In older systems the software processing of 3D audio can badly impact games. I was messing with a KT333 board with onboard Cmedia 8738 and in UT99 the game would actually stutter when a lot of audio channels were active. Not much of an issue with multicore modern CPUs though.

I've had a play around with the control panel provided by Gigabyte for the onboard Realtek ALC888B, and I'm impressed with that too. It's easy to use and has more options that I'd ever use.

Hooray for onboard audio! Now to try out the onboard video 😵

Onboard video is definitely getting there. The Intel Iris Pro and AMD APU offerings are both competitive with lower midrange discrete graphics now.

PS4 and Xbox One both contain AMD APUs, and ignoring the "hurp durp console suxs" crap, they both look very nice.

On my modern desktop the onboard had an audible high pitch noise so I use a Behringer UCA202 USB sound card. It's nothing special, but the sound is clean and noise free. I mostly use headphones and it sounds great to me.

In my HTPC I use onboard and have not had any problems using the analog 5.1 out.

Like the avatar, I'm a huge Blade Runner fan also. 🤣

I've pretty much always used onboard audio. I used some computer by AST for the longest time. I don't remember the model number, but I remember it came with a Pentium running at 100 MHz and had a chipset by SIS. I had a short stint with a Vibra 128, but I only used that for a couple of months. I can't say anything about the quality, but it worked well enough. I didn't have any compatibility problems with the games that I wanted to play.

I was too cheap to spend money on a sound card when I upgraded to my nForce 2 based system. Soundstorm was pretty decent, so I don't think I would've noticed much of a difference. My motherboards based on the Intel P965 and H97 chipsets had decent onboard audio too. I would like a proper sound card as I like filling up my PCI(e) slots, but I don't feel like I have a reason to.

King_Corduroy wrote:

Like the avatar, I'm a huge Blade Runner fan also. 🤣

Thanks.

swaaye wrote:

In older systems the software processing of 3D audio can badly impact games. I was messing with a KT333 board with onboard Cmedia 8738 and in UT99 the game would actually stutter when a lot of audio channels were active. Not much of an issue with multicore modern CPUs though.

I just set up a Soyo P4s Dragon xp system, the mouse wont stop stuttering with the C-media chip enabled in the bios. Disable it and throw in a Live! card and it everything's back to normal.

SquallStrife wrote:

Onboard video is definitely getting there. The Intel Iris Pro and AMD APU offerings are both competitive with lower midrange discrete graphics now.

Still crap. Especially intel.

GPU performance is a moving target with faster and cheaper GPUs becoming available. The down side of all this is the gap between mobile and discrete graphics is growing

ODwilly wrote:

swaaye wrote:

In older systems the software processing of 3D audio can badly impact games. I was messing with a KT333 board with onboard Cmedia 8738 and in UT99 the game would actually stutter when a lot of audio channels were active. Not much of an issue with multicore modern CPUs though.

I just set up a Soyo P4s Dragon xp system, the mouse wont stop stuttering with the C-media chip enabled in the bios. Disable it and throw in a Live! card and it everything's back to normal.

Similar here with my XP box. When I first built it in 2006 (AMD Atlon 64 3200+ on an Asus K8N-E Deluxe) as my main rig, I was thinking that I don't need my SB Live anymore since it has a nice looking on-board audio (Realtek ALC850). But it was stuttering like hell during intense playing. So I returned back to my SB Live, than changed it with an Audigy 2 ZS later.

But my main rig now (Core2 Quad 9550 on Asus P5Q Premium with ADI AD2000B onboard audio) has no problem, I'm more than happy with its performance, though most modern games I played with this machine are Crysis 2, Call of Duty World at War, Far Cry 2, Medal of Honor Airborne.

Same here with the Realtek on my am3+ machine, no performance hit during intense gameplay and it sounds A-OK 😀

My main workhorse is an Acer laptop.
On my retro/vintage machines, I use ISA cards and sometimes SBLive.
Have a couple of other PCI cards. They are only for comparison purpouses.

Yes onboard have come a long way. I am just one of those who play old
games and no modern ones. Actualy... I do play minecraft.
Other than that, my Playstation2 suits my needs well.

I never had any stuttering because of onboard audio and I never used dedicated sound cards. What CPU percentage does modern onboard sound eat up anyways?

m1so wrote:

I never had any stuttering because of onboard audio and I never used dedicated sound cards. What CPU percentage does modern onboard sound eat up anyways?

It depends on your CPU of course, but in general, something like 1-2% or less.
Go back to the days of SB Live! and such though, and you could find that 32 channels with EAX-like effects could reduce fps in a game by about 10% easily. If you were always running a very fast system, or graphical settings that were within "safe limits", you'd probably never notice the games stuttering. If you were somebody who liked to max settings, getting those extra 10% fps, could make a difference.
Today though, the CPU load is so insignificant (and the onboard audio actually do more of the work than things like AC'97 did) that it doesn't really matter.

Motherboard audio used to suck because of cheap chipsets, bad electrical placement on motherboards, and a small selection of outputs (just plain mic outputs). These days noise is not much of a problem, the few surviving chip makers have decent chips and a large market to be profitable (mobile devices, laptops, motherboards). You also have every type of in and out (analog, digital, optical, 7.1) you could possibly need and games seem to support them well enough that you don't need a 3rd party sound card to enjoy the game.

I was using a X-Fi Titanium Fatality Professional, but the drivers for Win7 were terrible and I ended up getting a Recon3D Fatality Champion. The drivers are much better, but it sounds like sh*t.

I've got a pci-e fatal1ty champion of some sort but no drivers seem to work for it, in xp, vista or 7 😢 .

LunarG wrote:

m1so wrote:

I never had any stuttering because of onboard audio and I never used dedicated sound cards. What CPU percentage does modern onboard sound eat up anyways?

It depends on your CPU of course, but in general, something like 1-2% or less.
Go back to the days of SB Live! and such though, and you could find that 32 channels with EAX-like effects could reduce fps in a game by about 10% easily. If you were always running a very fast system, or graphical settings that were within "safe limits", you'd probably never notice the games stuttering. If you were somebody who liked to max settings, getting those extra 10% fps, could make a difference.

Games are usually GPU limited so audio load may not be apparent anyway. But it can get nasty if you use a software based card and try to run a lot of 3D channels.

ratfink wrote:

I've got a pci-e fatal1ty champion of some sort but no drivers seem to work for it, in xp, vista or 7 😢 .

If I remember right there are both X-Fi and SoundCore cards that have worn the "Fatal1ty Champion" logo - if you've tried one and it fails, try the other perhaps. 😊

ratfink wrote:

I've got a pci-e fatal1ty champion of some sort but no drivers seem to work for it, in xp, vista or 7 😢 .

If it's a Recon3D, it won't work in XP at all.