OT- cheap sound cards

[Ed Kolis]

Say, anyone know if there's any real advantage to buying a cheap sound card over using integrated sound on the motherboard, in terms of sound quality? I'm thinking of buying one because the integrated sound doesn't have a MIDI input, and also because (if I'm not mistaken) you don't have to do any fancy config-file stuff to get multiple sounds to play at once; you just direct all output to the sound card, which handles it automatically. (It's SO annoying not being able to hear someone IM me just because I'm playing a game or something! http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/mad.gif http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/wink.gif)

[Suicide Junkie]

If your game isn't sharing the sound with other programs, why should it share using a new card?

Does the game refuse to run if you have something else using sound at the time?

[Ed Kolis]

No, it doesn't refuse to run; it's just that whichever program gets to the sound first gets it and everything else is silent. I'm pretty sure it's an operating system issue, not a game issue - it happens with pretty much anything I run that plays music or sound effects.

[RCCCL]

What sound system are you using? Have you tried seeing if there are any patches or fixes for it? Unless it's microsoft. Stay away from microsoft!!!! Seriously!

[Fyron]

Integrated sound cards tend to be very low on sound quality.

How cheap are you thinking about? Turtle Beach cards are great. Definitely avoid anything by Creative...

[Ed Kolis]

Heh... actually it's ALSA, on Debian Linux http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif
Cheap as in basically the cheapest thing I can find that's supported by ALSA and also has a MIDI in port, though if I could find something not too expensive that also had wavetable synth that would be great...
What's so bad about Creative? Didn't they basically invent sound cards?
Hmm, a bit of poking around on Micro Center for a Turtle Beach card turns this up as their low-end model:
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0169799
It even has wavetable! Now to see if it's supported by ALSA... hmm, www.alsa-project.org (http://www.alsa-project.org) seems to be one of those sites which brings down my net connection when I visit it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif

[Fyron]

Creative lost their creative edge a long time ago.

[parabolize]

Ed Kolis said:
Heh... actually it's ALSA, on Debian Linux http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/tongue.gif
Cheap as in basically the cheapest thing I can find that's supported by ALSA and also has a MIDI in port, though if I could find something not too expensive that also had wavetable synth that would be great...
What's so bad about Creative? Didn't they basically invent sound cards?
Hmm, a bit of poking around on Micro Center for a Turtle Beach card turns this up as their low-end model:
http://www.microcenter.com/single_product_results.phtml?product_id=0169799
It even has wavetable! Now to see if it's supported by ALSA... hmm, www.alsa-project.org (http://www.alsa-project.org) seems to be one of those sites which brings down my net connection when I visit it http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/rolleyes.gif


ALSA as in Advanced Linux Sound Architecture? ALSA is often misconfigured resulting in bad sound but ALSA should not have problems running many sounds at once... You sure your not using ESD? If your using gnome chances are its set to ESD. Set your aps to OSS see if its any better.

[Ed Kolis]

Yes, I'm using ALSA; I'm using KDE for my desktop. I found a site telling me that to get software audio mixing I had to add some stuff to my ~/.asoundrc file, but that didn't help very well so I commented it out again... here's the current contents of the file, in case you'd care to look at it:

<font class="small">Code:</font><hr /><pre>
pcm.intel8x0 {
type hw
card 0
}

ctl.intel8x0 {
type hw
card 0
}

#pcm.!default {
#type plug
#slave.pcm "swmixer"
#}

#pcm.swmixer {
#type dmix
#ipc_key 1234
#slave {
#pcm "hw:0,0"
#period_time 0
#period_size 1024
#buffer_size 4096
#rate 44100
#}
#}
</pre><hr />

[parabolize]

Did you try OSS? Another asound.conf howto (http://ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=44753&amp;page=1&amp;pp=10) its for ubuntu/gnome but it should give you something to work with.

[narf poit chez BOOM]

See, this is why I like windows. When I want to install a sound card, all I have to do is click 'Add New Hardware'. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/laugh.gif

[parabolize]

All I had to do with ubuntu was install the sound card. http://forum.shrapnelgames.com/images/smilies/happy.gif