Gaming Performance Tests

As game frame rates in modern systems are not heavily impacted by various audio settings, one of the best measures of "goodness" for games will be simply the maximum number and type of hardware buffers that the card supports. Beyond that, the RightMark 3DSound synthetic test can give an indication of what CPU usage will be like in gaming situations. Listed below are the number and type of hardware buffers that each card supports:

Intel HD Audio: 32 buffers 2D, 3D, EAX 2
Gina3G: 128 buffers 2D only
SoundBlaster Audigy 2 ZS PPro: 62 buffers 2D, 3D, EAX 4 Advanced HD
SoundBlaster Audigy 4 Pro: 62 buffers 2D, 3D, EAX 4 Advanced HD

The fact that the Gina3G can open over twice as many DirectSound buffers as the Audigy gives it an advantage in its ability to push audio. But the target is definitely more of a home studio multi-track editing environment rather than a gaming environment. The Gina3G's lack of any 3D accelerated buffer support does make it less of a gaming audio card, as is to be expected. While the Realtek Intel solution provides EAX 2, it's able to provide adequate support for most games on the market.

There are titles out with support for EAX 3 and 4, and they do sound good. Games like Thief 3 and The Chronicles of Riddick make good use of audio to help the gamer actually play the game. Understanding an environment is becoming truly necessary in modern gaming. But we would prefer to see unique personal innovation or the adoption of open standards rather than consumption of proprietary technology.

The RightMark test simulates some normal positional audio effects and internally checks CPU usage every half second. Overall, CPU usage is averaged together at the end of the run. This is the number that we will look at here. Our graphs are broken into multiple series for 16 and 32 buffers, and we've done graphs for the "no audio" case, simple stereo, hardware 3D, and hardware 3D + EAX. Positional audio, in this case, is done via DirectX.

In our tests, we see the Audigy 2 outperforming the Audigy 4 in our DS3D and EAX tests. The Intel solution puts in a good showing as well, though Creative naturally does EAX better. In the 2D realm, the Gina3G doesn't do too poorly either. Note also, that we are talking about percent CPU usage here, so a score of 0.1 is 0.1% of the CPU. The heaviest hitting test comes in at under 5% CPU usage, which just goes to show how little impact even our least efficient HW 3D + EAX implementation has on overall game performance.


RightMark 3DSound

RightMark 3DSound

RightMark 3DSound

RightMark 3DSound

To round out our gaming performance analysis, we'll take a look at Unreal Tournament 2004. All the in-game graphics details were set to "normal" and resolution was set to 800x600. Higher settings pushed the rest of the system too high and drowned out the effect of the audio (as the graphics card became the limiting factor rather than the CPU). Call this artificial if you like, but showing that it takes this much to get a performance delta out of enabling audio is a useful test in and of itself. Especially considering the fact that these differences are bigger than what we saw with Doom 3 no matter what we did.


Unreal Tournament 2004 No Sound

Unreal Tournament 2004 3D Audio

Unreal Tournament 2004 HW 3D Audio

Unreal Tournament 2004 HW 3D Audio + EAX


Audio Quality: Qualitative Analysis Final Words
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  • S0me1X - Friday, February 4, 2005 - link

    There are many more factors that effects the sound quality than just the chipset...
  • knitecrow - Friday, February 4, 2005 - link

    Onkyo SE-150PCI is a via ENVY24 based soundcard. I expect it to be like all hi-end VIA ENVY24 based cards.
  • vailr - Friday, February 4, 2005 - link

    Please also consider, for camparison:
    Onkyo SE-150PCI PC Digital Audio Board
    http://www.audiocubes.com/product_info.php?product...
  • knitecrow - Friday, February 4, 2005 - link

    Its a good primer, got my hopes up... I would have liked to seen a more comprehensive round-up

    The soundcards/audio solutions I would like to get compared:

    Consumer ENVY24 boards:
    $25 chaintech AV-710 (i've found to sound as good as any audigy)
    $100 M-audio Revolution 7.1 or Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1


    Pro ENVY24 cards:
    M-audio audiophile 2496

    I like the suggestions about
    Creative Live! & turtle beach santa cruze
    realtek alc850 onboard
    analog devices onboard
    nvidia nf2 soundstorm

    I'll look forward to such a roundup.
  • S0me1X - Friday, February 4, 2005 - link

    However, its not something I'd get if I just want the highest quality sq from a computer ;)
  • S0me1X - Friday, February 4, 2005 - link

    Motu 828 looks interesting :) Firewire is another excellent interface for this application, if implemented properly.
  • tr1kstanc3 - Friday, February 4, 2005 - link

    still a good review and i do hope you follow up on your conclusion to test real "pro-audio" interfaces!
  • tr1kstanc3 - Friday, February 4, 2005 - link

    my motu 828 mkii puts the smackdown on those reviewed cards... gina is decent but i wouldnt quite put it at the 'pro' level. should have used something slightly better like a digidesign 002, motu 828/896, rme...
  • S0me1X - Friday, February 4, 2005 - link

    #69
    You should consider EMU0404 or EMU1212 ($100 and $200, respectively).
    Even better would be to use digital out from Chaintech AV710 ($25, can be flashed to Prodigy 7.1 firmware and get bitperfect digital out) to a nice external DAC. There are a lot of options for the external DAC, one of the best for this purpose is Benchmar DAC1, which can be had for $975.
  • sparky001 - Friday, February 4, 2005 - link

    Since we are in an era of htpc's. I think we need clarification on playback more than we do recording.

    I think most people that acctually wanted to do recording would go get a dedicated recording solution.

    But because of limited drivers and the like (linux) most playback cards tend to be of the consumer variety.

    I very much would like to see the ENVY chips reviewed. And a short piece on OS compatibility.

    People will have very specific perposes for looking at these audio reviews. ie
    Games- SPdif
    Games- Analogue
    Playback-SPdif
    Playback-Analogue
    Recording-All
    I guess.

    Also unfortunatly the domanant audio source is still 16bit/44.1hkz. Since my HTPC has to playback every CD that I have on my server in uncompressed WAV format, I want the best card for that purpose.

    Thanks Derek.

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