soundcards in game performance

[jordibax]

A lot of people (me too) posts in this forum looking for hardware recommendations to get good gaming performance, but besides cpu and gpu, it´s not the soundcard important? I suppose the soundcard is also important in game performance since frees the cpu from 3dsound processing tasks . Actually i read somewhere that a good soundcard could get a pair of fraps in some games. My question is: What do i have to search in a sound card that provides good performance (let´s leave apart the quality)?i suppose that the chip, but what in it?db`s ?(of course not,just joking) I`d like to know this because i don´t know the spcedifications to have in count in a soundcard that improves performance. I imagine that it sound acceleration issues, it happens the same as in graphic ones, that integrated board solution coud get a better game performance that an old (or cheap) external hardware solution. Actually, Creative X-Fi Elite Pro has 64 dedicated mb on board like a 3d card that i suppose that are there for some good reason. What do you search in a sound card that let´s you calculate the performance?since i don´t mind quality, I don´t wanna plug my old 90's soundblaster in a friend`s computer to free his cpu from sound tasks and get a potatoe system as a result.

[Mike]

Sound processing has gotten to the point where it doesn't really noticeably affect gaming performance anymore. There are only two real options anymore: use onboard sound, get a creative card.

Personally, I'm more than happy with onboard sound these days.

[jordibax]

Sound processing has gotten to the point where it doesn't really noticeably affect gaming performance anymore. There are only two real options anymore: use onboard sound, get a creative card.

Personally, I'm more than happy with onboard sound these days.
Really? then i don´t understand soundcard names like "creative gamer´s edition"...Do they think that gamers need and special quality sound gameplay to well-play games?Low frame rate gaming is a thing, but a 20khz more or less are almost unnoticeable for a normal human sound. Marketing...

[phranq]

Really? then i don´t understand soundcard names like "creative gamer´s edition"...Do they think that gamers need and special quality sound gameplay to well-play games?Low frame rate gaming is a thing, but a 20khz more or less are almost unnoticeable for a normal human sound. Marketing...


Yes, marketing, and it works pretty well so they keep doing it. Sometimes a "gaming edition" also means that it comes bundled with a bunch of games you may or may not want.


MIKE, I'll try and get on AIM more often, I'm not too busy this semester I'll see what I can do. I need to get back into the GPU world :)

I see the forums are starting to pick up a little... nice.