:-( Why is it that you lock your f/sec at 24 and then you see how it jumps between 17 - 24 all the time, accept when you hit the Q (no sound) and suddenly it locks at 24 and will now and then jump to 23? This REALTEK driver is the latest for the Gigabyte motherboard and I've tried everything from hardware acceleration, to LESS DEBUG in DirectX 9b but it does the same.Any other tips on this?Kind regardsT

On board sound or sound card, there is a hit to the fps no matter what you use. If you have a sound card, you may want to try that, however, I have found in my limited experience, a good on board sound chip is less than a sound card.best to you and yours,Clay

I agree, from everything I have read and seen, onboard sound, while not as good as a card is less of a resource hog, which is why I opted for the NForce 2 onboard sound on my new rig, since I am in an apt, can't really crank it up, so it works fine for me and I get good performance.Regards, MichaelKDFWhttp://mysite.verizon.net/res052cd/mybannercva1.jpgCalVirAir International VAwww.calvirair.comCougar Mountain Helicopters & Aviationwww.cgrmtnhelos.com

The purpose of a good sound card is to take the burden off the processor. The audigy2 is the best. IMHO. Free up the processor whenever possible, I say. Wouldn't be without one.

I removed my old SoundBlaster live! Value from my Asus A7V333. She has served me well for more than two years but alas, she was creating problems. I've been using the CMedia onboard sound since and I've definitely seen an improvement in performance. The quality of the sound is obviously lower, but, performance has improved dramatically.

>I removed my old SoundBlaster live! Value from my Asus>A7V333. She has served me well for more than two years but>alas, she was creating problems. I've been using the CMedia>onboard sound since and I've definitely seen an improvement in>performance. The quality of the sound is obviously lower, but,>performance has improved dramatically.I have to agree that the Cmedia onboard chip is great. In fact it is the best audio processor I have tried, and that includes trying a supposedly low-CPU overhead Hercules Fortissimo III card which now sits un-used on my bookshelf. According to Tom's Hardware, the Fortissimo III is about line-ball with the Audigy 2 in terms of CPU overhead. But I find the Cmedia to be noticeably more frugal again and I get much better performance with it, especially in high intensity audio situations such as those that occur in IL2 Forgotten Battles.The only thing I disagree with is your comment on sound quality. I've found the Cmedia to be sonically superior to any separate PCI soundcard I have ever owned, although I obviously can't lay claim to have owned all of them.

>I agree, from everything I have read and seen, onboard sound,>while not as good as a card is less of a resource hogAbsolutely not! Many of the new on board sound solutions are superior to many PCI sound cards in almost every respect!

>>I agree, from everything I have read and seen, onboard>sound,>>while not as good as a card is less of a resource hog>>Absolutely not! Many of the new on board sound solutions are>superior to many PCI sound cards in almost every respect!Yep. I very much doubt I'll ever buy a soundcard again. I'll just look for mainboards with an intergrated sound solution just like I did with my current board.

I have an Asus A7N8X mobo with NVidia nForce on board sound. I also have an SB Live sound card. I have since removed the sound card - the sound quality is better and the performance hit less with the on board sound. My system uses an Athlon XP2700+ ( about 2.2) chip.VBic

While sound quality is fine with my onboard nforce sound, I wasn't really satisfied with results in fs, and my Audigy card is also superior in almost every respect. Tests show that the nforce sound hog the cpu less, but none of them uses more than a few percent cpu anyway, so I doubt that the difference is perceptible in practical applications.- Oyvind

Well I bought an ASUS P4C800e Deluxe with onboard sound chip. I have problems with it all the time. If I put my computer on standby and whenI come back to it and hit the keyboard and I am back at my desktop but now without sound. LOTS of times my RW isn't transmitting my voice. Receive is fine. If I reboot all is back to normal. That is a pain in the ars if you ask me. Not bad for ASUS's top of the line mobo.

I'm one of those who've never had a bit of problem with onboard sound (NForce 2 on an MSI K7N2, AMD 2200 with 512MB PC2700). I purchased the onboard out of necessity and have never regretted it. And I always thought (or heard) that I was in a minority...Rick