What is a sound card? How to change, how to distinguish between good and bad sound cards?

A sound card is an input and output device of a computer. Its job is to provide the input and output functions of audio signals and process them. Sound cards include integrated sound cards and independent sound cards. Now integrated sound cards occupy the vast majority of the market, and now almost all motherboards are equipped with sound cards that meet the ac97 standard. Independent sound card is a kind of board card. The basic functions of integrated sound card and independent sound card are the same. Now the integrated sound card is very mature, which can easily cope with general use and has more and more functions. At present, independent sound cards are basically developed in the middle and high end of the network, so the general sound quality is better than that of integrated sound cards, and the price is relatively high. If you use a good speaker, you can consider installing an independent sound card. Personally, speakers above 500 yuan are a must. Those low-end sound cards were bought only when the integrated sound card was broken, and their performance was the same as that of the integrated sound card. When you say cd, you mean CD-ROM drive. CD-ROM drive is an input device, which is used to read all kinds of data on the CD. It's completely different from a sound card.

See if it is integrated or non-integrated. Generally speaking, the sound card is the place where headphones are connected behind your host. Remove the shell, then remove the screws, pull out the slips and replace them with new ones. :)

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At present, there are many kinds of popular sound cards, which are dizzying, but if they are classified according to the sound card chips they use, the types are limited. Among the factors that determine the performance of sound card, the position of sound chip is decisive; Therefore, in order to fully understand the sound card, we must first understand the different sound chips used by different sound cards.

A brief review of mainstream sound chips

Creative series sound chip

Creativity 137X series (ES- 137X)

Introduction: The early creative PCI sound cards used ES- 137X series chips, among which ES- 1370 was mainly used for sound blaster PCI64 and sound blaster PCI 128 sound cards. ES- 1373 is a simplified version of the former, which is mainly used for motherboard integration.

Comments: This series of sound effect chips have high signal-to-noise ratio and can obtain satisfactory sound quality when recording WAV audio. However, due to the simple technology used in this chip, the overall effect of the synthesized MIDI music is not very good. In terms of three-dimensional sound effects, the chip can accelerate DS3D by hardware, simulate A3D 1.0 and EAX by software, and can simulate and support the output of four speakers, thus achieving good three-dimensional positioning effect in four-channel mode.

EMU 10K 1

Introduction: EMU 10K 1 is a powerful sound processing chip, which integrates more than 2 million transistors, and its processing capacity exceeds 1000 MIPS. Moreover, this sound processing chip itself is a programmable DSP, which means that it can improve its functions and enhance its processing ability through software, so it has strong vitality.

Comments: EMU 10K 1 takes the lead in adopting the 8-point interpolation operation function, so the sound quality is excellent, reaching the peak of DSP data conversion. The converted audio signal it processes sounds very realistic, and EMU 10K 1 can easily deal with all kinds of complex three-dimensional sound effects processing with its powerful computing power. However, the fly in the ointment is the synthetic ability of midi. Although advanced SOUNDFONT technology can be used to add various styles of sound and color libraries, the overall effect is still not as good as Yamaha, Roland and other professional soft wave tables because of the simple algorithm.

ESS series sound chip

ESS MAESTRO-2( 1968)

Introduction: ESS MAESTRO-2( 1968) series is the second generation PCI sound chip produced by ESS company, and its performance has been greatly improved compared with the previous generation. First of all, the chip adopts 32-bit thread processing technology, which greatly reduces the CPU occupancy when the sound card plays; Secondly, it uses data caching technology, and by storing data in the system memory, it can more effectively play the data transmission speed of PCI bus; At the same time, ESS MAESTRO-2( 1968) chip also supports two stereo audio outputs, which can create a simulated surround effect for users. In addition, in terms of three-dimensional sound effects, Sensaura's new generation technology is adopted, and the sound quality is more realistic.

Comments: On the whole, ESS MAESTRO-2( 1968) sound chip has excellent functions in many aspects, good sound quality and low CPU utilization rate among chips of the same price, which is worthy of ordinary users' choice.

ESS Canyon3D

Introduction: ESS Canyon3D is a new masterpiece of ESS company, with a processing capacity of 500 megabytes. Canyon3D has two programmable processing units, including a 64-channel pipeline waveform processing unit and an audio signal processing unit, which can accelerate more than 32 DirectSound3D audio streams. The most attractive thing about Canyon3D is its support for 3D audio. The biggest difference between ESS Maestro-2 and ESS MAESTRO-2 is that it really supports four-channel output, which is different from other multi-channel sound cards. It provides an independent and controllable subwoofer output interface. At the same time, Sensaura's MultiDrive technology is used to process three-dimensional sound effects, so as to obtain a variety of mainstream APIs including DS3D, A3D 1.0 and EAX, which can provide real HRTF playback effect in four-channel mode. In stereo mode, Canyon3D can broaden the signal frequency through three-dimensional processing technology, allowing users to obtain virtual surround sound.

Comments: The CPU occupancy of ESS Canyon3D sound chip is very low, which inherits the advantages of good compatibility of ESS series products. However, the fly in the ointment is that the MIDI synthesis effect has not been greatly improved, and even the basic feedback and harmony effect can not be shown, which is regrettable.

Aureal series sound chip

Eddy current AU8820

Introduction: Vortex AU8820 has 48 hardware audio channels and the ability to output SPDIF, and it also provides support for DS3D.

Comments: In terms of sound quality, the performance of Vortex AU8820 is very satisfactory, basically reaching its nominal signal-to-noise ratio. In MIDI synthesis, Vortex AU8820 chip provides a DLS-compatible wave table synthesis engine with 32 hardware polyphonic words, and the software can synthesize 32 polyphonic words, but the sound quality after synthesis is average. In terms of compatibility, the performance of Vortex AU8820 is not bad, but it occupies a very high ratio of CPU.

Eddy current 2 AU8830

Introduction: Vortex2 AU8830 contains three million transistors, and its hardware processing capacity is 600MIPS, which is about 1200 to 1800MIPS when converted into DSP. Vortex2 AU8830 has 96 hardware audio channels and can render 76 3D audio sources at the same time. Vortex2 AU8830 chip is divided into several processing units, and transmits audio streams through internal digital stream bus (VDB). As a programmable dual-bus structure, VDB can transmit as many as 183 audio streams. Vortex AU8830 has two 32-bit polyphonic processing units, and * * * has 64 hardware polyphonic units. Plus 256 software polyphones, a total of * * * can support 320 polyphones.

Comments: Vortex2 AU8830 is the second sound chip launched by Aureal, and it is also a classic out of print (Aureal was acquired by Creative). Unfortunately, Vortex2 AU8830 is not a DSP, so its main functions and performance have been solidified and cannot be upgraded by software, which is the biggest shortcoming of this chip.

Popular technology of sound card

Wave table synthesis technology

Wave table synthesis technology refers to recording all the sounds that can be made by various real musical instruments and storing them as wave table files. When playing, the corresponding sound information is found out from the wave table according to the music information recorded in MIDI files, and it is processed and synthesized before playing. The earliest wave table synthesis technology is soft wave table technology, which needs to occupy more system resources, but after the development of PCI sound card era, hard wave table synthesis technology began to appear. Because the transmission bandwidth of PCI bus can reach 133Mbps, the main memory of the system can be used to replace the expensive special sound card memory, thus solving the biggest contradiction in the past ISA sound card-the conflict between the storage space of the sound card library and the hardware cost. At the same time, PCI sound card also adopts a technology called DLS, which transfers the audio processing chip of the sound card into the sound library of the memory for synthesis, greatly reducing the CPU occupancy; In addition, this color library can be updated at any time and modified by DLS tone editing software, which is incomparable to traditional wave tables.

3D audio technology

3D audio technology is an indispensable part of mainstream sound cards at present. For a sound card supporting 3D sound technology, its sound processing algorithm is very important, which often determines the positioning and audio effect of this product. At present, many audio technology companies and sound card manufacturers have developed various algorithms and technologies, and they generally have their own special programming interface (API).

Aureal 3D(A3D)

A3D is a breakthrough interactive 3D sound technology developed by Aureal Company. A3D is a set of 3D sound localization technology based on HRTF algorithm. The basic principle is to correct the frequencies of sounds in different directions according to the human head, simulate multiple sound sources in a virtual three-dimensional space, and then realize sound localization by using the position transformation and sound intensity between these sound sources. A3D 1.0 technology includes "surround" and "interaction", which enables two ordinary speakers or a pair of headphones to accurately locate the sound source in the three-dimensional space around the listener. A3D 2.0 sound technology supports more 3D sound sources, higher sampling rate and larger HRTF filter. In addition, it also has original acoustic tracking technology, including real-time acoustic reflection, echo and block rendering. The sound wave tracking technology of A3D 2.0 can analyze the three-dimensional geometric features of a space and track the reflection and absorption of sound waves in the environment in real time, which means that we can hear more realistic sound effects from it.

Direct sound 3D(DS3D)

DirectSound3D, also known as DS3D technology, was developed by Microsoft. DS3D has powerful extensibility. It also has instruction tools for up to 32 audio files, and it can be improved and extended on the basis of DS3D API to provide more abundant functions. For example, EAX is one of the famous extension APIs. The function of DS3D is to help developers define the position and sound of sound in 3D space, and all this is realized by various algorithms with a DS3D-compatible sound card. Because of Microsoft's pivotal position, DS3D has been widely used since its launch.

EAX

EAX (Extended Set of Environmental Sound Effects) is developed by an innovative company, which is essentially attached to the extended API of Direct Sound3D, so it needs to support Direct Sound3D to support EAX. The function of EAX 1.0 is very simple, only adding 3D reverberation effect to the game is also very simple to use, but the realization of real-time 3D reverberation effect is not simple. Therefore, in addition to the sound card processing ability, there must be a good algorithm. EAX 2.0 adds advanced environmental sound effects such as "sound wave passing through obstacles" and "sound wave diffraction phenomenon"; EAX 3.0 not only inherits the characteristics of the previous two generations of products, but also provides more powerful and easy-to-use development tools, including early reflection and reverberation control of each individual sound source, limited reflection groups, improved distance model, and allowing dynamic and smooth switching between environments. And all the parameters of the environment are disclosed, which makes it easier and more intuitive to develop and create special sound effects.