Any performance benefit to not using onboard sound/network???

parxuk

parxuk

parxuk

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I am an avid user of FSX and need to get the maximum performance from my machine (dont we all!)

Just wondering what the consensus was, performance wise for using separate sound or network cars as opposed to ones that are on the motherboard.

I believe it used to be the case that it was best to get separate as this used to free up the processor for other things, but dont know if this is still true, or makes any difference.

Anybody out there with any personal experience on this???? Wouldn't mind getting individual cards if it helped with performance and gave me those all important extra few FPS!!

Thx

Craig
 
I'm not sure they really will give you any more fps, but the "top-end" ones will still give you a boost in terms of sound quality and EAX support.
 
I believe there is a very slight increase w/r to using a separate sound card. Not sure about a separate network card boosting the fps, but it is possible.

They are both likely to be dwarfed by a mild increase in the clock on the graphics card.
 
I switched to a seperate SC 2 years ago when trying to get improvements in intensive raid encounters in WoW. IIRC from all the reading I did back then the improvement was marginal (<5 fps) although I did feel it made a difference at really intensive moments and my fps monitor showed 2-4 fps improvement post-installation for my system back then. The question is would it make a difference today?
 
I'd say the difference in sound quality warrents a sound card in any case, as long as you've got half-way decent speakers. Ive got the notorious Xi-Fi in vista 64-bit setup and it works nicely (for now). Tried using onboard when I first got vista after reading how Xi-fi blows in that OS and some old games had much lower fps in sound intensive situations in contrast to when using the SC. Definitely recommended.
 
OK guys thanks very much.

I cant justify an all singing and dancing card as i only listen to game sounds through headphones anyway. I have gone for a creative audigy se, dirt cheap but seems to get good reviews so will see how i get on

thx again
 
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