Getting a good soundcard

[Rex_Mundi_Incarnit]

Does anyone have any knowledge about soundcards that have onboard memory? It is better to have it? Also I'd like to know if there are still soundcards out there that still use software emulation instead of hardware acceleration. The former is of course no good and im afraid the onboard AC97 codec uses it. Then lastly, how much difference exists between 16bit and 24bit? Is it worth looking into?

ps. Is creative labs really that bad? :confused:

[hedge]

Does anyone have any knowledge about soundcards that have onboard memory? It is better to have it? Also I'd like to know if there are still soundcards out there that still use software emulation instead of hardware acceleration. The former is of course no good and im afraid the onboard AC97 codec uses it. Then lastly, how much difference exists between 16bit and 24bit? Is it worth looking into?

ps. Is creative labs really that bad? :confused:
Wouldn't mind knowing the answer to some of those questions myself...
On the creative matter, I've had several bad experiences with their products.
1. I bought a creative portable mp3 disc player a few years back... and only had trouble with it. Sound quality was non-existant, it would freeze on me every other moment, songs wouldn't play through, chunks of songs would be removed... and the list goes on... including the fact that is was quite expensive...
2. I bought a soundblaster live 5.1 soundcard last year. I got an install disc with it... tried installing those drivers, windows became an unstable hunk of crap instantly... the EAX controls would lock up on any changes made, the audiohq would regularly decide to give me illegal ops...
So i searched the creative site in the hopes of finding an updated driver set... five hours later i came to find that there were no drivers for my card... after emailing creative 'help and support...', i discovered that creative do not make a card with my serial number,... hmmm strange, it does appear to have you're crappy name all over it, it does appear to be soundblaster... yeah whatever!
Anyway, i finally found some older drivers, yes older, and they actually fixed up my problems...
Since then i haven't had any problems with the soundcard, and its sounding alot better than my onboard soundstorm does... which is quite odd, seeming that the soundstorm is meant to be good, i think i got a bung onboard chip or something...
Anyway, enough rambling, creative can make good products, they just generally don't... but if you play games, theres not much else you can do, you will have to get a creative card, because they have that market just about cornered...

[Tokelil]

I believe Creatives Audigy2 is still one of the prefered soundcards regarding games though.

The new onboard soundcards aren't bad either as far as I know. Not as good as highend PCI cards of course. The AC97 codec does use some kind of software simulation, coursing higher CPU load though, and it is pretty old. The Soundstorm chip does most in hardware though, as far as I know. (Onboard soundchip present in some Nvidia southbridges for AMD CPUs)

Personally I have always dreamt of one of AOpens TubeSound motherboards, but they doesn't produce them with recent chipsets. :(

Edit: Btw. there are threads already discussing some of those things:
http://www.quinnware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=315
http://www.quinnware.com/forum/showthread.php?t=747

[Roj]

I'd seriously look at this:

http://www.turtlebeach.com/site/products/soundcards/catalina/

[Miester_V]

Does anyone have any knowledge about soundcards that have onboard memory? It is better to have it? Also I'd like to know if there are still soundcards out there that still use software emulation instead of hardware acceleration. The former is of course no good and im afraid the onboard AC97 codec uses it. Then lastly, how much difference exists between 16bit and 24bit? Is it worth looking into?

ps. Is creative labs really that bad? :confused:
If you mean hardware DirectSound, then you'd want the Audigy 2, which has EAXHD 3.0+ surround sound support without taxing the CPU. 24bit should sound a bit more articulate. However the Audigy 2 resamples for 24bit, so it might color the sound anyway.

Creative software sucks ass, and there's nothing that can be done about it, other than buying something else. If gaming is your primary concern, then go ahead with the Audigy 2 series.