Motherboard Audio Comes Of Age

darth_silliarse writes "ExtremeTech have thankfully confirmed that I am not completely deaf - onboard m/b sound is not as bad as it sounds. Is onboard sound for the poor, needy or completely bone idle? What are other peoples opinions of m/b sound? If nothing else, it frees up a PCI or ISA slot... ;o)"

The surprise of audio

[freeio]

I spent so many years with no audio on any system, that the first hardware that had it was a shock: KDE starts with a bongo riff?!

All those years I thought those gears made a different sound.

Contradiction or tongue in cheek?

[Munelight]

"onboard m/b sound is not as bad as it sounds"

Oh, and buy this monitor too... I know it's scratched and can't seem to show the colour blue... But trust me, the picture's not as bad as it looks.

What's wrong with the PC speaker?

[Anonymous Coward]

It was good enough when I was a kid, and it's good enough now!

Sound cards

[nother_nix_hacker]

If nothing else, it frees up a PCI or ISA slot... ;o)"

If you push hard enough an SB live will fit into the AGP slot and still work on Linux! :)

It's the Freaking Principle of the Thing

[clifgriffin]

Telling your friends you have a "Sound Blaster Audigy 2 with Inspire 6.1" speakers is more impressive then preaching about the quality of an on board card.

MSI actually has a few boards with high quality 5.1 surround sound cards on board.

For 75% of users on board is going to be just fine...they won't even notice the difference.

I've built 10+ PCs for people around town, but I can't say that I have defaulted to onboard audio more then just a couple of times. I don't know why, just seemed like such a cheap way to go. My users wouldn't have ever known the difference though.

For the 25% of us who are music enthusiasts or at least wannabes, we can spend ridiculous amounts of money on better equipment...and there is always the added bonus of bragging rights.

You hear that you stupid on board audio users?! My sound card is freaking better then your crap.

Ahh..that felt good.

Clif

Re:Contradiction or tongue in cheek?

[leviramsey]

Three words: themeable crash screens!

Re:Contradiction or tongue in cheek?

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post is like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

The bigger surprise

[Compact Dick]

is that you got audio working on Linux.

MB audio can definitely be a great thing.

[LeoDV]

My home-built system is running an Asus A7N8X Deluxe, which handles 5.1 on hardware. If I wanted to turn my computer into a home cinema or have surround sound for my games, I wouldn't even *need* one of them there fancy sound cards.

MB audio really depends on what mb you have, but these days they manage to cram so much on motherboards it's insane... Back in my days you didn't have motherboards! You just had boards of woods and you madez furniture out of them!

Re:What's wrong with the PC speaker?

[nomadic]

I remember hearing this little program that someone wrote that played the star trek next generation theme through the PC speaker. I sounded tinny, but other than that it sounded exactly like the full orchestral version.

I have a sneaking suspicion that if sound cards had never been invented programmers would eventually have gotten the PC speakers to sound a lot better (though they'd still bad). Since you could play just about any note, and at any speed, you can do a fair amount with them.

We now close with Iolo's Song from the PC version of Ultima 5:

beep BEEP beep, beep BEEEP beep,
beep BEEP beep BEEP beep beep beep beep,
beep beep beep, beep beep,
beep beep beep beep beep beep.