Onboard sound = FAIL

[Dead...Again]

My new motherboard, the MSI P67A-GD65, lists as one of its features THX TruStudio PRO. It also has an X-Fi control panel, so I thought I would get good quality audio from it. I have been using it since I built the system, and I wasn't impressed. Last night, I installed the X-Fi Xtremegamer Fatality Pro from my old system. OMG I can't believe how much better everything sounds! I use a headset almost exclusively, and with the X-Fi I can use CMSS-3D to emulate a 7.1 speaker system with my headset. I tested the sound in Dragon Age 2 and BFBC2, and positional sound is 10x better than when I was using the onboard. It also sounds much fuller.

Conclusion: Onboard sound still does not compare to a decent (even 3 year old) sound card.

[Infamous]

sort of like video.. even an older dedicated card is better than taxing the onboard stuff.

[mapes]

Well a friend of mine is the QA manager for creative. Last I heard Creative was trying to bust into the mobo onboard sound component market. The reason is they are getting creamed in the market place. So maybe onboard will get better after all. I also remember him telling me about how Vista/ Win 7 have completely screwed over their driver architecture

[Sirex]

I got issues with my creative card and win 7 so i'm back to my onboard sound.
Sound randomly will jump up high, even thou no ones touching the volumes.
and its not consistant either, can play the same thing ten times and it will do it 2-3 times in diff spots, or even more.

Slightly annoying... esp at night time, watching a quiet film, and it goes WAY loud.

[Dead...Again]

I got issues with my creative card and win 7 so i'm back to my onboard sound.
Sound randomly will jump up high, even thou no ones touching the volumes.
and its not consistant either, can play the same thing ten times and it will do it 2-3 times in diff spots, or even more.

Slightly annoying... esp at night time, watching a quiet film, and it goes WAY loud.

I have never seen that... I have read of people having problems with X-Fi and Win7, but I haven't had any issues.

I read the other day that Creative totally redid the drivers for their latest generation X-Fi cards. Supposedly they have much better compatibility with Win7.

[Infamous]

I got issues with my creative card and win 7 so i'm back to my onboard sound.
Sound randomly will jump up high, even thou no ones touching the volumes.
and its not consistant either, can play the same thing ten times and it will do it 2-3 times in diff spots, or even more.

Slightly annoying... esp at night time, watching a quiet film, and it goes WAY loud.

could it be your speaker wire/s? i had a similar issue in the past. it was like the wires were broke, and only made contact 50% of the time, then when they were all i contact, bang, great sound, very loud.

just a thought.

thats an odd dilema there.

[Sirex]

I ruled the speakers out inf, i use the same speakers on the onboard, have been for months now and not one single ramp.

I've just given up and now use my onboard card.
I still have my xfi in and on thou, handy as my onboard does not capture 'what you hear'

[Dead...Again]

You might want to try newer drivers. Can't hurt.

[Sirex]

hehe i've tried every driver I can think of, even check for new ones every month for it...

I've read other ppl having the same issue, but never a solution to it.

[bobytt]

Its just a software trick its not real X-Fi chip there is only 3 motherboards from lates Assasin line up from Gigabyte that actually have the real X-Fi chip CA20K2 chip