any difference between sound card and onboard if using optical

[sunshinewelly]

reason i ask is that usually i use HDMI out to my amp and 5.1 speaker set up.

for night however i have a turtle beach dolby live set up which sounds fine through my z77 extreme 4 MB. However last week after upgrading to windows 10 i lost my dolby live option so ordered a creative 5.1 omni which is now connected to my turtle beach set up.

the turtle beach sounds better than it has ever done but i dont know if that is purely a placebo effect or whether an external card will sound better through optical.

if optical makes no difference then i will send it back

 

[C64]

depends which dac is processing the sound

 

[Uriel]

Also depends if you're playing a game in which the soundcard may add audio effects to.

These are relatively few and far between these days. Back in the WinXP days it used to be most games.

Soundcards can add virtualised surround for stereo speakers or headphones but it's basically the 5.0, 5.1, 7.0 or 7.1 soundtracks mixed for your audio output. While it doesn't add anything to the game audio, some soundcard headphone modes will do a reasonable job of simulating surround sound. It's similar to your Turtle Beach option but can work with any stereo headphones. I personally prefer Dolby Headphone to any of Creative's options but others may disaggree.