Audigy 1 or nVidia SoundStorm?

[Gurm]

I think those observations correlate well to what I've noticed.

How do I tell if my ABIT board (AN7) really has SoundStorm? The sound control panel shows an "APU Usage" statistic, that hovers around 30% depending on what I'm doing, does that mean I have the onboard processor, or ...? The drivers don't say "SoundStorm" anywhere.

Meanwhile, on another hard disk entirely, I'm trying out an IWill SiS748 board, which seems much better than either the nForce or the other 748.

- Gurm

[rugger]

Originally posted by Gurm
I think those observations correlate well to what I've noticed.

How do I tell if my ABIT board (AN7) really has SoundStorm? The sound control panel shows an "APU Usage" statistic, that hovers around 30% depending on what I'm doing, does that mean I have the onboard processor, or ...? The drivers don't say "SoundStorm" anywhere.

Meanwhile, on another hard disk entirely, I'm trying out an IWill SiS748 board, which seems much better than either the nForce or the other 748.

- Gurm

The ABIT does have the SoundStorm DSP hardware. I don't get a sound control panel with my software only one. Thats sort of why I had to installed the realtek drivers to get proper mulitchannel support.

The APU usage would be the usage of the sound DSP in the southbridge, not CPU usage.

[Gurm]

No no, I know what APU usage is SUPPOSED to be...

- Gurm

[Gurm]

Ok, so I have now tried an IWill 748 board. It runs pretty well, but probably not QUITE as well as the ASROCK. I might still order the ASROCK, but right now I'm really torn. Do I want to stick with the IWILL 748 and the Audigy eX ($60 for the motherboard, the sound card I already have) or do I sell the Audigy on eBay and go with the nForce ($80), and then maybe use the proceeds from selling the Audigy to buy a Revo... or maybe just slap an optical->coaxial adapter in and stick with the nForce.

I mean, the nForce board is REALLY FAST, and has a lot of cool advanced features - as well as having a BOATLOAD of stuff onboard.

*sigh* I dunno. Grr...

- Gurm

[rugger]

Well, if it was choosing for multiple computers ( 5 or more ) I would definitely go SiS for ease of installation and solid hardware that I could trust.

If it is just for my personal computer, I would use the nforce (which I do) and just work through any problems it has.

[Gurm]

Ooh! Radio Shack has a 2-way Optical<->Coax converter for $15! There we go. I think we have a winner!

So unless I find some other major problem, we're looking at nForce2-400-Ultra, with the onboard SoundStorm running into my ADA-880's through this converter from Radio Shack... sweet, huh?

- Gurm

[a_h]

Sorry for my late post!

Dunno about Media source or play center, since I always install the drivers only. I thought that was the reason for most to install the hacked A2 drivers, because they should have more bug fixes, since the A2 drivers were in general more recent than the A1's.

Congrats to your new system, seems to be a fine thing! Actually I started thinking of using the spdif out too...