Quote:
Originally Posted by photon
Other aspects of the issue include driver quality and CPU usage.
It used to be that Creative had good drivers and onboard had crappy ones.. now everyone seems to have crappy ones.
Separate add-in sound cards can save CPU cycles as well, though you have to get the right ones. Important if frame rates in games are the #1 factor for you.
This is the card I think I will get for my current computer: http://www.memoryexpress.com/Product...22953(ME).aspx |
CPU usage is debatable. It's my understanding that DirectX 10 sound processing is entirely software driven. This is one of the reasons Creative's cards gained such a lousy reputation under Vista - there's nothing really for them to do. There are other sound API's out there too, like OpenAL, but I don't know if they have much traction in mainstream gaming.