sound card and game performance

[stefdesh]

i presently have a duron 1300 on a k7s5a board. i'm presently using the onboard sound but i noticed i'ts pretty performed pretty bad in some game when theres big sound the frame rate drop dramticaly(15-20fps)i want to know if i will see a big difference if i upgrade to say a sb live ? i dont care that much for 3d sound but if it can increase my fps ill buy one

[radio1_mike]

Hmmm.

I think it depends on what kinds of sound you are selecting in games...

If you are selecting "Hardware Acceleration", or "EAX" sounds even a Audigy2 card will give an FPS hit to any game. Granted the hit from the Audigy2 (or any other quality card) would probably be less than any on-board card.

I'd suggest:

1) Make sure you have the lastest software drivers for your onboard sound.
2) Switch to software acceleration (Miles 3D audio, software acceleration, direct sound 3d, or whatever), and see if that improves your fps in games.
3) Drop your sound quality down to 22, 16, or 11 kHz in game.
4) Drop number of sound channels down to 16, 12, or 8 in game.


If these mods don't improve your fps situation, or maybe you are also not satisfied with the sound of your onboard then get a new card.