Is onboard audio any good?

[Hieremias]

I know that onboard video sucks, but how about onboard audio? My computer sound is hooked up to my stereo speakers, so I have great speaker quality. No subwoofers here though, no 5.1 surround sound. I use a Soundblaster Live and frankly, it's all I need. I rarely, if ever, take advantage of EAX. I also listen to lots of music and watch lots of movies on my PC.

So with this in mind, if I'm upgrading my system should I look at mobo's with onboard audio? Saving money is always good, I just don't want it to sound like crap or, worse, kill the machine's performance.

[T3KT0N]

I have heard nothing but good stuff from people who got latest versions of motherboards with onboard audio.

Additionally EAX when enabled in-games is mostly either problematic(kotor) or a resource hog (ut2k3),or weird sounding (Payne).

Todays CPUs with so much power don't even break a sweat when they have to process onboard audio.

I have SBLive toowith 5.1 enabled but I use it for listening to music,I usually do not enable it for games.

[Hieremias]

Cool, thanks. I'm going to be upgrading my processor and, by necessity, my motherboard. My current SBLive has been giving me problems (like you said, crappy drivers), and if I can avoid buying another Creative product, I will. If I can get decent onboard audio, that offers good clear sound without a performance hit and without the need for EAX or 5.1 Dolby, then I'll be quite happy.

[T3KT0N]

In the interim, at theEAX site,
NOT SB site has some nifty EAX drivers specifically for games.
You know of course that there are specific EAX drivers for UT too etc??
Try them.
:)
http://eax.creative.com/
The site is a bit dyspeptic,yet if you persist between the posted site and SB site you'll find goodies.

[Renzatic Gear]

In the interim, at theEAX site,
NOT SB site has some nifty EAX drivers specifically for games.
You know of course that there are specific EAX drivers for UT too etc??
Try them.
:)
http://eax.creative.com/
The site is a bit dyspeptic,yet if you persist between the posted site and SB site you'll find goodies.

Actually the Nforce 1 & 2 boards have a great onboard audio card installed that manages not to be a resource hog and somehow manages to have both better drivers and clearer sound than anything that Creative has put out over the last couple of years. I'd look into it, Hieremias.

[Charles Dad]

Actually the Nforce 1 & 2 boards have a great onboard audio card installed that manages not to be a resource hog and somehow manages to have both better drivers and clearer sound than anything that Creative has put out over the last couple of years. I'd look into it, Hieremias.

I have an Asus P4P800 Motherboard, 2.8 G P4, 800 Mhz FSB, 1 G DDR Ram (2- 512 M sticks for dual channel memory) which has on board sound (specsheets: ADI AD1985 SoundMAX 6-channel CODEC Audio Sensing and Enumeration Technology
support S/PDIF out interface)

My vid card is an ATI Radeon 9500 Pro. I play Call of Duty and find my fps dumps badly (70 to 30) with lots of sound effects when run EAX or EAX2 sound settings (EAX3 is not supported, anyone know why?).
The default sound settings have minimal impact. I find the improved 3-D imagery of the EAX settings intriguing (using headphones, not surround sound) but I can't handle the fps impact (especially with sniper rounds zipping or multiple grenades).

Any ideas on hardware or driver upgrades that might help?
TIA,

Charles Dad

[Aku]

My vid card is an ATI Radeon 9500 Pro. I play Call of Duty and find my fps dumps badly (70 to 30) with lots of sound effects when run EAX or EAX2 sound settings (EAX3 is not supported, anyone know why?).
The default sound settings have minimal impact. I find the improved 3-D imagery of the EAX settings intriguing (using headphones, not surround sound) but I can't handle the fps impact (especially with sniper rounds zipping or multiple grenades).

I tend to leave EAX turned off for the reason you mentioned - it's a performance killer. Regular 5.1 surround is good enough for me; I'd rather have good frame rates than some extra sound enhancements.