Sound Card = 40% more FPS!!!

Originally Posted by Arainach

Relic, the X-Fi is no FASTER than Onboard sound. It may be able to decode EAC and other codecs, but that's not faster. The only "speed" benefit relative to onboard is that your CPU doesn't have to decode your sound. But that's never intensive enough to give you a 40% FPS boost. That's a load of crap.

....just like Creative's Sound Cards.

actually, some onboard sound chips have awful cpu utilization, sometimes up to 30-ish percent of the cpu while doing enough directsound for 3d games. i think most are down to around 10 percent, but that's still pretty nasty while playing a game that'll want 100 percent.

but, the reality is, just about any sound card will take the load off the cpu, not just the x-fi.

Jam it back in, in the dark.

i've heard that the audigies are pretty bad for sound editing / music creation when compared to other companies' high-end stuff.

There's nowhere I can't reach.