Sound Cards
A Sound Card takes in musical instructions from your motherboard, processes them, and then channels them to your speakers. For an enjoyable listening experience, it is recommended to obtain a good sound card for your computer. Sound cards, with other computer components by the side, are comparitively cheap, and provide much a difference. With no sound, you will not be able to enjoy true multimedia, play MP3, listen to CDs, watch VCDs, or play sound-intensive computer games. Most sound cards of today support MIDI synthesis, normal WAV output, and powerful 3-D processing, or DSP.
To understand the difference between MIDI synthesis and WAV output is simple; MIDI synthesis is the sending of many different notes and scores of the music to the sound card, which will then "play" the music score, to generate music. WAV output involves no generation of the score sheet, but simply is sound sent from the program to the motherboard and then the sound card.
The superior method of MIDI synthesis used on some modern sound boards is called wavetable synthesis. A wavetable lookup synthesizer uses digitized samples of actual instrument sounds that are stored on what is called a wavetable; a name given, I believe, to the ROM chips where the samples are stored. However, not all wavetable cards have the same amount of stored samples. Some cards have 4MB of samples while others will have 8MB. Also, the sound sample quality is not always the same for every board. Usually, the more ROM on the card the better the samples will sound. It's also nice to have 1MB of RAM on the board to store samples of sound that can be loaded from your hard disk. Some boards provide this memory while others provide the memory slots so that you can add RAM later. WAV output comes in mostly the same standard today, able to record and play back 16-bit 44.1kHz stereo sound as well as digital audio.
Another feature that you may want to consider on wavetables is called DSP (digital signal processing) which can add a variety of tasks to your card, and a task that this chip performs means less of a burden on the machine's CPU. Some of these chips are even software-programmable. 3-D sound effects are also included on some cards. Whether the system used is SRS (Sound Retrieval System), Q-Sound, or Spatializer, it is designed to improve the perceived stereo effect of your speakers. They work by delaying the timing of certain portions of the audio signal so that different frequencies hit your ear as slightly different times. There are two types of 3-D processing: One that makes the sound sound realistic by adding certain effects to it, and the other, digital processing, channels the sound into 4 different channels (you will need 4 speakers for this).
When buying a sound card, be careful when it comes to
compatibility. If you play a lot of computer games, pay extra attention. Creative
Sound Blaster achieved a standard that was and is used by many game manufacturers,
thus DOS games are written almost exclusively for the Creative Labs specification.
You will need, at the very least, a card that is 100% Sound Blaster compatible.
But be careful. Many vendors do not license the Creative Labs specification
but claim that their cards are 100% game compatible. This means that the sound
will work, but not all sounds that you hear will be the ones that the game
programmers intended. If you play many DOS games, it would be best to buy
a Sound Blaster and save yourself any trouble.
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Famous sound cards of today include the Creative Sound Blaster LIVE!, which supports digital 4-channel, 4-speaker sound, Aztech and turtle beach soundcards, which support 3-D processing. |
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