10 ms·

I wonder how it is nowadays, PCI(e) sound cards are no longer a thing and are mostly on the motherboard (ok well the on-board chips are probably more powerful t

I wonder how it is nowadays, PCI(e) sound cards are no longer a thing and are mostly on the motherboard (ok well the on-board chips are probably more powerful than chips on sound cards from x years ago), AMD's on-CPU GPU are quite powerful too. My network card^W chip has an option to off-load checksum calculations. Seems like there's enough spare CPU cycles even if some of them have been used for your written-in-Javascript IDE and written-in-Javascript messaging client.

premysl 3y ago
People just expect things to be integrated. Even Wi-Fi is, although it's probably typically an M.2 card. I have a <2000 computer that had both integrated audio and video, and it's kind-of become a norm. Integrated sound cards are way more susceptive to interference, though, and the quality suffers a bit. They're merely good enough. Also, people generally seem to use USB sound cards, as it removes even more room for interference (though my ASUS Xonar Essence STX sounds great already, unlike the integrated solution that transfers power rail and other noise).
giantrobot 3y ago
It's less about total cycles and more about scheduling. You don't really want a real-time or low latency thing like sound to get preempted by another process. One of the problems with WinModems was they were sensitive to CPU load. In the nominal "browsing" case they might be fine, the average webpage wasn't going to load down the system too much. With something like gaming where the system was more stressed the modem could have weird latency issues or the driver could even crash.
- JohnBooty 3y ago
  It's less about total cycles and more about scheduling. You don't really want a real-time or low latency thing like sound to get preempted by another process. This is true, but Windows and Mac prioritize this well at the OS level. I've been using mostly USB sound devices for the last ~15 years including gaming and never any skipping or desync issues. Not sure about Linux, I have not used it as a daily driver.
- justsomehnguy 3y ago
  Or have shitty drivers what would insert garbage in the received data, bad threading and memory management I supposec I still have mp3s with botched (and very audible) grabled parts, corrupted at downdload.

premysl 3y ago

People just expect things to be integrated. Even Wi-Fi is, although it's probably typically an M.2 card. I have a <2000 computer that had both integrated audio and video, and it's kind-of become a norm. Integrated sound cards are way more susceptive to interference, though, and the quality suffers a bit. They're merely good enough. Also, people generally seem to use USB sound cards, as it removes even more room for interference (though my ASUS Xonar Essence STX sounds great already, unlike the integrated solution that transfers power rail and other noise).

giantrobot 3y ago

It's less about total cycles and more about scheduling. You don't really want a real-time or low latency thing like sound to get preempted by another process. One of the problems with WinModems was they were sensitive to CPU load. In the nominal "browsing" case they might be fine, the average webpage wasn't going to load down the system too much. With something like gaming where the system was more stressed the modem could have weird latency issues or the driver could even crash.

JohnBooty 3y ago
It's less about total cycles and more about scheduling. You don't really want a real-time or low latency thing like sound to get preempted by another process. This is true, but Windows and Mac prioritize this well at the OS level. I've been using mostly USB sound devices for the last ~15 years including gaming and never any skipping or desync issues. Not sure about Linux, I have not used it as a daily driver.
justsomehnguy 3y ago
Or have shitty drivers what would insert garbage in the received data, bad threading and memory management I supposec I still have mp3s with botched (and very audible) grabled parts, corrupted at downdload.