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Audio question:

ShepsCrook

ShepsCrook

[H]F Junkie
2FA
Joined
Feb 16, 2003
Messages
9,542
Is the Sound Blaster Live! Value card better than an onboard Realtek ALC850 7.1channel AC'97?

I'm wondering because I have one of these sitting around.

I guess I should ellaborate on what is needed.

2.1 to a 5.1/4.1 speaker set.

Games played are:

BF2, BF1942, GTA3, B&W, Worms Armageddon

I'm just wondering if the offloading of sound processing from the processor to the sound card will make a distinct difference in game play that would make it worthwhile, while keeping sound at a good quality.
 
No, the SB-Live is not as good sound quality wise.

For music the ALC is better, for games the SB-Live does better EAX affects. The offloading makes little difference because your limited to EAX or EAX2 sounds anyway.
 
So even though the main use of the machine is Games, it's still not going to be better to go with an SB Live Value?
 
Your onboard sound will have better quality. It supports the same versions of EAX as the Live!, though it doesn't support it properly, however it will still be better to stick with the onboard.
 
Give it a try, the sound quality for audio with the SBLive is around the same as the ALC850 HD.

As mentioned, Realtek have been exposed as their drivers do not render EAX properly.
http://www.dailytech.com/article.aspx?newsid=3948
"Realtek’s high definition audio solution on the other hand produced a muffled sound with very little channel separation and differentiation. Sound came from all over the place."

If you game, it makes no sense to use the onboard sound.
 
Well, it's for my 8 yr old. So he doesn't notice it. I'll just put the SBLive into the daughters machine. They are stuck with onboard sound on an Asus P4S533.
 
Thanks for all of the help. I'm upgrading all of our machines and just was wondering about that.

new count:

My sig is my machine:
Fiance' gets my : Compaq Presario 2100 (AMD Athlon XP 2200, 768MB ram, 40GBHD)
13yr old and 10yr old get: P4 2.0ghz, Asus P4S533, 9800Pro/XT, 1GB ram, 160GBHD, SBLIVE)
8yr old gets: AMD64 3200+, 1GB ram, X800GTO, 200GBHD)

and I'm restoring my AMD K6-2 550mhz back from the dead! I'm very happy about this.
 
It would be funny if your kid said "Hey dad, someone ripped off my SB LIve"! :p
 
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