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Does a sound card really increase your FPS?

R

RooK

[H]ard|Gawd
Joined
Aug 19, 2001
Messages
1,108
Well, by my logic - yes.... i'll explain

I read an advertisement in a gaming mag that claimed up to 40% more FPS in BF2. I called BS immediately, but couldn't help but wonder if I would get a gain from using something other than onboard sound.

So I disable the sound on my Asus P4P800-E Deluxe...

went from 108 to 114 in the necro666 demo.

So, anyone else know about this kinda stuff?
 
Processing sounds takes up CPU cycles just like every other process does.

While there is no solution out to completely remedy this performance loss; Creative cards (and currently only Creative cards) implement an active processing solution that will greatly reduce the commitment of your system's CPU and offload it to the core onboard your Creative add-in card.

Also note that until games are able to fully utilize multiple cores in PC processors, games are able to offload the processing onto the second core of your CPU, too.

So, for now, multiple CPU cores and a single CPU core with a Creative card will allow for a noticeable increase in FPS in gaming application with sound enabled.
 
Yeah a soundcard will only increase frame rate if the application is CPU limited in the first place.
 
RooK said:
Well, by my logic - yes.... i'll explain

I read an advertisement in a gaming mag that claimed up to 40% more FPS in BF2. I called BS immediately, but couldn't help but wonder if I would get a gain from using something other than onboard sound.

So I disable the sound on my Asus P4P800-E Deluxe...

went from 108 to 114 in the necro666 demo.

So, anyone else know about this kinda stuff?
Click to expand...

Don't think of a soundcard as something that increases your FPS. Rather think of it this way: a soundcard (Creative in particular) increases the overal QUALITY of the audio experience in such as a way that the impact on FPS is mimimized. Achieving the same audio expericne in a game without a soundcard may be impossible (if we are talking about EAX 3+ effects), or at least take a bigger chunk of your CPU than would otherwise be the case.

Buy a soundcard to get better sound. Buy a graphics card and/or CPU upgrade to get more FPS.

Note that the funny thing about sound is that people don't seem to notice it as much as graphics. We are primarily visual animals. Your onboard sound may objectively be much crappier than a discrete solution in terms of signal-to-noise-ratio or EAX effects, but you might not care because its "good enough" to get your audio cues (explosions, music, etc.). People tend to treat sound as an on/off thing; i.e. if I hear SOMETHING, its working ok and that is all I need...
 
RooK said:
Well, by my logic - yes.... i'll explain

I read an advertisement in a gaming mag that claimed up to 40% more FPS in BF2. I called BS immediately, but couldn't help but wonder if I would get a gain from using something other than onboard sound.

So I disable the sound on my Asus P4P800-E Deluxe...

went from 108 to 114 in the necro666 demo.

So, anyone else know about this kinda stuff?
Click to expand...

That add is still BS though, no one will ever see a 40% difference because of a soundcard, it's much more likely with a video card upgrade.

However usually it will render a 2-5% difference depending on the game, and how powerful the users CPU is etc in the first place.
 
so who thinks I should bother with a soundcard. My onboard sound has 5.1 support, and I love it - EXCEPT for if I wear headphones - I can heard my harddrives chattering.

Would a decent soundcard make sounds better? I'm just curious becuase its been since quake1 days since I didn't have a mobo with onboard sound
 
A nice sound card will definitely help. It can free up a lot of CPU resources that your onboard currently use.
 
diapickle said:
A nice sound card will definitely help. It can free up a lot of CPU resources that your onboard currently use.
Click to expand...
espcially, in my opinion, if you have a really low power/low quality processor (i.e. celeron, P3, early P4s, durons, etc.........)
 
Hobbit89 said:
espcially, in my opinion, if you have a really low power/low quality processor (i.e. celeron, P3, early P4s, durons, etc.........)
Click to expand...

Well, from the benchmarks and the looks of the prices of soundcards, i'll just stick with what I have... This 3.4 prescott seems to be doing the trick very nicely
 
Upgrade your sound cards drivers, it might get rid of the hard drive chatter noise. What is your mobo?
 
RooK said:
EXCEPT for if I wear headphones - I can heard my harddrives chattering.
Click to expand...

Are you saying that you can hear interference when you use your headphones? Do you plug them into a front panel headphone jack? They are notorious for interference issues...
 
just say, if someone posts the test.
fps increase if you use a soundcard in stead of sound on board, that's why creative puts X-RAM (64MB as i remember) on its X-fi fidel1ty.
 
40%? Hell no. 4%? Absolutely.

Onboard sound uses CPU time to do the work of a dedicated chip. You're offloading that work, so you'll get some performance back.
 
Your performance gain sounds about normal, it rarely ever goes above 10% if using a sound card. The thing is you shouldn't be looking at this entirely in terms of FPS, as that isn't the only factor when gaming. You should take into account that a dedicated sound card (especially an Audigy 2 and above for gaming) will simply sound better than your onboard setup.

Thomase had it right-- It's an experiential upgrade.

The best surround sound support that you can get from your onboard sound is software drien EAX 2. This would have been OK a few years ago, but today, when you can get an EAX 3 or 4 card for around $50, it's simply not worth it. There is a huge leap in quality with EAX 3, things are simply more realistic. EAX 4 improves on that, but isn't as drastic a change.

I know some of us are sounding like Creative ads, but the fact of the matter is they have the monopoly on decent gaming sound hardware. There's a reason why everyone implements EAX into their games, it's a proven standard. Of course I wish it was available on other manufacturer's cards, but I'll take what I can get for now.

So basically, upgrading for FPS may not be the best argument for you, you need to upgrade for quality.
 
I think you guys have me sold here.... I'd like to spend around 50 dollars... is that mid-range, and what is highrange?
 
As said above the real difference is in the sound quality which is rather dramatic between motherboard solutions and modern soundcards. Not counting in the Eax stuff which makes the difference even larger.
 
Wow how many times have we had this conversation on here? How many times a week? :p

Yes, a A2/X-Fi will give you an FPS boost. However nowhere near as much as a CPU/Video upgrade.
 
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