Possible issues with Realtek Onboard Audio
#1
Okay, been running PCSX2 for a couple months now and have it running pretty smooth. Played around with a few games but the only one I've played thoroughly is Persona 4 which has run great for the most part. I get the occasional graphical tearing unless I use MicroVU but I've noticed that if I have MicroVU I get crashes with it more often. These tend to only appear in certain areas occasionally so I'm not overly concerned with them.

My real issue is the crashes I sometime get consistently that I'm fairly certain have to do with my onboard audio card. My motherboard has a realtek high definition audio onbaord card and I'm pretty sure it's causing these crashes. I have read alot about this audio card causing issues in various other PC games. I'm fairly certain it is causing these crashes since everything else in my system is solid and up to date and whenever I get these crashes the audio starts having issues on restart (weird pops and sounds) and if I keep switching around audio plugins and settings it eventually works itself out.

Has anyone else had issues with this onboard audio card? I'm planning on stealing an older Soundblaster Audigy out of my Sis's old computer (it was considered high end about 4 years ago), do any of you think this will run better in my system than the onboard audio?

I hope to snag the card tomorrow, so will be able to see soon but I thought I'd ask here before I go to the trouble.

My system specs are
CPU: Intel Dual Core E6500 2.96 OC'd to 3.04 (I know, weak OC)
Video Card: Nvidia GT220 1gb DDR2
2 gigs of ram

I use speed hacks sometimes but I change them alot depending on the game I'm playing. I never need VU stealing and I only sometimes use the cycle rate hacks. I generally only use the toggle style hacks and not for all games.

Thanks for any input on this. Not sure if it's worth the trouble to install such an old card but I hate onboard chips and can't afford to buy a newer card right now after having already upgrading my CPU and Vid Card recently. My wife would surely kill me if I asked. lol

Edit: I should probably mention that I'm using PCSX2 Beta R1888 with the latest beta plugin pack.
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#2
Realtek's onboard cards are usually good but they have some chips that suck (i have a lappy with Realtek HD audio and the audio pops and crackles when i play any audio).
The sound from this cards is average in quality but if you want more you have to buy a better soundcard. I bought a Creative SoundBlaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Pro card for my desktop pc and i must say that its totally in another league(especially because of ASIO).
Quality doesn't come cheap, i payed a lot for this card (close to a medium performance video card).
Oh and the Audigy cards are definitely better than Realtek.
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#3
I don't know what exact model of realtek do you have, but i have had motherboards with ALC889A and ALC1200 (current one), and both worked just fine (and one still does). You might want to check if your driver is outdated, since that would seem more likely than having a bugged hardware piece.

Obviously a dedicated sound card will always perform better, but everyone knows Creative aren't exactly good at coding drivers, and the X-Fi is a waste (dont' mean it doesn't make a difference, just the difference it does make isn't worth that much money).
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#4
Ya, all drivers are for sure up to date. I make sure and check for driver updates at least every month for all my hardware components. I'm pretty sure the card I'm grabbing is from before the X-Fi. Eventually, I'll buy a new decent audio card but it's usually the lowest on the totem pole for computer components for me. I don't care that much about audio quality as long as it's functional.

@Andu Mine is a HD Audio chipset, not sure what specific model or what not. It doesn't always do that pop and crackle but that sounds just like what it does when things start to go haywire on pcsx2 and it starts to randomly crash so it definitely sounds like it's an issue with my systems audio card.

Thanks for the replies guys and I'll let you know if things get better when I stick in the Audigy.

(01-18-2010, 03:18 AM)gigaherz Wrote: I don't know what exact model of realtek do you have, but i have had motherboards with ALC889A and ALC1200 (current one), and both worked just fine (and one still does). You might want to check if your driver is outdated, since that would seem more likely than having a bugged hardware piece.

Obviously a dedicated sound card will always perform better, but everyone knows Creative aren't exactly good at coding drivers, and the X-Fi is a waste (dont' mean it doesn't make a difference, just the difference it does make isn't worth that much money).
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#5
Good luck making the audigy or any other creative product work under Vista/Windows 7. The drives they have are practically non existent, so buggy they are unusable. If you do want to go there, I suggest you find DanielK's audigy support packs. Yes we have to rely on some custom made user driver packs to get our Creative hardware working on anything newer than Windows XP...
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#6
If you don't care that much about quality then yeah the X-Fi is a total waste.
I don't know about the drivers mine installed eventually (gave 1 or 2 bluescreens though XD) but mine is a pretty new card so maybe that's why it worked.
And the chip i have in my lappy is ALC660 (worst chip ever) and i have to use the drivers that came with Windows 7 which pop and crackle all the time. If i install the drivers from the realtek website the pop and crackle sounds disappear, too bad that all sounds disappear with them XD.
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#7
Ya, I'm totally kicking it old school, it's a soundblaster live platinum. Had to use those Daniel_K drivers but they work good. No problems, sounds good. I'm just playing sound through either headphones or my desktop stereo system so there's really no need for anything fancy atm.

I'm not sure if it fixed the reliability yet as I haven't had much actual playtest time but it does seem to be working better. I do still plan on eventually buying a new sound card but I think this will do for now. Think I will avoid Creative products after this. How unfortunate, another good comp hardware company goes bad.

Thanks for the tips guys.
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