PC Soundcard connections explained

Same question as in comment does sound card improve perfomace of games by taking processing load of the cpu. I am not so sure it does any more.
 
Why be purposely confusing with the use of TOSLINK? TOSLINK is just the interface name.

You don't refer to your ethernet ports as your RJ45 ports, or your ethernet cable as your cat5 cable.

TOSLINK is just the optical interface, the actual data system for optical transfer is S/PDIF and is the term you will typically see in reference to what you are discussing. The optical ports on most modern devices are simply labelled as "Optical" and NOT TOSLINK.

the same way a coaxial cable does, except the optical makes use of light rather than a copper connection.
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Don't you mean makes use of light rather than electricity? Or optical fibre instead of copper.

DAC – A digital-to-analog converter (DAC) is a device that converts a digital (usually binary) code to an analogue signal (current, voltage or electric charge).
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I want to comment but I feel I need to restrain myself.
 
I always loved my Creative Sound Cards. Remember my first one was a 8bit MONO Sound Blaster, one before the Sound Blaster Pro... Those where the days! But these days the onboard sound cards are really not bad... and with me using USB HeadSet when the wifes says: "Please turn down the volume" it doesnt really matter......
 
A discrete card can still take some of the load off the cpu for sound processing, but I don't think it's a lot. Though I did do a test my wife used to have an Audigy 4 in her machine and the one day I decided to take it out and use the onboard and it actually sounded better and used less processing power. But on my machine my Xonar does seem to take a small load off and it does sound better.
 
Another interesting bit of information is that some outputs are stereo and some are mono. Some can switch between modes and some cannot... if it cannot, you can do damage to the amplifier by plugging in the incorrect transducer.
 
James said:
Feedback is welcome.
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Nah just that whole description is lol-worthy from a technical standpoint. Ah I see it was actually pulled from the wikipedias so I guess I can't moan too much. I just don't see it adding any value to the article. You only really start to talk about DAC's when you are talking about audio quality even then you typically don't deal with them as a separate component.

As for the TOSLINK / S/PDIF / OPTICAL story, if you are trying to help people new to the situation and don't really know the technical jargon you need to make sure they are aware of the terms which they are most likely to encounter. If you went into an electronics store and asked for a TOSLINK cable 8 times out of 10 you would probably just get a blank stare. Ask for an Optical (or Optical Audio) cable you will generally be good to go. The same thing when you are looking at the manuals for your audio equipment or back panel plugs, you aren't going to see TOSLINK written anywhere on there what you will see is either S/PDIF or Optical Out/In. If you're setting up your soundcard to send the digital audio to an external decoder the setting you need to look for is the S/PDIF passthrough.

An issue that might have be worth discussing are cards with build in audio decoders for DTS/Dolby Digital and how you would go about setting those up to do your decoding instead of having it done in software which is usually the case.
 
does anyone use the toslink/optical audio port for their sound setup? Im getting a mobo that has this port and just wondering what sound setups support it. I have 5.1 running of the normal 3 jacks atm, Im assuming I wont be able to use this sound with toslink/optical audio
 
It's only useful to you if you have an external audio decoder, most PC speaker setups don't because well it leaves all the audio processing to your sound card (the reason you have one).
 
I've seen that the z5500 has a built in decoder. Its the the only set I can find with a decoder and is also out of stock. Anyone know of any other pc speakers with this feature. I cant seem to find many pr even decoders for that matter
 
This is slightly offtopic but...
I have tried multiple times to believe that onboard sound these days does the job, but never found it to be true.
XFi Fatal1ty vs Asus P5N-D and vs Asus P6P87 EVO, both tried in AC97 and HD audio modes... There is a big difference.
 
After looking for sound cards besides the cheap under R100 5.1 sound cards are there only 2 brands/types available in South Africa.
The creative labs & Asus?
 
Dohc-WP said:
creative has been here for quite a while

i've had soublaster 16 cards, awe 32 and live card with front 5.25 io panel
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I know they were here for many years, and they were one of the only big name brands for a long time in SA, then around 3 years ago supply of Creative soundcards just dried up, occasionally you will find a R200 one but you won't find the x-fi easily.
 
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