Sound Card = 40% more FPS!!!

Well if the game was somehow using software 5.1+ digital decoding for its sound (Doom 3 engine can do this for example) then I could easily see an increase of that much by moving that sound decoding to a hardware accelerator like the X-Fi. Unfortunately for Creative, most engines don't even offer software digital decoding.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

Originally Posted by www.sega.co.jp

Actually the only flaw of onboard sound is CPU usage. But considering most PCs over 1GHz can more than handle any form of playback, the issue isn't so much game speed increase, but features.

The only flaw happens to be the harshest flaw. 5% of a 2Ghz processor is actually a huge waste of resources. Think about it in reverse. A 5% overclock can result in a 10-20FPS increase in performance depending on your stock clock rate. If you are hovering near 100% CPU utilization, that 5% could mean the difference between a playable and non-playable experience.

There's nowhere I can't reach.

Originally Posted by www.sega.co.jp

Yeah, well that's 5% usage on a 700MHz CPU, on a 2GHz or higher, it's probably lower than 1%. Remember though, also keep in CPU usage tests they do for soundcards do things that you'd probably never try on a PC (like playing back 32 wav files at the same time).

How about decoding a 5.1 digital signal? Using a software decoder like ffdshow (the audio channel obviously) takes 7% of my CPU time with a 3.2 Ghz P4 with HT.

This thing is sticky, and I don't like it. I don't appreciate it.

Yeah, I'm going to go with the fact that most of you don't own an X-Fi as well. I had an Envy24 (Revolution 7.1) and replaced it with an X-Fi and it easily sounds as good. Plus I get the added bonus of EAX and accelerated voices with the X-Fi. Plus the stereo upmixing higher quality in the X-Fi than pretty much anything you could find under $5,000.

Maybe some of you should read some of the X-Fi reviews. Most people agree they are a huge step up from the Audigy cards.

I am a dolphin, do you want me on your body?

Originally Posted by Arainach

That "Huge Step Up" is a bunch of resampling 'crystallization' bullshit that I consider a negative rather than a positive. I'll stick to my original music, kthx.

Crystallization is an option, and it isn't even a resampling method. It reshapes the sound output waveform without resampling. It's more like a hardware equalizer. I love how you play it off without even hearing it though as it does an really nice job in increasing the sound quality of pretty much every lossy format out there. But of course, you can turn it off, and with the X-Fi get an untouched audio stream since it doesn't internally resample anything. Not only that, but the physical layout of the X-Fi chip is a ring, so if you decide to turn any of the 'features' off, the sound data doesn't even have to pass though the given hardware.

But, anyway the major step up from the Audigy cards is the X-Fi does not internally resample to 48 kHz. It also offers a much higher quality DAC converter and a better signal-to-noise ratio than any non-professional sound card out there. But of course I'm sure you knew all of this. Actually, I guess you didn't as you won't be making such asinine comments if you did.

I was speaking idiomatically.

Originally Posted by RacinReaver

FIREFOX IS STILL BETTER

REFORMAT

USE LINUX!@!!!

Thanks for putting exactly what I was thinking in better words. :P

What kind of toxic man-thing is happening now?