PC Hardware in a Nutshell, 3rd Edition [Electronic resources] نسخه متنی

17.6 Choosing a Sound Card

Sound adapters fall into two broad
categories. Consumer-grade sound adapters are made by companies such
as Turtle Beach and Creative Labs and are widely available in retail
channels. The better ones, such as the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz,
suffice for any purpose for which you are likely to use a sound
adapter. Professional-grade sound adaptersmade by companies
such as Aardvark, Digital Audio Labs, Event, Lucid, and
Lynxcost hundreds of dollars, are intended for professional
audio production, have poor retail distribution, and are beyond the
scope of this book. For a technical comparison of many models of
sound adapters, see http://www.pcavtech.com/soundcards/compare/index.

Use the following guidelines when choosing a sound card:

If you are building a new system or replacing a motherboard on an
existing system, choose a motherboard with embedded audio, unless you
need enhanced features that are available only with a standalone
audio adapter. Recent embedded audio solutions support formerly
high-end features such as 3D acceleration, enhanced MIDI functions,
and surround sound, so the features you need are probably available
with embedded audio. In addition to lower cost, embedded audio is
well integrated, which minimizes installation and configuration
problems. If you run Linux, check hardware compatibility carefully
because Linux often provides limited or no support for recently
introduced audio chipsets.

Embedded sound is often implemented as soft audioe.g., the Analog Devices AD1980 chipset used in many Intel motherboards. Although soft audio solutions are inexpensive and may provide superior sound quality and features such as 3D positional audio, they depend on the main system CPU for processing. Using 3D audio features on a soft audio adapter may consume 10% or more of the CPU. We have never found this to be a problem, even when running CPU-intensive first-person-shooter games, but this additional burden on the CPU can cause jerkiness, hesitations, or other problems, particularly if the system has a slow CPU.

When you add or replace a sound card, don't pay for
features you won't use. Don't buy
an expensive sound card if you'll use it only for
playing CDs, listening to system prompts, light gaming, Internet
telephony, voice recognition (on a fast system), and so on.
High-quality sound cards available for $30 or so, such as the Philips
Sonic Edge 5.1, include most of the features that more expensive
cards provide, and are more than adequate for most purposes.

If you use a sound card extensively for purposes such as 3D gaming,
reproducing DVD sound, voice recognition (on a slow system), complex
MIDI rendering, and so on, buy a sound card with hardware
acceleration and other features that support what you use the card
for. Capable consumer-grade high-end sound cards such as the Turtle
Beach Santa Cruz sell for $65 or so, and are suitable for anything
short of professional audio production.

If a sound card is more than two years old, consider replacing it if
you are otherwise satisfied with the system. Even inexpensive current
sound cards such as the $30 Philips Sonic Edge 5.1 provide better
sound reproduction than high-end models that are a few years old,
particularly for games and other MIDI applications. Note, however,
that motherboards are now so cheap that it may be more cost-effective
to replace the motherboard with a recent model that has the audio
features you need and also provides other benefits such as a more
recent chipset.

Don't even consider installing an ISA sound card.
Even if you are upgrading a system that has an ISA slot and you
happen to have a "free" ISA sound
card languishing on your spares stack, do yourself a favor. Discard
the ISA sound card and buy an inexpensive PCI card instead.

Stick to name-brand sound cards. We frequently hear horror stories
from readers who have purchased house-brand sound
cardsoutdated drivers, missing or inadequate documentation,
poor (or no) tech support, shoddy construction, incompatibilities
with Windows 9X (let alone Windows 2000/XP and Linux), and on and on.
What's particularly ironic is that you may pay more
for a house-brand sound card than for a low-end name-brand card. You
can buy decent name-brand sound cards for $30 from reputable
companies. Don't buy anything less.

Nearly all sound cards are well supported under Windows 9X. Windows
2000 and Windows XP include drivers for most popular sound cards, but
we have experienced conflicts and limited functionality with some of
these drivers. Make sure any sound card you use with Windows 2000/XP
has a certified driver supplied by the manufacturer. Linux now
supports many sound cards, and both the number of models supported
and the quality of that support seem to improve month to month. If
you run Linux, however, verify that drivers are available for the
exact model card you plan to use.

We admit it. We've never bothered to install any of
the plethora of applications that are bundled with many sound cards,
particularly high-end models, and we probably
wouldn't know what to do with them if we did. But
that's because we use sound cards only for playing
MP3, Ogg Vorbis, and CD audio, recording audio from within other
applications, Internet telephony, and similar applications. The
software supplied with a sound card varies according to the market
focus of that card. Cards targeted at gamers often include a game or
two intended to show off the features of that card, although such
games are often demos, feature-crippled, or older versions.
Similarly, cards with high-end MIDI features often include a
competent MIDI sequencer and editor, although again
it's likely to be a
"Lite" version, intended primarily
to convince you to upgrade to (and pay for) the
"Professional" version. But if you
do need one of these functions and your needs are moderate, bundled
software may do the job you need and allow you to avoid spending more
money on individually purchased applications.

Embedded audio has nearly destroyed the standalone sound card market, and this trend is accelerating. Originally, embedded audio sold well because it was cheap and adequate. Nowadays nearly all motherboards include embedded audio, and you can't get cheaper than free. Worse still for sound card makers, embedded audio is no longer merely adequate. Good embedded audio, such as that of Intel motherboards and the AMD-compatible nForce2 chipset, matches any but the best standalone audio for features and sound quality.