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I missed this transition
Ok, when did video cards take over sound processing for PC's ?
This did not register on my forebrain until several updates pounded in that 'Hay, my video drivers package has sound drivers too'. What the hockey puck? OldGeek perplexed Ok, is there a way to return sound processing to the mommyboard?? |
#2
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I missed this transition
hp wrote:
Ok, when did video cards take over sound processing for PC's ? This did not register on my forebrain until several updates pounded in that 'Hay, my video drivers package has sound drivers too'. What the hockey puck? OldGeek perplexed Ok, is there a way to return sound processing to the mommyboard?? I'm sure you can turn off the motherboard audio in the BIOS. It is a surprise to me to hear that video cards are doing audio processing, but I don't get out that much... |
#3
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I missed this transition
hp wrote:
Ok, when did video cards take over sound processing for PC's ? This did not register on my forebrain until several updates pounded in that 'Hay, my video drivers package has sound drivers too'. What the hockey puck? OldGeek perplexed Ok, is there a way to return sound processing to the mommyboard?? It's been around for a while. On the Nvidia side, the first implementation used S'PDIF passthru. The video card had a two pin connector on the upper edge. You could take an adapter cable from a four pin motherboard header, and connect it to the video card. In that case, the controls and driver in the OS thought they were dealing with motherboard built-in audio. You would specify digital out over S'PDIF in your RealTek driver, and sound would come out of the HDMI monitor speakers. AMD did a "real" sound solution on their card. There was no plug on the top edge of the card. Basically the card appeared as some sort of bus to the OS, and on the video connector side, it would stream out the data bytes as digitsl audio (LPCM over HDMI). The weird part of that solution, is AMD/ATI did not write the driver for the hardware they added. Instead, it was a driver written by RealTek, which was bundled with the card. Later, both companies added the appropriate hardware, and the also started writing their own audio driver. That driver should be bundled with the video driver now. Probably to this day, not all possible audio formats are supported. The only thing you can bs sure of, is some number of channels of LPCM (uncompressed) audio over HDMI. Everything else is optional or costs somebody money for a license. The end result, is if you do a new build today, you get to see two audio devices in Device Manager. The motherboard HDAudio is one device. The video card build-in digital audio is the second device. And you have to be careful to switch to the one you want, before it'll work. It's even worse in Linux, as they chose not to use the same names/terminology for things. I wasted a whole freakin day doing experiments trying to figure out where the "What You hear" or "Stereo Mix" option went. That's important if you want to record the audio which is being played on the speakers. That happens to be called "Stereo Duplex Output" (as opposed to just "Stereo Output"). The Duplex is meant to imply that the signal being output, is also being digitized and sent back into the sound chip for recording purposes. And as far as I know, the video card audio subsystem is Output Only. I don't think it has any option for recording the played sound to a file. And even if you use the motherboard analog audio, the newer Windows OSes make it nearly impossible to figure out how to get Stereo Mix working again. They like the default to be, that it's turned off and hidden. And as an industry observation, sound sucks just as much as it did 20 years ago. It just sucks for different (DRM) reasons. Paul |
#4
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I missed this transition
On Fri, 02 Jan 2015 21:15:01 -0500, hp wrote:
Ok, when did video cards take over sound processing for PC's ? This did not register on my forebrain until several updates pounded in that 'Hay, my video drivers package has sound drivers too'. What the hockey puck? OldGeek perplexed Ok, is there a way to return sound processing to the mommyboard?? Logically it would seem to follow updates/transitions to include the interface, with video, and sound, 'conveniently' combined to one signal chain for an easier build-assembly setup;- nevermind 'The Industry' standards and definitions, (the stereotypical BestBuy computer bundle), for subsequent encodes, control thereof, as to what "approved" signals a supportive chipset entails. Still, that's mainstream. Now, what you want to do -- provided an interest, patience and willingness to delve into a technological maze of specs -- is to research the OpAmp scheme of things for available gear for tailoring, taking the sound system up into pro-summer qualifications;- mindful of a full deck of cards, where usually things can happen for those whom have that inclination. Computers and ballistics, neither would have lacked apparent presence to effect sending a man to the moon, nor is harnessing computer aides less than tantamount to what a "sound" entails in all its possibilities from a pro-audio platform. Trust me, I know. I've built one from a system able to compliment some newer options. Actually, may only be scratching the surface, at least until I get into a $300-an-hour, boutique studio environment to assess what's exactly defining what. Child play is all I'm saying - what video cards and their standardized sound means to a dedicated cadre of home studio users and gear available they've at their disposal. And, believe me, they're out there and very hardcore, fwiw. (Depending, a lot. A computer also has that stigma: It's a hole in the ground where you can go to throw away all your money.) |
#5
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I missed this transition
On 02/01/2015 9:15 PM, hp wrote:
Ok, when did video cards take over sound processing for PC's ? This did not register on my forebrain until several updates pounded in that 'Hay, my video drivers package has sound drivers too'. What the hockey puck? OldGeek perplexed Ok, is there a way to return sound processing to the mommyboard?? It's still not really mainstream yet. It's available through a few mid- to high-end video cards, both from Nvidia and AMD. Ever since video cards started popping up with HDMI connectors, which have both video and audio components to them, the video cards have become audio cards too. You can still choose to send your sounds through the traditional motherboard sound system. Yousuf Khan |
#6
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I missed this transition
On Sat, 3 Jan 2015, Yousuf Khan wrote:
On 02/01/2015 9:15 PM, hp wrote: Ok, when did video cards take over sound processing for PC's ? This did not register on my forebrain until several updates pounded in that 'Hay, my video drivers package has sound drivers too'. What the hockey puck? OldGeek perplexed Ok, is there a way to return sound processing to the mommyboard?? It's still not really mainstream yet. It's available through a few mid- to high-end video cards, both from Nvidia and AMD. Ever since video cards started popping up with HDMI connectors, which have both video and audio components to them, the video cards have become audio cards too. You can still choose to send your sounds through the traditional motherboard sound system. But it also makes a certain amount of sense. Now "audio processing" is likely decoding MP3s or however the sound is encoded, along with decoding the video signal. There was a period (maybe it still happens?) where some video boards did that decoding in hardware. Now that the GPUs on video cards are so potent, it seems to make sense to download that sort of audio stuff to the video board. Michael |
#7
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I missed this transition
On 2015-01-04, Michael Black wrote:
On Sat, 3 Jan 2015, Yousuf Khan wrote: On 02/01/2015 9:15 PM, hp wrote: Ok, when did video cards take over sound processing for PC's ? This did not register on my forebrain until several updates pounded in that 'Hay, my video drivers package has sound drivers too'. What the hockey puck? OldGeek perplexed Ok, is there a way to return sound processing to the mommyboard?? It's still not really mainstream yet. It's available through a few mid- to high-end video cards, both from Nvidia and AMD. Ever since video cards started popping up with HDMI connectors, which have both video and audio components to them, the video cards have become audio cards too. You can still choose to send your sounds through the traditional motherboard sound system. But it also makes a certain amount of sense. Now "audio processing" is likely decoding MP3s or however the sound is encoded, along with decoding the video signal. There was a period (maybe it still happens?) where some video boards did that decoding in hardware. Now that the GPUs on video cards are so potent, it seems to make sense to download that sort of audio stuff to the video board. Michael Should add the fact that video "streaming" is very much used on a computer & HDMI is for both video & sound; it makes very much sense to have the video cards do both like watching TV, sortof. However, I do my sound separately with an usb dac/amp for better sound quality when I just want to listen to music when on the computer. |
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