Sound Blaster Audigy Driver for vista?

[Broni]

http://www.tweaktown.com/articles/954/asus_crosshair_republic_of_gamers_socket_am2_motherboard/index3.html

Lastly we come to the audio extra. ASUS ran out of room on the board to add the audio ports. To this end, a special daughter board is used with the HD Audio codec onboard with 6 Stereo audio ports, the front audio connector header and the analogue CD-IN port. This plugs into a PCI Express x1 like port above the first PCI Express x16 port on the board. A SoundMAX Microphone system is provided as an additional extra for your system.

[Crafty]

Sir, you are a star. I just found the sound card in the box and I am going to install it now. I'll let you know how it goes. Thanks!!

[Broni]

You're very welcome

[BC_Programmer]

Interesting tidbit: Using a Audigy SE or a X-Fi XtremeAudio, or any of several other similar sound cards will reduce performance on the whole, because those cards use Host-based processing.

One might think that the Audigy SE Card uses an Audigy Chip, and the X-Fi XtremeAudio uses an X-Fi Chip, but this is not the case. Neither one has the DSP processor that they are implied to have in their name. All the "processing" that would normally be performed by the card (EAX effects and so forth) are actually done by your CPU.

[Crafty]

Interesting tidbit: Using a Audigy SE or a X-Fi XtremeAudio, or any of several other similar sound cards will reduce performance on the whole, because those cards use Host-based processing.

One might think that the Audigy SE Card uses an Audigy Chip, and the X-Fi XtremeAudio uses an X-Fi Chip, but this is not the case. Neither one has the DSP processor that they are implied to have in their name. All the "processing" that would normally be performed by the card (EAX effects and so forth) are actually done by your CPU.

So what sound card would you recommend then? I am just building another computer and I'm looking to install a Creative Extreme Gamer, sound card. I don't want to use this card if it eats into my cpu!

[BC_Programmer]

So what sound card would you recommend then? I am just building another computer and I'm looking to install a Creative Extreme Gamer, sound card. I don't want to use this card if it eats into my cpu!

Don't worry! It's only the "Value" line that usually omits the DSP for which the cards are named- the Audigy SE/Audigy 2 SE as well as the X-Fi extreme Audio. the  other X-Fi's (including the extremeMusic/ExtremeGamer) include the DSP. (And therefore are f it to be called an Audigy or X-Fi (since they have the processor).

Most motherboard sound uses host based processing too; it get's worse when you enable EAX and the other advanced effects of the "card" or "chip" because you are in fact just telling the driver to enable those effects, and the driver just uses the CPU for sound processing.

[Crafty]

Will this apply to my sound card if I am using EAX, or is it only onboard sound and and cheaper cards that will use the CPU? You learn something everyday on here, it's why I try to visit this site as often as I can .

[BC_Programmer]

Will this apply to my sound card if I am using EAX, or is it only onboard sound and and cheaper cards that will use the CPU?

Don't worry! It's only the "Value" line that usually omits the DSP for which the cards are named- the Audigy SE/Audigy 2 SE as well as the X-Fi extreme Audio. the  other X-Fi's (including the extremeMusic/ExtremeGamer) include the DSP.

The DSP is the signal processor. When your sound card has it, it handles the various effects. Otherwise, the driver just does it in software (that is, the driver will perform the operations on the sound and so forth using the CPU, and then send that to the card for output).

If your sound card has the DSP, you would have nothing to worry about. However,  your current card is a Audigy SE: this doesn't have the Audigy chip (how is that for false advertising?), and the driver will perform, for example, EAX effects through software.

The extremegamer, however, has a X-Fi chip and performs the signal processing using it (EAX and other effects (such as the X-Fi Crystalizer I have become rather fond of) are performed via the sound processing chip on the card. Nowadays the processing demands of DSP processing 7.1 channel high bitrate 3-d sound means that the processor sometimes even needs a heatsink (the true X-Fi's have heatsinks on their DSP; the "fake" (ExtremeAudio, I believe) do not).

Of course this is only Creative. Personally I'm not familiar with the other Sound card Vendors. I would hope they are a bit more forward with the limitations of their value-priced products. an Audigy SE saying it "supports EAX and other effects" is pretty stupid, because in that case it's the CPU that's doing all the supporting, the card is just there to take the credit.