Sound Card CPU load

[smartech]

Recently I decidded to upgrade my sound card (Creative vibra) to surround one (scince I have surround speakers setup). So I wanted to go for Creative Live! 24bit ( http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=206&product=10315&nav=2 ), but the technician in the store convinced me to go for other card, from pretty unknown manufacture, but cheaper, and it is external (Gstar UB-003 http://www.gstar.com.tw/products/accessory/ub-003.htm ). So I decided to give it a chance.

First of all, the sound is much much better with 5.1 card then stereo one, on the same surround speakers setup!!!.
But I have a problem, while I play a high quality movie file with new sound card, I have significant slowdown in my PC performance, and scince my PC has very weak CPU(see my sig), this slowdown is pretty critical.

So, my question is: if I change the external card I purchased to internal Creative Live! 24bit, will the slowdown dissapear?
And also in general, is live card is much better for gaming (EAX things, etc.), movies, music in quality than current one?

-Thanks

 

[Nitestick]

try disabling the 5.1 channel sound and see if movies still play in stereo. the creative card may work better

 

[smartech]

Well, it works either in stereo (2 channel) and surround (5.1 channel), but in both modes it slows down the PC, only if I switch sound proccesing to my older PCI stereo sound card, the performance is back to normal.

That is the idea, scince even in 2 channel mode the card uses more CPU, and slows PC down more than my old crappy PCI card, it looks like the reason of slowdown is card being EXTERNAL (it also connected by USB 1.1).
And I think that if I change it to Creative internal card, the slowdown should dissappear. Am I right?

 

[smartech]

Anyone to approve my above words?

Cause I'm planning to do the change today.

 

[techy]

yes it must be USB data line. cause we have similar problem with a projection device. Our laptop couldnt delever the data to it and graphic card same time, when we close graphic card line it just worked fine.

 

[molsen]

USB puts a load on the CPU so running music through the USB port is definitely going to put a certain amount of strain on the processor. There's a good chance putting in the internal sound card will cause less of a slow down and you might even improve your sound quality a bit if you use the soundblaster live.

 

[smartech]

Well, I want to proudly announce, that I just finished testing my new Creative Live! 24bit 7.1 internal soundcard. I decided to change for the internal one in the end, and I'm not sorry for it.

The slowdown still exists, but it is hardly noticeble, and the performance in general is better than it was with the USB one.
Creative also offers better software pack, with many usefull utilities. And the card specifications are better too. But all of this costs ofcourse (Gstar USB - 35$; Creative - 50$).

And thanks everyone for assisting.
-AndreiD

 

[molsen]

hey $50 still isn't bad for clear, quality sound