Hello, I currently am using a SoundBlaster Live. I know...ancient. I'm sure my sound card is costing me FPS and even in FS9 is causing lockups. It's time to upgrade but I don't want to go broke doing it. I've already upgraded the video card. Any help would be appreciated.

Load up a static display in FS, turn on the FPS counter (shift-Z), note FPS, turn off sound (Q), note FPS. If the second FPS reading is significantly higher (ie. > 10%) than the first reading, buy a new sound card. If not (much more likely), stay with what you have, as the minimal performance benefit of a sound card upgrade is not worth the money you will pay for it.Gary

Question for you. I've often wondered about this but never actually put fourth any tests to find out.... but does turning off sound in game actually kill the sound processes? I think it may still be processing it.If you have the ATC in the middle of a long rant about what runway, what heading etc, killing the sound should kill the sounds completely. However, kill the sounds, wait two seconds, and bring them back. Notice that the sounds are continuing as if only the volume had been modified.I'm of the opinion that if you 'kill' the sound, or the processes rendering the sound, they would lose track of where they were in any given sound event. Meaning of course that if you re-enable the sound, the ATC would either start over, or skip it altogether. If the sound event plays on as if it never was stopped, then something in there was still processing sound and keeping track of where it was in the mix.Just my two cents.btw: I went from SB Live to an Audigy 2 ZS. It was about $100 last year, I'm sure it's even cheaper now and definitely met the needs of any game I've tried yet. Usually I recommend future-proofing by buying a late-model card, but sometimes its nice to just get what works.

but does turning off sound in game actually kill the sound processes?No, the sound must at least be disabled in Windows. Of course the best method is to disable sound in the BIOS.Greg

okay, so disabling in game sounds would not result in a FPS reduction.... thought so, because I tried it the first day FSX came out, I was hoping my Audigy was the bottleneck :) :) :)

I want 5.1 sound. All I have is a (stereo) Audigy2. So that is another consideration to take into account when thinking about upgrading.RhettAMD 3700+ (@2530 mhz), eVGA 7800GT 256 (Guru3D 93.71), ASUS A8N-E, PC Power 510 SLI, 2 GB Corsair XMS 3-3-3-8, WD 250 gig 7200 rpm SATA2, CoolerMaster Praetorian

I am not sure if this is revelent here, but I have just installed a new MB (and new Core 2 duo, and 1900X card) but a few days ago I did the MS update and loaded a Direct X update as well, and then I lost sound on Dreamfleet planed (??), so I started to check my sound settings in control panel and even as all hardware items said everthing was working , I removed the Realtek HD driver and reinstalled the latest driver from their website, and now I have NO SOUND ON THE COMPUTER!! Am trying to converse with MS tech but that takes days........Flight sim without sound is a bummer!! some of the help sites say this is a problem sith the BIOS, but that is beyond my use of the computer so if anyone has had a similar problem I am all ears!! Unless I am totally wrong, I think the start of this delema is the Direct X load?? Hope therer is someone who has a fix!! Thanks,. RRL;(

New Realtek drivers released today, Dick. You might try these, reboot, and then reinstall DirectX, followed by another reboot.http://www.techpowerup.com/downloads/149Good luck,Greg

Your onboard sound probably offers 5.1 sound.Re: enabling/disabling sound in FS to see whether FPS changes, perhaps I am just following folklore on this one, but as far back as FS2002 when I tried either the supposedly real crappy onboard sound of the day or an FS Live sound card, I could neither hear the difference or notice any performance difference between the two. I'd be really interested if someone could run a benchmark of FSX comparing onboard sound of modern motherboards versus the sound card kings out there. I still reckon there would be less than 10% difference in performance, more likely less than 5%.Gary