upgraded my system is when I used the onboard codec (Realtek), which I believe was my first S939 build. While it was still in the XP days I just didn't have the mind to know that there were things I was missing by not having a sound card... but there wasn't a choice either since by then Aureal was bought up by Creative and for all I've seen their wonderful tech locked away in a closet somewhere, just as nVidia did with 3Dfx. The classic "too proud to admit our tech isn't superior, but too stupid to realize why ours doesn't perform as well" and as a result it only harmed the end users.

I tried to get back into the audio thing more recently. I still have and use my Logitech Z--560s, which were the top of the line 4.1 system back in the day (no, I'm sorry, the Klipsche 4.1 solution at that time didn't sound as nice). I can't believe it has lasted this long, especially given the fact it has been almost powered on 24/7 since the day I had gotten them in 2001! Not to say it hasn't had problems... the external sound box has gone through some repairs (and upgrades lol) and the audio cables I had to replace, the rear-left channel connection is really finicky and caused my issues for many many years, but it has been with me since the Aureal days. So in an effort to try to get non-onboard audio I bought the Xonar STX PCIe and gave it the LME49720HA tincan treatment. Unfortunately, I didn't use it very long and now it just sits in the anti-static bag, because I never could find an ideal way to use my speakers to game AND watch TV on (my TV is my monitor, if that wasn't evident). If I had them plugged into my Xonar that meant I couldn't use it with the TV, and vice versa. So I just left them plugged into my TV's audio out and have since used my Radeon's output :(

I'm not proud of that fact but it highlights the underlying point in all this: Without real, dedicated audio hardware processed sound in my games, I just don't have the motivation to run things proper anymore :\ There are two companies to blame for that all and it comes down to this... Creative built the coffin, but Microsoft nailed the lid down.

Truthfully though, the PC industry is a far more advanced and capable place these days, and I think they all have the capacity to properly handle the audio stack being reintroduced to Windows. Case in point is with graphics being granted bare metal access and we've not had problems. There's no reason that I can see that the same can't be true for audio again, too.

Are you listening, Microsoft?
WE WANT 3D POSITIONAL AUDIO AGAIN!
BRING BACK DIRECTSOUND...
BRING BACK HARDWARE AUDIO ACCELERATION!

Ask yourself the question: How big of a bragging right would it be for you to pair Creative's next audio processor with the Scorpio and offer hardware audio processing with proper 3D sound? I'm not a console gamer, and I don't like the XBox One, but even I can admit that'd be a game changer and would give them a big leg up!
 
Wow, nice commercial for Creative. For 99% of PC users the onboard sound will be more than fine. All this stuff about the warmth of a DAC is just a bunch hooiie. As you grow older your hearing naturally declines in responsiveness. I can't hear much above 12k (I'm 50), and I'll bet most PC users top out at around 16k. I don't necessarily like it, but that's the way it goes. So most of this stuff you're paying for is simply rendered useless. The real need with sound is 3D positional audio, and that gets short shrift in this discussion.
 
Creative killed it. Full stop. I remember getting so pissed at them over a decade ago because of shitty drivers and forced obselence that I vowed never to buy another product from them again. And I haven't. They've been sitting on essential patents for over a decade now and have done nothing with them. Not one modicum of innovation. At then end of the day, due to Creative's legally enforced monopoly, Microsoft got so fed up with them that they yanked the accelerated hardware stack out of the OS to protect themselves and consumers from all the BSODs... it really says something when you are so bad at the only thing you need to do that MS has to pull the plug on you.

Literally if Creative never existed, PC audio would be more than 20 years ahead of where it is now. Frankly, as PC enthusiasts we should be angry about this...
 
Yeah I'll be honest and say that onboard audio is good enough for me. I don't ever plan on having a soundcard again. I usually had driver issues or crackling issues or some other b.s. with soundcards anyway.
 
Still have my SoundBlaster Live value cards & my Audigy 2's. I'm ok with the built in sound on Motherboards now days. Sounds fine to me.
 
In the video, the Creative rep says that motherboards of that time were designed to run out of spec on the PCIE slot to get better benchmark numbers. That caused most of the BSOD crashes. Then after acquiring so many other tech from other firms, the driver bloat started to creep in.

What I found most interesting was the rep stating that the minimum bit rate for VR should be 32 bit. That way there is some room left for sound processing and still maintaining the integrity of the audio. He also said that Creative has a new product coming out soon that's going to assassinate everything on the market today. Soon as in a few months.

Stuff of note in addition to the consoles and Vista killed audio.
  • VR is bringing back positional audio.
  • Going to need lots of processing power for Nvidia and AMD's solution. So far a nonstarter for both as far as developers embracing them.
  • Creative can add their tech on top of Dolby Atmos for example.
  • Nausea in VR can be caused by audio. Some people can play only for 30 minutes with audio on. Cut the audio off and they can play for hours.
  • AISIO is great for streamers.
  • Sound cards in the future will alleviate processing bottlenecks.
  • Most Creative customers buy the top of the line Creative card.
  • Next Creative card will revolutionize in regards to SNR.
  • X7 is the best card that Creative has out.
  • 24 bit is good enough for most listeners. People can tell the difference between 24 bit and 16 bit.
  • 32 bit allows for sound processing in VR and maintains the quality of the audio.
  • Front panel connectors are terrible.
  • X-Fi Crystal is coming to mobile.
  • Creative MB3 software support is continuing.
  • Auzentech licensed their stuff from Creative.
  • Asus can't do codecs so they went pure bare bones audiophile.
 
Delicieuxz said:
I've used my X-Fi Prelude for so many years, that I don't really think of PC as being without this software functionality. Maybe someone should develop hardware-neutral software that does all the stuff contained in the software for these X-Fi devices.
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lol You know what they say... "Any good idea you've had has already been thought up by someone else." and that is the case here, too :p It's called "Sound Blaster X-Fi MB" (which I do believe the MB stands for Motherboard).


cageymaru said:
In the video, the Creative rep says that motherboards of that time were designed to run out of spec on the PCIE slot to get better benchmark numbers. That caused most of the BSOD crashes. Then after acquiring so many other tech from other firms, the driver bloat started to creep in.

What I found most interesting was the rep stating that the minimum bit rate for VR should be 32 bit. That way there is some room left for sound processing and still maintaining the integrity of the audio. He also said that Creative has a new product coming out soon that's going to assassinate everything on the market today. Soon as in a few months.
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Not to nitpick, but I'm swore he said PCI, not PCIe. He was talking about how they were specced to run at 33MHz but some board manufacturers would squeeze out a little more at 34MHz, to try and give them an edge. That it was thinks like that which contributed to there being so many problems for add in manufacturers and their drivers crashing (though did make sure to state that it wasn't solely due to that, but just that it didn't help matters).

Also I believe he said that, in relation to the 32bit audio, the reason it might be of use these days is due to having more resolution to work with which would help with the post-processing of audio effects that are added on top of the audio. Things like HRTF, giving them cleaner audio to work with instead of something that's likely already been compressed some and had 8bits removed, which would deliver more accurate audio positioning and could very well help alleviate the issues some people have with feeling sick during VR (as was also in your bullet point).

Just seemed an important distinction on the two topics. However, I could be incorrect on the first part, and apologies if so. :p
 
Formula.350 said:
lol You know what they say... "Any good idea you've had has already been thought up by someone else." and that is the case here, too :p It's called "Sound Blaster X-Fi MB" (which I do believe the MB stands for Motherboard).



Not to nitpick, but I'm swore he said PCI, not PCIe. He was talking about how they were specced to run at 33MHz but some board manufacturers would squeeze out a little more at 34MHz, to try and give them an edge. That it was thinks like that which contributed to there being so many problems for add in manufacturers and their drivers crashing (though did make sure to state that it wasn't solely due to that, but just that it didn't help matters).

Also I believe he said that, in relation to the 32bit audio, the reason it might be of use these days is due to having more resolution to work with which would help with the post-processing of audio effects that are added on top of the audio. Things like HRTF, giving them cleaner audio to work with instead of something that's likely already been compressed some and had 8bits removed, which would deliver more accurate audio positioning and could very well help alleviate the issues some people have with feeling sick during VR (as was also in your bullet point).

Just seemed an important distinction on the two topics. However, I could be incorrect on the first part, and apologies if so. :p
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In the days of PCI/AGP I used to push the bus well out of spec, never had a Creative Soundcard crash on me.
 
Yeah, I remember after Creative killed Aurel they had terrible drivers that would never get updated. Their drivers were the cause of almost all my bsods back in the day. I am still mad at how they treated customers who spend over a hundred bucks on a card. Even if they release a great card, I don't think I will ever buy one of their products.
 
Formula.350 said:
lol You know what they say... "Any good idea you've had has already been thought up by someone else." and that is the case here, too :p It's called "Sound Blaster X-Fi MB" (which I do believe the MB stands for Motherboard).



Not to nitpick, but I'm swore he said PCI, not PCIe. He was talking about how they were specced to run at 33MHz but some board manufacturers would squeeze out a little more at 34MHz, to try and give them an edge. That it was thinks like that which contributed to there being so many problems for add in manufacturers and their drivers crashing (though did make sure to state that it wasn't solely due to that, but just that it didn't help matters).

Also I believe he said that, in relation to the 32bit audio, the reason it might be of use these days is due to having more resolution to work with which would help with the post-processing of audio effects that are added on top of the audio. Things like HRTF, giving them cleaner audio to work with instead of something that's likely already been compressed some and had 8bits removed, which would deliver more accurate audio positioning and could very well help alleviate the issues some people have with feeling sick during VR (as was also in your bullet point).

Just seemed an important distinction on the two topics. However, I could be incorrect on the first part, and apologies if so. :p
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I made those notes at 3 in the morning. Quite sure that you're right. :)
 
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