2 Sound Cards (On Board and PCI) To Use Game Port, Questions

[Robin]

I have on board sound on my motherboard but want to plug in an old Sound Blaster Live card (2001ish) into a PCI slot purely to use its game port because I want to use an old PC wheel I have.

When I put in the PCI card an install its drivers will it conflict with the on board sound? If so how do you disable the card leaving just the game port active?

Would sound from an external sound card be better than a modern motherboards (2005) on board chipset?, just curious. Because I may go totally over to the card if there is a noticeable difference. My mobo uses the standard Realtek AC97 stuff.

If anyone could help it would be great 👍

Thanks,

Robin

 

[Tornado]

What OS do you have?
For XP, go into device manager and disable the sound card manually. The game port will still work (its listed as a separate device). Then reinstall the drivers for the on-board audio.

Or you could save the hassle and just go over completely to the sound card. With that age gap, the sound quality will be about the same I'm guessing (on-board bits usually take a few years to catch up to dedicated pieces). You might even gt a performance boost as the motherboard wouldn't have to handle sound as well as other functions any more.

 

[Robin]

What OS do you have?
For XP, go into device manager and disable the sound card manually. The game port will still work (its listed as a separate device). Then reinstall the drivers for the on-board audio.

Or you could save the hassle and just go over completely to the sound card. With that age gap, the sound quality will be about the same I'm guessing (on-board bits usually take a few years to catch up to dedicated pieces). You might even gt a performance boost as the motherboard wouldn't have to handle sound as well as other functions any more.

Yes im running XP, how come I would need to reinstall the onboard audio drivers though? I wouldn't have uninstalled them?... do you mean just re-enable them?

Good to hear that the game port would be listed as another device, makes things a lot easier! I just hope that the wheel drivers (designed for 98) work alright with XP and some never driving games.

As for moving fully over to the card, thanks for the head up on how onboard takes time to catch up to dedicated, Im sure that Sound Baster was quite a decent card back in the day so maybe the audio would be even better from it, plus as you said it might reduce some of the resource strain on the mobo.

Robin

 

[Tornado]

Yes im running XP, how come I would need to reinstall the onboard audio drivers though? I wouldn't have uninstalled them?... do you mean just re-enable them?

If you install the Sound Blaster, its drivers may overwrite or delete those of the on-board audio. Its more to be on the safe side than anything else.

 

[Robin]

If you install the Sound Blaster, its drivers may overwrite or delete those of the on-board audio. Its more to be on the safe side than anything else.

oh right I see.... cheers for your help 👍

Robin

 

[Aero-R]

Robin, havin 2 sound cards won't make you a conflig in your computer. I've used 2 sound cards always on my computers, my configs has been:

- My laptop with it's integrated motherborad sound and a SOUND BLASTER AUDIGY 2 NX connected through USB.

- My old desktop with it's ASUS A7N8X integrated sound card (AC'97 sound mode only), and a SOUND BLASTER LIVE ! through PCI.

- My current desktop with it's ASUS PK5 PREMIUM integrated sound card (AC'97 sound mode & Hi-Fi sound mode) and a SOUND BLASTER X-FI FATAL1TY CHAMPION SERIES.

And nothing about conflicts or problems on years. It's all about config. on the default audio for your O.S., or on each software when you're able to select the sound card that you like to use as DAC (Digital to Analog Converters). So just don't be worried about how to disable something because you won't need to do it.

And trying to answer your second question about your situation "2005 motherboard sound vs 2001 sound blaster sound": you could get better sound from your SOUND BLASTER LIVE ! maybe if you're using the AC'97 sound mode of your motherboard because it's a bit poor on some motherboard configs. (sometimes it comes just on Stereo or sometimes it comes with multiple channel support too), but check anyway if your motherboard supports the Hi-Fi mode on the integrated audio chip in which case that Hi-Fi could bring you better quality than the SOUND BLASTER LIVE ! maybe. Think about test the both audio you have with your favourite songs, sometimes it's not all about better or worse audio... it's all about the more you like, and after your favourite tracks being played to check the differences, there comes the answer. Anyway, I'm not totally sure but maybe using the sound card through PCI will leave more efficiency on your computer to other things (excuse my english terms., it's not the proper word but I hope you could understand) since the SOUND BLASTER LIVE ! could come with a few memory dedicated to the sound and you're then not using the motherboard sources. Integrated audio sometimes makes noises with some hard disk configs., but that depends so much on the computer you're using too. The test with your fav. songs on both sound procesors is my suggestion ;]