Choosing the Best Audio Adapter for Your Needs

Although sound features in computers have become commonplace, the demand for sophisticated uses for sound hardware have grown and demanded more and more powerful hardware. If your idea of a perfect multimedia PC includes any of the following, the plain-vanilla multimedia hardware found in many of today's PCs won't be sufficient:

• Realistic 3D and 360° sound for games

• Theater-quality audio for DVD movies

• Voice dictation and voice command

• Creating and recording MIDI, MP3, CD-Audio, and WAV audio files

Table 14.2 summarizes the additional hardware features and software you'll need to achieve the results you want with your high-performance audio adapter. The following sections examine in detail these advanced uses and the features you'll need for each.

Table 14.2. Audio Adapter Intended Uses and Features Comparison

Intended Use	Features You Need	Additional Hardware	Additional Software
Gaming	Game or USB port; 3D sound; audio accelerator	4.1 or greater speaker configuration; game controller	Games
DVD movie playback	5.1 or greater analog or Dolby Digital AC-3 support	5.1 or greater speaker configuration	DVD player program with 5.1 or greater audio support
Voice dictation and voice command	Audio adapter equivalent or better than Sound Blaster 16 and supported by software	Microphone optimized for voice-recognition	Voice-dictation or voice-command software
Creating MIDI files	MIDI-in connector	MIDI keyboard	MIDI composing software
Creating digital music (MP3, WMA) files	Digital connection to CD or DVD drive	CD or DVD drive with digital audio extraction (DAE) support	MP3 or WMA ripping software
Creating WAV (uncompressed audio) files	Line-in/microphone jack	Microphone or other sound source	Sound recording program
Creating CD audio files	Line-in jack	External sound source (microphone, CD audio, or others)	Digital (WAV, MP3, or WMA) to CD audio track conversion program

The following sections discuss many of these special uses in detail.

Gaming

Thanks to the widespread availability of audio adapters, game playing has taken on a new dimension. Support for 3D and surround digitized sound and realistic MIDI music in current games has added a level of realism that would otherwise be impossible even with today's sophisticated graphics hardware. Gaming enthusiasts should choose audio solutions with support for four or more speakers and some form of directional sound, such as the Creative Labs EAX technology used in Sound Blaster Live! and the Audigy/Audigy 2 series or Sensaura 3D Positional Audio (3DPA) used by ESS, VideoLogic, Cirrus Crystal Logic, Analog Devices, C-Media, and NVIDIA. Most recent sound cards feature support for one or more of these standards, either through direct hardware support or through software emulation and conversion. As with 3D video cards (refer to Chapter 13, "Video Hardware"), most cards today merely need to work with the 3D audio APIs included in the current revision of Microsoft's DirectX technology.

Any audio adapter built in the last few years will still work with today's games, thanks in large part to the Hardware Emulation Layer (HEL) built into DirectX. HEL emulates the features of newer hardware, such as 3D sound, on older hardware. However, as you can imagine, the task of emulating advanced performance on older hardware can slow down gameplay and doesn't produce sounds as realistic as those available with today's best audio adapters.

Sound Card Minimums for Gameplay

The replacement of the old ISA Sound Blaster Pro standard by PCI sound card standards has helped improve audio performance a great deal, but for the best gameplay with current and forthcoming titles, you need to consider sound cards with the following features:

• 3D audio support in the chipset. 3D audio means you'll be able to hear sounds appear to move toward you, away from you, and at various angles corresponding to what's happening onscreen. Microsoft's DirectX, version 9.0b, includes support for 3D audio, but you'll have faster 3D audio performance if you use an audio adapter with 3D support built in. DirectX 9.0b works along with proprietary 3D audio APIs, such as Creative's EAX and EAX 2.0, Sensaura's 3D Positional Audio, and the A3D technology from now-defunct Aureal.

• 3D sound acceleration. Sound cards using chipsets with this feature require very little CPU utilization, which speeds up overall gameplay. For best results, use a chipset that can accelerate a large number of 3D streams; otherwise, the CPU will be bogged down with managing 3D audio. This can slow down gameplay, particularly on systems with processors running under 1GHz or that are running at a high-resolution, high-color depth setting (1,024x768/32-bit).

Features such as these don't necessarily cost a ton of money; many of the mid-range audio adapters on the market ($50$100 at retail) support these features. With new 3D audio chipsets available from a number of vendors, it might be time for you to consider an upgrade if you're heavily into 3D gaming. If you are a gaming enthusiast with money to spend, you should consider upgrading to Creative Labs Sound Blaster X-Fi series sound card. It is the most advanced card in its class, and with its surround sound upmixing, surround simulation, and 24-bit Crystalizer, it is an excellent choice for PC gaming.

Legacy (MS-DOS and Gameport) Game Support Issues

Support for the classic Sound Blaster Pro standard and 15-pin game port were once the primary requirements for a good gaming audio adapter. However, with the rise of great Windows-based games, the development of DirectX, and the replacement of game ports by USB ports, these are no longer issues for many users.

If you need to play MS-DOS games or work with game ports, see Chapter 16 of Upgrading and Repairing PCs, 15th Anniversary Edition on the disc packaged with this book to learn about compatibility considerations.

DVD Movies on Your Desktop

You don't need a dedicated DVD player to enjoy the clarity, control, extra features, and excitement of DVD movies. DVD-ROM drives help bring the DVD movie experience to your PC, but having a DVD-ROM and a DVD movie player program is only part of what you need to bring the big screen to your desktop.

To get the most out of your desktop DVD experience, you need the following:

• DVD playback software that supports Dolby Digital 5.1 or better output. One of the best choices is Cyberlink's PowerDVD 6.x, available from www.gocyberlink.com.

• An audio adapter that supports Dolby Digital input from the DVD drive and will output to Dolby Digital 5.1compatible audio hardware. Some will remix Dolby 5.1 to work on four-speaker setups if you don't have Dolby 5.1 hardware or will accept S/PDIF AC3 (Dolby Surround) input designed for a four-speaker system; some can also pass through Dolby Digital audio to speakers that can perform the Dolby Digital 5.1 decoding. Some high-end audio adapters now support 6.1 and 7.1 speaker configurations; these also work with Dolby Digital 5.1 sound.

• Dolby Digital 5.1compatible stereo receiver and speakers. Most high-end sound cards with Dolby Digital 5.1 support connection to analog-input Dolby Digital 5.1 receivers, but some, such as the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live!, X-Fi, and Audigy series and the Hercules Digifire 7.1, Game Theater XP 7.1, and Fortissimo III 7.1 support digital-input speaker systems. Depending on which types of speakers you are using and how they are attached, you might need to switch your mixer settings in Windows from analog to digital to hear sounds from your applications.

To learn more about speaker terminology and how to ensure your speaker configuration is correct, see the section "Speakers," later in this chapter.

Voice Dictation and Control

Voice dictation and voice control are a long-time dream of computer users, but unlike science-fiction movies in which the computer always understands the speaker, real-life applications for voice interfacing to computers haven't always been satisfying in practice.

Current vendors of voice-dictation software available in English include

• ScanSoft. Dragon NaturallySpeaking; IBM ViaVoice (www.nuance.com/)

• Microsoft. Microsoft Office XP and 2003 (www.microsoft.com)

Although the number of vendors of voice-dictation and control software is smaller than it was a few years ago, results are getting better, particularly if you

• Take time to train the software adequately.

• Use a computer with a 1GHz or faster processor and 256MB of RAM or greater.

• Use a microphone designed for speech recognition, preferably one that the software designer recommends.

Note

You can find an excellent summary of the current state of voice recognition, links to products and articles, as well as historical information at Itamar Even-Zohar's Page on Speech Recognition (http://www.tau.ac.il/~itamarez/sr/index.html).

For more information about voice recognition, see "Voice Dictation Software" in Chapter 20 of Upgrading and Repairing PCs, 12th Edition, included on the disc accompanying this book.

Sound Producers

Sound producers are people who intend to create their own sound files. These can range from casual business users recording low-fidelity voice annotations to professional musicians and MIDI maniacs. These users need an adapter that can perform as much of the audio processing as possible itself, so as not to place an additional burden on the system processor. Adapters that use DSPs to perform compression and other tasks are highly recommended in this case. Musicians will certainly want an adapter with as many voices as possible and a wavetable synthesizer. Adapters with expandable memory arrays and the capability to create and modify custom wavetables are also preferable.

Many of the best sound cards for hardcore gamers also are suitable for sound producers by adding the appropriate sound-editing programs, such as Sound Forge, and by equipping the card with the appropriate connectors for SPDIF digital audio and MIDI interfaces. The Sound Blaster Audigy 2 ZS Platinum and Platinum Pro include internal (Platinum) and external (Platinum Pro) breakout boxes with these features. The Creative Labs Audigy 2 NX and other USB devices with 24-bit/96KHz sampling provide features similar to those found on the Audigy 2 ZS Platinum series, but can be added to any system with a USB port. Creative's latest card, the Sound Blaster X-Fi Elite Pro, is the next step and is a great sound card for sound producers. Capable of recording at 96KHz and with playback at up to 192KHz, the card includes three usage modes that allow you to customize your experience:

• Creation mode. This is ideal for music recording and creation.

• Gaming mode. This mode optimizes gaming performance and realism

• Entertainment mode. This is configured specifically for listening to music and watching movies.

Most other audio cards designed for sound production features add jacks to the traditional trio of connectors on the rear card bracket.