I had a decent gaming machine in 2007-2008, and, in particular I remember that Battlefield 2 sounded a LOT better with a soundcard. The difference was night and

I had a decent gaming machine in 2007-2008, and, in particular I remember that Battlefield 2 sounded a LOT better with a soundcard. The difference was night and day. In particular, EAX (environmental audio extensions), which was a feature of the X-Fi cards, were definitely EOL'd due to Vista's changes around the DirectSound3D APIs. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Audio_Extensions https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_Audio_Extensions