I currently use the onboard sound with an inexpensive set of speakers and woofer, but will be upgrading to ATI X800 card and wondering if I should add a sound card as well (some payware aircraft recommend a beefier card)..........appreciate some thoughts thanks

I never had a seperate sound card, as i have always been happy with the on-board sound, but their are sound cards that are THX Certified, but with the right game, and speaker set. Im not shure what the difference in a sound card upgrade from on-board sound, but i suppose i would have to hear them both. Even though i have never purchased one of my own, i hear that Sound Blaster Audigy are great cards. Sound cards can be expensive, or cheap, but its up to you on what you want. http://www.altex.com/product_info.php?cPat...roducts_id=4355check that card out, avalible at most pc stores. Hope i helped a little. :-shy

Yes Audigy 2 is probably what you need. Though FS 2004 just outputs a lot of noise so it

Dick, what sort of chipset do you have, it is possible that that would give you the best balance of sound quality and performance?

Hope I am sending correct info............MS-6702 ATX mainboard. VIA VT8237 chipset (487BGA) integrated hardware sound blaster/Direct sound AC97 audio, not sure what all this means but says K8T800 Neo series.........thanks

Well the thing with onboard audio is that it uses CPU cycles since all except soundstorm is accelerated directly by the CPU. You could settle for the Audigy as well but it isn

The software that comes with a retail sound card might also be useful for FS9. I recently started using the wave file editing software that came with my Audigy 2 to modify FS9 sounds. For example, I found two great "takeoff roll" sound files -- one with a lot of nice clacking and the other with some nice tires sounds. The bundled software allowed me to mix these two files together easily and I was pleased with the results. When I bought the sound card I never expected that I would be mixing together FS9 sounds one day but when the need finally arose, it was nice to have some software right there, ready to go.

Sounds like a Audigy 2 card would add to the FS at at resonable price, I will be getting the new X800 card so this would be frosting on the cake, when you added the card, did you notice a difference right away??

I just looked in pricewatch for the Audigy 2 cards, how does one go about picking from all those shown, I don't have a clue about the varieties available............any suggestions???

Pick the cheapest if you don

I alternate between onboard sound and SB Live sound cards every now and again, and I can't even tell the difference with the latest of motherboards - both in performance and sound quality. If you think sound is affecting your FS performance, hit Q with the FPS displayed (shift-Z a few times) and see if there is any FPS difference - I'd be surprised if there is anymore than 0.5FPS at best. Perhaps the new Audigy cards are better, but 0.5FPS better, neglible sound quality improvement and A$200 more is not what I call value for money.Gary

Audigy 2 cost less than 60$ ;)Also Audigy is much much better than Live both in term of performance and sound quality. Live is not much better than onboard audio really.

Par, in pricewatch.com, there are several Audigy 2 cards, some saay 2D , others say 2ZS, what is the best for flight sim, the Audigy2 @ $60.00?? PS, did not know that sound card could improve FPS, thought it was only to get more realistic sounds from the add-on planes..............too many options to think about instead of flying!!!!

Well, just last week I upgraded from my onboard sound (Asus A8V Deluxe) to the Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS. In Canada it went for $114.00 with a mail in rebate that will end up at $69.00. I have notice a small improvement in the frame rate but I don't think enough to really justify paying for one. These days the onboard sounds are really nice. As for a difference in sound, I haven't heard one yet. However, now I can use my speakers that I bought with the computer properly. With the onboard sound, it was 8:1 and the speakers are 6:1. The new sound card does 6:1 so all the speakers work. I will continue to use and see. If I get time I will run a test and really see. I will turn onboard back on to see what I get.HuggsKittiex:)~ The Flight system is: AMD 64 3500+ 939 ASUS A8V Deluxe with wifi GCorsair TwinX1024 3200 XL Pro 2 36gig W.D. Raptor drives in Raid256 X800 ProSound Blaster Audigy 2 ZSWindow xp homeAntec True power 550wThermaltake Premier V5000A caseCH USB Yoke and Rudder Pedals

There is a difference on some add on planes definiatly though as mentioned FS 2004 don