Hey guys i'm new, I tried searching so I'm sorry if this has been covered before. I have a gigabyte ds3l mobo with a realtek onboard sound card. I typically fly the pmdg 747, would i see a substantial frame rate increase if i used a dedicated sound card as opposed to the onboard one? (i saw someone bring this up in another thread and didn't want to ask about it in there and take it off track)... my computer specs are in my sig for reference

Yes you will see some improvement......How much is hard to say....But a sound card with its own processor will stay out of your CPU thats a fact....Is it worth it for one plane...Probably not.....But its just money...

I had a Audigy get zapped and went without a card for a few days. Saw no difference in FPS,stutters ect.BUTConsidering a new card,in my case the X-fi is one of the less expensive parts to buy,its worth it for piece of mind and to put you more on the same playing field.When you get that millisecond pause when you touch down, was it because you didnt have the sound card?If nothing else it will eliminate that "doubt".FSX has enough unsolved mysteries as is.Besides, the audio console adds dozens of additional settings and confusing terminology to the already thousands of the graphics and game settings.Yippeee:-newburn

Absolutely not worth it! I pulled my X-Fi out of my system a few months ago and don't even notice it gone, whether that be FPS or sound quality. Onboard sound is pretty dang good now days and any multi-core CPU will easily gobble up the piddly extra 1% CPU load such a setup may incur.Gary

Sorry Gary, I have to disagree. Firstly when I had a lowly P4 I bought a sound card with 64mb onboard memory and it did make a diffrence to slight jekiness on touch down etc. On my new system My card and Speakers alone came to total of

Your P4 was likely single core on an early gen on-board sound capable motherboard, which is not the dual core or better base requirement on a modern mobo that I suggested.For the average Joe with sub $100 speakers, I still reckon you'd be scratching to tell the sound quality difference, even with a flash sound card!Gary

>Your P4 was likely single core on an early gen on-board sound>capable motherboard, which is not the dual core or better base>requirement on a modern mobo that I suggested.>>For the average Joe with sub $100 speakers, I still reckon>you'd be scratching to tell the sound quality difference, even>with a flash sound card!I agree with Gary. I went from Realtek HD onboard to X-Fi Gamer a few months ago and have noticed no difference in FSX, either quality or FPS. I do like the Crystallizer for music.

Also agree with Gary - only benefit of my Xi-fi is I get ATC through the headset and a/c sounds thru the speakers but absolutely NO difference in FSX operation.VicQ6600 G0 CPU 2.4 o/c 3.65Evga 680i A1 with P31 BIOS 2G XP2-8500 DDR2 1066FSB Mushkin 996535 RAM 5-5-4-12-2T320G 7200 HD partitioned for XP/Vista/Programs 2 - 74G Raptors in RAID0 500G 7200 HD for backup SATA DVD burner Evga 8800GTS 640 PCIx XG 174.74 702/1620/792Kandalf LCS case w/ built in liquid cooling 850W Thermaltake power supplyVisit the Virtual Pilot's Centerwww.flightadventures.comhttp://www.hifisim.com/banners/hifi-supporter-sigbanner.jpg

Lol your all tone deaf :) Rob

Well that's a wonderful retort! :)> On my new system My card and Speakers alone came to total of

I have an earlier Creative X-Fi modelPeople say they can't tell the difference between onboard and add-in cards. But on my mobo I can tell. The highs are more crisp with my x-fi and the real reason I got the card was so I could use headphones (I have a decent Sennheiser pair), and get that EAX effect for games other than flight sim. (Half life 2, BF2, Crysis etc) If you only play FSX I doubt a card will make a noticable difference. you may even lose frames with a card unless you get one that has that onboard RAM.