BitWrangler wrote on 2021-06-10, 16:14:There's 2 main philosophies, summarised by.. […]
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There's 2 main philosophies, summarised by..
1 Add soundcards
2 ???
3 Profit
and
1 soundcard; some noise, 2 soundcards; more noise, 3 soundcards; all the noise.
Nobody says that you need to use them all at once . An external mixer or even a switchbox (if one's use case cases are simple enough) should take care of any combined noise concerns .
As for why one would want multiple sound cards, other than the fact that some games either sound better (or at least different) depending on the sound card or do not work at all with certain sound cards, there is also the fact a sound card such as an SB Live! has better DirectSound support (and EAX) under Windows .
Admittedly, having as many sound cards and sound modules as I do (and I am not the worst offender on that front) in a single system is not for everyone. My main constraint is space. If I had room for multiple retro PCs I would likely spread the sound cards around them .
Finally, having 2 sound cards in a given PC was a thing for some people even back in the 90s . For example, having a Gravis Ultrasound and a Sound Blaster compatible of some sort was something not only I but several other people I knew did .