Glossary:Sound card

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Sound

Sound

Sound card

Surround sound

Audio card (chip if having an integrated solution on the motherboard) is the component necessary to play or record sounds on the computer.

The major producers in this field are Realtek, ASUSTeK, Conexant, Creative, SigmaTel/IDT/Tempo, VIA.

AMD and Nvidia are also audio chip producers, since the arrival of HDMI outputs.

Related articles

Sound

Surround sound

Types of Sound Cards

There are two types of sound cards that are generally used in Gaming PC builds i.e. Internal Sound Cards and External Sound cards. The first one sits on the motherboard right inside the computer case, while the latter can be connected using a USB interface. There are advantages and disadvantages of sound cards (both variants) which completely depend on the gaming requirements.

Internal Sound Cards

Most preferred among Gamers are the internal sound cards as they are connected directly to the motherboard using PCI/PCIe port. It does not require any extra interface in between. Internal Sound cards come in both 5.1 and 7.1 channel output. As compared to external sound cards, these are less expensive and efficient. Manufacturers like Asus, Creative, etc. are the most popular internal sound card brands.

External Sound Cards

These sound cards are very simple plug and play devices and installation is very easy, unlike internal sound cards. They use a USB 2.0 interface to be connected to the PC. Both 5.1 and 7.1 channel options are available in external sound cards. The issue with an external sound card is that they have latency associated with them to an extent.

Set up OpenAL

ADI, Creative and nForce are already ready out of the box.

Make sure to be running latest libraries. Deleting OpenAL32.dll and wrap_oal.dll in games shipping with ancient ones is recommended.

Default Windows output device name must match OAL device one for native implementations to work, DS3D based "Generic Hardware" fallback will be used otherwise (if available)

Asus

Enable Game eXtensions
Open the Asus control panel. Tick GX mode. In games configuration files, force native implementation name as reported by ALC_ENUMERATION_EXT in EnumerateWin32. Notes Turning off GX mode after playing games is advised to avoid glitches in other applications. Recommend installing the latest drivers, found here. Enabling GX mode can cause crashes, looping audio in-game, and BSOD

Creative (X-Fi Titanium Cards)

Use xfitssfix

Windows 7/8: install driver 2.17.0008C (or 2.18.0015A for PCI cards)

Universal

Supports binaural HRTF audio mixing for more accurate 3D sound.

OpenAL Soft[citation needed]

Download OpenAL Soft. Unzip the archive and rename the inner openal-soft-x.xx.x-bin folder as OpenAL. Move this OpenAL directory to %APPDATA%. Copy bin\Win32\soft_oal.dll to %WINDIR%\SysWOW64\. (64 bit users can also copy bin\Win64\soft_oal.dll to %WINDIR%\System32\) Use alsoft-config.exe to configure any desired setting (ambisonics, HRTF, channels, buffer properties). Notes Certain games may need for %WINDIR%\SysWOW64\openal32.dll to be replaced with soft_oal.dll to work.

Rapture3D

Use Rapture3D[citation needed]
Notes Custom quality wrapper for OpenAL games. Among various 3D techniques, provides also its own HRTF tables. Free Game Edition bundled with Dirt 3 can be used with other games following these instructions or using extracted libraries near game exe (enabling OpenAL in game options may be required). Different sample rates than 44 or 48kHz set in the system give inadequate spatial effects.

XAudio2 only allows stereo on Dolby Digital Live

Use the XAudio2 Dolby Digital Live patcher
Notes If it doesn't work, try the older patcher available here or do it manually.

Restore legacy audio effects on newer OS

DirectSound hardware path

Starting with Windows Vista and its new audio stack, DirectSound applications are rendered entirely in a user-mode software audio session.

Most games developed in the preceding decade will experience problems, going from the simple lack of EAX effects to the complete demotion to stereophony.

Universal

DSOAL

Download from PCGamingWiki or GitHub (latest build). Extract dsound.dll, dsoal-aldrv.dll, and alsoft.ini into <path-to-game> alongside the main game executable. Notes Translates DirectSound calls into OpenAL Soft (better positioning than IndirectSound which doesn't use HRTF and/or EAX). Supports versions of EAX up to 4.0. May require additional registry keys to function correctly with certain games. The PCGamingWiki download is prepackaged with HRTF tables. To disable HRTF, change HRTF to False in alsoft.ini.

IndirectSound
Download IndirectSound. Extract into <path-to-game> alongside the main game executable. Notes Translates DirectSound calls into XAudio2. No EAX effect is emulated, yet there is EAX 1/2 support emulation that is useful for some games that don't calculate 3D positional audio unless EAX is supported. Dedicated guide for dsound.dll injection problems (may apply to DSOAL as well).

Asus

Enable Game eXtensions[citation needed]
Open the Asus control panel. Tick GX mode. Notes The Xonar must be the default playback device. Turning off GX mode after playing games is advised to avoid glitches in other applications. Enabling GX mode can cause crashes, looping audio in-game, and BSOD.

Creative

Use Creative ALchemy

Download and install Creative EAX 4 Unified Redistributable. Download and install latest ALchemy 1.45.20. Open the Creative Control Panel and switch on Game mode (X-Fi model only). Start the ALchemy installer and enable it for the interested games. It may be necessary to add a new profile for the specific game. Notes Restores EAX completely (all versions) and surround sound. Could be made into a universal solution, just like IndirectSound or DSOAL, by using Creative ALchemy Universal (obsolete) or ALchemy Restriction Remover. Setting Game mode in Creative Control Panel is mandatory for some games, and in order to decrease performance overlay (if exists) and revive EAX 3 and higher.[citation needed] For Creative cards which are based on Host OpenAL (HOAL) drivers (all post X-Fi card), renaming sens_oal.dll to ct_oal.dll in %WINDIR%\SysWOW64\ (64-bits) or %WINDIR%\System32\ (32-bits) will force alchemy to use the Host OpenAl drivers instead of his internal library, this could give better quality in games. When using this method, to switch back to the internal library, just have DisableNativeAL=true in dsound.ini in the game folder. Although HOAL can be used with Alchemy only on post X-Fi cards, it can be used on these cards in OpenAL games. If sound is broken, get the SB X-Fi Series Support Pack 4.0, just don't install included drivers. Unpack ha20x22k.sys from XFTI_PCDRV_LB_2_17_0009.exe\Drivers\wdm\win2k_xp\amd64\ to %WINDIR%\System32\drivers\. The problem may exist on any driver past v2.17.

Realtek

Use 3D SoundBack[citation needed]
Download 3D SoundBack. Open the program and add/enable the fix for selected games. Notes The Realtek chip must be the default playback device. Both the installer and the 3DSoundBack.exe configurator require Windows Vista compatibility mode to start. The quality of this method is very buggy with many errors in sound processing.

A3D

Lists of Aureal 3-Dimensional enabled games can be found here and here.

A3D 1.0 is supported out of the box by C-Media based boards (via Xear3D), X-Fi and older Creative based devices and older VIA drivers.

Use DirectSound3D wrapper

Install A3d-creative (repacking of a3dx5/Creative's official wrapper), A3D Alchemy (based on QSound A3D Wrapper combined with IndirectSound), or A3D-Live (Live also needs the A2D driver, other packs already include it). If needed, run the application with "Windows 98 / Windows Me" compatibility. Notes Delete/move/rename any A3D-related file shipped with the game. From Windows Vista onward DirectSound restoration is required (such as Alchemy and others). Unnecessary for A3D Alchemy since it includes IndirectSound in the form of A3DSND.DLL; can be changed to other DirectSound restorers by replacing the dll with another dsound proxy DLL.