I had the original voodoo 3Dfx in 50lbs Alienware case with a 75 lbs 20+ inch crt.. can’t remember the exact size. Wrong choice for university living at the time
I got an ABIT Siluro/ Geforce 2 MX400 after that and Diablo 2 ran worse, the frame rate tanked. I was gutted.
Back in the day I tried to play Morrowind but every time I moved my mouse the game would crash, I started removing hardware until I found out it was my soundcard giving me issues, was an old ISA slot. Got a PCI soundcard after that and no issues.
i had an internal creative soundcard some 5 years back. sound was pretty perfect with dt990 pro and sz2000. my current creative usb soundcard has more noise :(
You'd have to put it all the way around it, including near the connector. Obviously you can't put it inside the connector, but that's another avenue for noise to get in. Outisde the box of noise with it's own box of insulation is a much calmer place.
Got a second hand ISA interface SoundBlaster 64 at a computer fair in San Diego when I was visiting there for the best summer of my life in 1998. If I remember correctly it was $4.
At the Scottish Rite Center in Mission Valley? There’s a good chance I was also there that year. My two most prized possessions I acquired there were a 3dfx Voodoo Rush, and a modded PlayStation 1 in a clear plastic housing.
Not there but (and I had to google maps this) it was at a place that I think is called "Pechanga Arena" now on the aptly named "Sports Arena Blvd" but I think the arena was called something else back then. About 2 miles from Ocean / Mission beaches and close to my apartment at the time.
Ah yeah, Pechanga Arena was just “The Sports Arena” in the era before sponsoring venues was a thing. They still to a swap meet in the parking lot of that place every weekend. Random other info about that place, they shot a scene from Almost Famous at one of the freight entrances there.
Great card, got one in my 440BX retro rig! Plus an AWE64 Gold and a PnP SB16 with a real OPL3 FM chip. That's just a bit of what's kicking around here...
15 pin d-sub that could support TWO joysticks if you had the splitter cable.
Micro machines 2 : 4 player, with 2 gamepads into the soundcard, and one player using each side of the keyboard.
But if that was the case, you'd need a cpu with an gpu (who is going to put a ryzen apu in a topend mobo??)... so really scummy. How the hell is my $140 asrock have proper 7.1 analog and optical but not this pos lol
I looked at the more detailed specs, and here we have:
3 x audio jacks
2/4/5.1/7.1-channel
You can change the functionality of an audio jack using the audio software. To configure 7.1-channel audio, access the audio software for audio settings.
If using 2-pole aux jacks, those 3 back panel female connectors only provide 6 independent channels. If the case has a front panel connector, you can push that to 8 channels.
The only way you're squeezing 7.1 analog out of that is if you use the front panel as LR, use two of the three back panel ones as surround, and share center with the sub between the last remaining connector. But, that's assuming that two of those back connectors aren't for mic or line in.
Maybe you could squeeze digital output through those jacks, but then you'd need a compatible receiver. Either way, stupid design for such an expensive motherboard.
who is going to put a ryzen apu in a topend mobo??
Ok... assuming the audio inputs can be changed to outputs... you lose analog inputs which isn't great either.
I guess I missed where amd has released apus on normal skus on this gen. But still, I don't like being forced to buy a specific cpu just because the uber expensive mobo cheaped out on adding outputs...
That's disappointing, as one of the advantages of SPDIF is no ground loops between the PC and the receiver/amp. Maybe that's not really as much of a problem now, but it solved that for me years ago and I've used it ever since.
Then again, I don't have a surround setup, simple stereo is good enough.
compression with surround isn't really the issue. it's that the newer dolby/DTS stuff needs more bandwidth. imo, 2.1 is more than enough for 95% of pc users.
I think these days most people use their video card as a sound card because monitors/displays generally have audio out as well.
But yeah. I remember having endless problems getting one of the Splinter Cells to run (I want to say Pandora Tomorrow?). After literally weeks of googling and discussing the issue on forums with others with the same problem, we found out that it had issues with the onboard sound for certain motherboards. Went out to Best Buy, bought the cheapest soundblaster they had, and no problems.
Splinter Cell 1 was the first game I got when I built one of my computers, and I went out and bought a surround sound set up just for it. Totally worth it. It blew my mind after dealing with chintzy desktop 2.0 setups and onboard speakers before that my whole life.
At least it was a real name. Nowadays it seems like every new company's name is just a random jumble of letters solely because that .com was available.
