CS:S Audio Tests

[CSN NewsBot]

The Tech Report has posted an article that comparing the sound performance of various audio cards in Counter-Strike: Source. Here's a small preview:

Unlike the DOOM 3 engine, which currently processes positional audio on the CPU, the Source engine appears to take advantage of hardware 3D audio acceleration. In theory, leveraging sound card resources to crunch positional audio calculations should free up CPU resources and improve overall performance, but is there really much of a performance difference between audio implementations? We've rounded up nine different sound cards to find out.

While the test only consists of a single benchmark, it just proves that Creative Labs has basically no competition on the sound side of hardware. And that's probably not a good thing.

[Tuxedo_Penguin]

I'm not impressed with any of Creative's bullcrap. The computer in my closet with on-board audio sounds just as good as the computer in my kitchen with a Sound-Blaster Live.



I'm not concerned with a ~10 fps difference.

[Animal Mother]

Interesting that framerate increases if sound is off. I wish the article would have also benchmarked headsets such as Plantronics DSP 500 that do not require sound cards.

[Pharlap]

Animal Mother wrote..

Interesting that framerate increases if sound is off.

you never knew that?!?! omg were u born yesterday ?!?!

[Stagger Lee]

Well... I just know that Creative Labs does indeed make fine audio cards. In years past, people would play Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" Album (CD's now) to test the quality of their home stereo systems. It is still a good test on your sound card in your PC today.

On a high quality sound card, you will notice a vivid difference. If there is a difference on that, of course there will be a difference when gaming as well.

Now, I'm sure most of you have rap and "alternative" CD's instead of Pink Floyd and there are probably no differences with that on a good or bad card...so go borrow your parents copy of it.

[Pharlap]

bad bad benchmarks.



first of all when benchmarking CPU performance, graphics settings need to be turned down all the way, to ensure the video card is a near zero bottleneck. that way you can truly see how "CPU cycles" affect the performance. at 12x10x32 the video card will definitely cause frame rate to drop, skewing benchmark results. if u cant figure out why, think about it.



also different sound card drivers give different performance, could be not the hardwares fault but poor driver implementation.



how about adding stereo decoding performance? since the vasty majority of users will be using a two speaker/headphone setup.



how about legacy cards like the AWE64 and SBPCI128 that people have? sound cards rarely get upgraded so its wroth benching some legacy sound boards too.

[Tuxedo_Penguin]

Pharlap wrote..

bad bad benchmarks.

I agree. It makes a pretty graph, but it doesn't actually give us any usefull information. Its like testing a .22 and a .357 against a cardboard box, of course both are going to dominate. You aren't going to see any difference.

[le gritche]

Edited by [user="55177"] @ [time="1093473815"]

Pharlap wrote..

first of all when benchmarking CPU performance, graphics settings need to be turned down all the way, to ensure the video card is a near zero bottleneck. that way you can truly see how "CPU cycles" affect the performance. at 12x10x32 the video card will definitely cause frame rate to drop, skewing benchmark results..

in the article :

"Dropping the display resolution down to 1024x768 and turning off antialiasing and anisotropic filtering didn't really improve frame rates, so our graphics settings aren't going to be the bottleneck here. "



but yeah, I know it's boring to read the article you're commenting on.



I agree with you on the 5 HP/stereo issue. I don't think this computer was really the one used by the typical CS player (as for the athlon 64 and such). but hey I'm too lazy to do the test myself so I will just shut up and play without sound cause it's so cool to have 5 more FPS.

[abel]

ooooooh! and le gritche comes out of absolutely NOWHERE to burn Pharlap.



but yea, does anyone else have a problem with their audigy card where if someone is directly behind you, you can't hear them at all? been happening to me ever since i did something.. which i can't remember what :/

[{Sose}]

I hate the sound in CS:Source, sounds far-off and fuzzy. I am using onboard sound, but I'm going to up my RAM before I buy an Audigy 2.

[peagle]

Stagger Lee wrote..

Well... I just know that Creative Labs does indeed make fine audio cards.

Concur 2zs > all.



Although I wonder what they can possibly add next, 10.1 channels?

[Noleafclover199]

personaly i have the SoundBLaster Audigy2 ZS and its amazing

[Buddah]

Stagger Lee wrote..

Well... I just know that Creative Labs does indeed make fine audio cards. In years past, people would play Pink Floyd's "Dark Side of the Moon" Album (CD's now) to test the quality of their home stereo systems. It is still a good test on your sound card in your PC today.

Any Pink Floyd is good for testing sound. :P

[garfong]

I guess 5 fps might make a difference if someone is already getting under 50 fps. I'd much rather keep onboard and put the money toward a better video card or cpu.

[XanMas]

Buddah wrote..

Any Pink Floyd is good for testing sound. :P

Rock on man! Pink Floyd is great.