It looks like my AC97 onboard sound is causing microstutters . . .

[Noel 4,487]

I have noticed a very slight stutter than happens, esp when taxiing around. If I don't look closely it isn't very noticable, in fact I believe an unsuspecting eye would not see it. I have a potent machine running a very clean Win2K Pro SP3, with everything working great. I decided to try disabling AC97 onboard sound. I noticed two things: the microstutters were gone, and when I set the max FPS in display settings in FS2K2 to 25, it would stay completely locked at 25.0 no matter what was happening in the flight situation. Before disabling AC97 sound the readout would dance around between 25.0, then 23.1, then 24.6, 24.7, 20.9, etc. This would be random of course. I could never quite be sure on a cause-effect correlation between the audio output and these fluctuations, but at times it appeared that way.I also tried reenabling the AC97, but removing an DirectX acceleration. It appeared the microstutters were still gone, however the sound crackled a bit. If you have a workaround short of buying a dedicated sound card, let me know. If you don't, perhaps you could recommend a sound card that is has a reputation for not doing contributing to microstutters and doesn't cost much.Thanks folks,Noel

[Guest ba747heavy]

Noel,My CMedia onboard sound does the same as well. I am thinkin about takeing my old SoundBlaster 16(ewww, I know) and seeing if that helps.

[clayton4115 56]

hi,i have the AC97 on my asus mobo as well, but i am not going to worry about it, and yes i do get the stutters on the ground as well.

[Noel 4,487]

Well I can appreciate that, not worrying about it. I don't think I will worry, but I may get a sound card to eliminate the stutters!Noel

[Guest]

Guys you going to have to get a soundblaster live card or just othere soundcard they are problems with onboard sound many games lag and have that sound problems with the onboard cards am getting one myself a soundblaster gamer or something like that good luck.

[fbobum 0]

I have onboard sound and have never had problems relating to these. Wonder if I'm just lucky?...Rick

[Noel 4,487]

Well, it's subtle Rick. Perhaps it either isn't showing, or you have other bottlenecks that come into play before your onboard sound does. I'm convinced the onboard sound is a bottleneck in my otherwise very robust sys.Noel

[Guest]

Noel i would go for that pci soundcard for your current system you have so far like i said before buying a soundcard will eat less cpu power only becasue the soundcard is doing all the work for sound which is something you want it to do, which is why i think some games lag or have some sound problems, in any case please let us know how you are doing again good luck.

[Noel 4,487]

I managed to find a new audio driver from Realtek (Avance Inc.) dated 4.1.03 which is newer than the one that came on the mainboard CD from ASUS. I did some testing and lo and behold it appears the microstutters are markedly improved to virtually the same as having the onboard sound disabled completely. I hope this solved my problem because the sound always did sound good, just this minor performance issue. Moreover, I notice the FPS counter is much more likely to stayed glued on 25, with a rare fluctuation unlike with the original driver. Hopefully this is not artifact so I will check it again tomorrow, but as of now it looks like the problem is 95% improved with just this driver update.Noel

[Guest]

The latest AC97 driver is the Via 6.14.01.3850, which appeared on Windows Update a few days ago.ChasW

[fbobum 0]

You may have read this; it doesn't contribute greatly, just I'd post it:http://www6.tomshardware.com/game/20030405/index.htmlThe nForce2 chipset is what I have, and have not noticed bottlenecks subtle or otherwise.Rick

[Noel 4,487]

I have read up on nForce2's excellent sound processing capabilities. No wonder it's not an issue for you Rick.Noel

[Guest sb55mv]

holy crap,I'm well and truly confused now, I have read every reply to this post and don't know what to do now,I was going to build a new sys and I am worried now,I was led to beleive that the new technology on-board sound systems were better now and that issues were far and few apart, and after allways having a sound card I just wanted to try a system without one,(one less driver to keep up-dating etc,and that sound/hardware acceleration turned down or off would put more strain on the CPU.my new sys was going to be -ASUS Enforce2 MB A7N8X Rev1.06.AMD Barton 3000+Seagate Baracuda 120 GiG Serial ATA HDD.1024MB Corsair Extreme Low Latency CAS 2 RAM.Vantec Stealth 520Q PSU.NEW Herculese 9800Pro Graphics card 128MB.GF2 MMX 64MB Card.(I'm keeping this one for now as it's been a pretty good secondary card)4X Vantec Stealth Fans 120mm.Vantec Stealth CPU Cooler.Vantec Nexus Rehobus controller.Vantec Nexus Multipanel for keeping an eye on the temps and speeds etc and has another 2 USB / Firewire ports built into it.I use 2 monitors and have been doing for quite some time now and find it particularly usefull for FS, I use a 22" HP monitor in front of me for FSim and a 21" Dell just to the left of that for FS Nav, saves constantly switching screens and they are getting very cheap now as everyone seems to want the waifer thin panels,so it'a a buyers market for us now. plus it's very usefull for installing things as well,you can have the readme onen on the left monitor while watching / installing on the main monitor,and it's good for web browsing too as any other windows that come with a site go to the left monitor.

[Vulcan 14]

Thanks for posting Noel, and the replies, saves me asking the same question :-) My rig is no where near as powerful as your Noel but since I changed mo/bos recently to an Abit KD7 with that AC97 on-board sound I noticed quite marked stutters when taxying but wasn't sure it was the on-board sound.These theads have convinced me to try new drivers and/or sperate sound card.Thanks all.

[Noel 4,487]

I found this nice comparison of CPU utilization with the Hercules Fortissimo III card which boasts one of the lowest CPU uses in the field. Look carefully at the performance comparison against onboard AC97. I guess the proof is in the visual performance in FS2K, but when you look at different levels of sound processing sometimes the AC97 looks pretty dang good, in fact better than the Fortissimo. Again, with the new drivers I am not getting the occasional stutters I was getting before, though the FPS counter can jump around a bit. I almost bought an Audigy on eBay today but decided against it at the last minute after finding this review.BTW, changing to Basic Acceleration improves performance in DirectSound when I ran Audio Windbag 99Noel