NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Dell Forums › Dell Home (Inspiron, XPS, Studio) › Audigy 2 Zs Improves Performance!!
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:

Audigy 2 Zs Improves Performance!! - Page 5

post #81 of 155
12/26/05 at 8:46pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by shockerweb
So to sum it all up, would you or would you not go for the Audigy 2 ZS sound card... Has it proven to benefit fps ? Just wondering because im going to bestbuy tommrow !
I too was skeptical do yourself a favor and get the sound card . Yes you will have a performance increase. Don't expect too much of a performance boost but you will get incrediable sound. It is huge in my opinion with a good set of speakers.
Reply
Reply
post #82 of 155
12/26/05 at 9:12pm
Thread Starter 
Good Point ANETTIS. I will do some reasearch on that and find an answer. And to shockerweb do urself a favor like jeff said and get the card. You will NOT b disappointed i guarantee. Jus make sure you get a 5.1 surround sound headset to experience the richness of sound in its true glory.
Reply
Reply
post #83 of 155
12/27/05 at 11:01pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by anettis
That was my point. The built-in sound card does not support EAX, so it does not attempt to do the complex sound manipulation that is part of EAX, and therefore I don’t see how it could cause a performance drop compared to someone using EAX with a supporting card. Now if our internal card somehow offloads EAX processing to the CPU (in lieu of its own sound processor) then I could see it causing a performance issue, but I don’t believe this is the case.
The onboard sound isn't offloading EAX to the CPU, its offloading ALL audio processing to the CPU.

Comparison:

1) Onboard - all audio being processed by CPU
2) PCMCIA audio card - all audio being processed by audio card, removing the burden from the CPU which leaves more CPU time for graphics. If your audio card happens to support EAX, even better. Either way, audio card > integrated.
Reply
Reply
post #84 of 155
12/27/05 at 11:55pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by Smooth317
The onboard sound isn't offloading EAX to the CPU, its offloading ALL audio processing to the CPU.

Comparison:

1) Onboard - all audio being processed by CPU
2) PCMCIA audio card - all audio being processed by audio card, removing the burden from the CPU which leaves more CPU time for graphics. If your audio card happens to support EAX, even better. Either way, audio card > integrated.
I never implied that integrated audio was better than Audigy. In fact the opposite - I said the Audigy was indeed a better solution. What I felt skeptical about was seeing a significant increase in graphics performance when switching from integrated to Audigy - because our integrated audio does not have the capability to process complex EAX effects and would therefore skip much of the processing that would occur with Audigy.

I have watched CPU utilization comparing our internal audio to that of two USB solutions - one from Turtle Beach and one from Icemat. In both cases our integrated audio uses noticeably less CPU when playing compressed audio. This is at least in part due to the overhead required by the CPU to manage USB communications. It would be interesting for someone to run the same sort of tests with Audigy.
Reply
Reply
post #85 of 155
12/27/05 at 11:59pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by jeffcmfrt
I too was skeptical do yourself a favor and get the sound card . Yes you will have a performance increase. Don't expect too much of a performance boost but you will get incrediable sound. It is huge in my opinion with a good set of speakers.

well thanks for your opinions ! i got it and i definately hear the sound quality difference...its amazing and i love it ! i also got saitek eclipse keyboard i was wondering though..can i now disable onboard sound ?
Reply
Reply
post #86 of 155
12/28/05 at 12:26am
Is it necassry for a good sound card to stick out of the chasis like these do? I'm totally anal when it comes to things protruding out the side of my lappy.
Reply
Reply
post #87 of 155
12/28/05 at 12:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by FrOmAn
Is it necassry for a good sound card to stick out of the chasis like these do? I'm totally anal when it comes to things protruding out the side of my lappy.
Where else would you put it? A USB card would be even bigger and more of a pain in the ass.
Reply
Reply
post #88 of 155
12/28/05 at 1:14am
Hey guys, so to sum up the 6 pages of this thread. The audigy improves sound dramaticly, improves gaming performance *slightly*, you can get the laptop speakers to work with it with the newer drivers? If the lappy speakers do not work can I just take the card out and disable the drivers and then enable the laptop speakers? If this is how it is... I will be buying one...
Reply
Reply
post #89 of 155
12/28/05 at 1:23am
yea, so to test the myth of the on board audio slowing down games, I actually disabled my onboard sounds (of course thru device manager). No difference at all except error messages saying "no compatible sound hardware detected", and the system speaker beeping in place of the noises my sound card made. So in all hoesty, not sure how it would affect performace, when there was no performance difference with the sound disabled.
Reply
Reply
post #90 of 155
12/28/05 at 1:40am
Something was being processed otherwise the speakers wouldn't know to beep, no? I'd bet that the game is still processing the sound using the CPU, it just isn't pushing it to the speakers perhaps?
Reply
Reply
post #91 of 155
12/28/05 at 1:59am
actually, the beeping was coming from ppl singing on and off of my budd list which was running in the background. No, the game wasnt processing sound because it would tell me that 'there is no compatible sound device installed", even WMP yelled at me
Reply
Reply
post #92 of 155
12/28/05 at 2:09am
I havent noticed a performance drop in FPS, per se, but what I do notice, especially in FEAR, is the pause when a new sound is introduced. For instance, if I turn the max software sounds on medium (64), I'll get slight pauses when the ninjas drop out of the ceiling or a medium armor breaks through a door. On minimum (32), I'll never get that. Just seems that the extra sounds tie up the CPU/RAM for a little bit .
Reply
Reply
post #93 of 155
12/28/05 at 6:18am
I have updated all the drivers and switched to internal speakers and it still will not play through my 9300 speakers... What gives?
Reply
Reply
post #94 of 155
12/28/05 at 7:33am
Quote:
Originally Posted by jimsey67
I have updated all the drivers and switched to internal speakers and it still will not play through my 9300 speakers... What gives?
I'm having the same problem. ANyboDy??
Reply
Reply
post #95 of 155
12/28/05 at 4:50pm
Check the volume level for the internal sound card. You may have to go into the control panel and change the default playback device back to the onboard, adjust the volume, then switch it back to the Audigy.

If the onboard sound device's volume level is set very low, your not going to get any sound of the built in speakers no matter how high you set the volume on the audigy.
Reply
Reply
post #96 of 155
12/28/05 at 6:11pm
done that....still no fix.... I'm stumped...
Reply
Reply
post #97 of 155
12/28/05 at 6:23pm
only other thing I can think of is to make sure you have the latest drivers for the onboard sound.
Reply
Reply
post #98 of 155
12/28/05 at 9:52pm
This sucks.... LOL
Reply
Reply
post #99 of 155
12/29/05 at 6:37am
Audigy ZS Notebook card has compatibility issues with the PCMCIA controller in the 9300 / XPS. I believe our laptop uses the Ricoh R5C476(II). It's on Creative's incompatibility list.

http://dmzweb4.europe.creative.com/S....creative.com/

I have no issue with the card when I use it with my headphones. I just have issues with the "use internal speakers" functionality.

Hopefully, there will be a fix soon.
Reply
Reply
post #100 of 155
12/29/05 at 6:39am
Thread Starter 
Any performance increase in EAX games Rzk?
Reply
Reply
New Posts  All Forums:Forum Nav:
  Return Home
NotebookForums.com › Forums › Notebook Manufacturers › Dell Forums › Dell Home (Inspiron, XPS, Studio) › Audigy 2 Zs Improves Performance!!