all about the sound

[halo1234]

Several questions on sound cards & such;

My SC is the Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo III 7. I've read that this is not supported for Hardware Audio Renderering. So as it stands only the sound software works. If this is the case if I added a SC that was supported, would this mean that as it is hardware based. I would increase performace overall as the SC would be processing the sound & not just the software? Also things like EAX & the like would work too.

With this in mind whats the cheapest card (I assume creative) I can go for that I can use fore hardware, has 7.1 surround & works withe EAX. I know theres the Creative X-Fi coing is 4 days & counting, but as I said before. I want the cheapest option.

thx

[Blak_Phoenix]

Does sound make alot of impact on the ingame performance? I have my sound quality on medium and i find that if i put it to high the games slows down a bit, but is it worth it to get a sound card?

[cha0tic]

Sound only makes a performance impact if you have onboard sound. And if you do, your BF2 can have much worse performance than a sound card. On board sound takes resources away from your CPU and thats bad when you're running such a graphical heavy game.

Sound cards are pretty cheap now, so its a good idea to go and get one. Having at least 5.1 surround sound is great for hearing the tiniest details. (I kill alot more people because I can hear their footsteps behind me)