Sound card
This article includes a list of general references, but it lacks sufficient corresponding inline citations. (June 2011) |
Connects to | Motherboard via one of:
Line in or out via one of:
Microphone via one of:
|
---|---|
Common manufacturers | Turtle Beach |
A sound card (also known as an audio card) is an internal
Sound functionality can also be integrated onto the
Typical uses of sound cards or sound card functionality include providing the audio component for multimedia applications such as music composition,
General characteristics
Sound cards use a
A common external connector is the
Some cards include a sound chip to support the production of synthesized sounds, usually for real-time generation of music and sound effects using minimal data and CPU time.
The card may use
Sound channels and polyphony
An important sound card characteristic is
Early PC sound cards had multiple FM synthesis voices (typically 9 or 16) which were used for MIDI music. The full capabilities of advanced cards are often not fully used; only one (mono) or two (
In the early days of wavetable synthesis, some sound card manufacturers advertised polyphony solely on the MIDI capabilities alone. In this case, typically, the card is only capable of two channels of digital sound and the polyphony specification solely applies to the number of MIDI instruments the sound card is capable of producing at once.
Modern sound cards may provide more flexible audio accelerator capabilities which can be used in support of higher levels of polyphony or other purposes such as hardware acceleration of 3D sound,
List of sound card standards
Name | Year | Audio bit depth | Sampling frequency
|
Type | Channels |
---|---|---|---|---|---|
PC speaker | 1981 | ≈6 bit (CPU speed dependent) | ≈18.9 kHz (CPU speed dependent) | PWM | 1 pulse-width modulation |
PCjr[A] | 1984 | 16 volume settings | 122 Hz to 125 kHz | PSG | 3 square wave tone; 1 white noise |
Tandy 1000[A] | 1984 | 16 volume settings / 6 bit | 122 Hz to 125 kHz | PSG | 3 square wave tone; 1 white noise; 1 pulse-width modulation |
MPU-401 | 1984 | MIDI | 1 MIDI in; 2 MIDI out; DIN sync out; tape sync IO; metronome out | ||
Speech Thing |
1987 | 8 bit | 7 kHz (Disney Sound Source), up to 44 kHz (CPU speed dependent) | ADPCM[2] |
1 DAC |
AdLib |
1987 | 64 volume settings / 8 bit | 16 kHz | FM synthesizer |
6-voice FM synthesizer, 5 percussion instruments |
Roland MT-32 | 1987 | 16 bit | 32 kHz | MIDI synthesizer | 8 melodic channels; 1 rhythm channel |
Sound Blaster | 1989 | 8 bit | 22.05 kHz | FM synthesizer + DSP | 1 DAC; 11-voice FM synthesizer |
Innovation SSI-2001 | 1989 | 8 bit | 3906.19 Hz max. | PSG | 3 voices |
Sound Blaster Pro |
1991 | 8 bit | 44.1 kHz mono, 22.05 kHz stereo | ||
Roland Sound Canvas | 1991 | 16 bit | 32 kHz | MIDI synthesizer | 24 voices |
Gravis UltraSound | 1992 | 16 bit | 44.1 kHz
|
Wavetable synthesis | 16 stereo channels |
AC'97 | 1997 | 24 bit | 96 kHz | PCM | 6 independent output channels |
Environmental Audio Extensions | 2001 | Digital signal processing | 8 simultaneous 3D voices | ||
Intel High Definition Audio | 2004 | 32 bit | 192 kHz | PCM | up to 15 independent output channels |
Color codes
Connectors on the sound cards are color-coded as per the PC System Design Guide.[3] They may also have symbols of arrows, holes and soundwaves that are associated with each jack position.
Color | Pantone[3] | Function | Type | Connector | Symbol | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Pink | 701 C | Analog microphone audio input | Input | 3.5 mm minijack | A microphone | |
Light blue | 284 C | Analog line level audio input | Input | 3.5 mm minijack | An arrow going into a circle | |
Lime | 577 C | Analog line level audio output for the main stereo signal (front speakers or headphones) | Output | 3.5 mm minijack | Arrow going out one side of a circle into a wave | |
Orange
|
157 C | Analog line level audio output for center channel speaker and subwoofer | Output | 3.5 mm minijack | ||
Black | Analog line-level audio output for surround speakers, typically rear stereo | Output | 3.5 mm minijack | |||
Silver/Grey | 422 C | Analog line level audio output for surround optional side channels | Output | 3.5 mm minijack | ||
Brown/Dark | 4645 C | Analog line level audio output for a special panning, 'Right-to-left speaker' | Output | 3.5 mm minijack | ||
Gold /Grey
|
MIDI
|
Input | DA-15 | Arrow going out both sides into waves |
History of sound cards for the IBM PC architecture
Sound cards for
In 1988, a panel of computer-game CEOs stated at the
Hardware manufacturers
One of the first manufacturers of sound cards for the IBM PC was AdLib,
A large change in the IBM PC-compatible sound card market happened when Creative Labs introduced the Sound Blaster card.[4] Recommended by Microsoft to developers creating software based on the Multimedia PC standard,[7] the Sound Blaster cloned the AdLib and added a sound coprocessor[c] for recording and playback of digital audio. The card also included a game port for adding a joystick, and the capability to interface to MIDI equipment using the game port and a special cable. With AdLib compatibility and more features at nearly the same price, most buyers chose the Sound Blaster. It eventually outsold the AdLib and dominated the market.
Roland also made sound cards in the late 1980s such as the MT-32[4] and LAPC-I. Roland cards sold for hundreds of dollars. Many games had music written for their cards, such as Silpheed and Police Quest II. The cards were often poor at sound effects such as laughs, but for music was by far the best sound cards available until the mid-nineties. Some Roland cards, such as the SCC, and later versions of the MT-32 were made to be less expensive.
By 1992, one sound card vendor advertised that its product was "Sound Blaster, AdLib, Disney Sound Source and Covox Speech Thing Compatible!"
Industry adoption
When game company
Feature evolution
Early
Sound cards have evolved in terms of digital audio sampling rate (starting from 8-bit 11025 Hz, to 32-bit, 192 kHz that the latest solutions support). Along the way, some cards started offering wavetable synthesis, which provides superior MIDI synthesis quality relative to the earlier Yamaha OPL based solutions, which uses FM-synthesis. Some higher-end cards introduced their own RAM and processor for user-definable sound samples and MIDI instruments as well as to offload audio processing from the CPU.
With some exceptions,[d] for years, sound cards, most notably the Sound Blaster series and their compatibles, had only one or two channels of digital sound. Early games and MOD-players needing more channels than a card could support had to resort to mixing multiple channels in software. Even today, the tendency is still to mix multiple sound streams in software, except in products specifically intended for gamers or professional musicians.
Outputs
The number of physical sound channels has also increased. The first sound card solutions were mono. Stereo sound was introduced in the early 1980s, and quadraphonic sound came in 1989. This was shortly followed by 5.1 channel audio. The latest sound cards support up to 8 audio channels for the 7.1 speaker setup.[11]
A few early sound cards had sufficient power to drive unpowered speakers directly – for example, two watts per channel. With the popularity of amplified speakers, sound cards no longer have a power stage, though in many cases they can adequately drive headphones.[12]
Professional sound cards
Professional sound cards are sound cards optimized for high-fidelity, low-latency multichannel sound recording and playback. Their drivers usually follow the Audio Stream Input/Output protocol for use with professional sound engineering and music software.[e]
Professional sound cards are usually described as audio interfaces, and sometimes have the form of external rack-mountable units using
On the other hand, certain features of consumer sound cards such as support for
The typical consumer-grade sound card is intended for generic home, office, and entertainment purposes with an emphasis on playback and casual use, rather than catering to the needs of audio professionals. In general, consumer-grade sound cards impose several restrictions and inconveniences that would be unacceptable to an audio professional. Consumer sound cards are also limited in the effective sampling rates and bit depths they can actually manage and have lower numbers of less flexible input channels.[14] Professional studio recording use typically requires more than the two channels that consumer sound cards provide, and more accessible connectors, unlike the variable mixture of internal—and sometimes virtual—and external connectors found in consumer-grade sound cards[citation needed].
Sound devices other than expansion cards
Integrated sound hardware on PC motherboards
In 1984, the first
In the late 1990s, many computer manufacturers began to replace plug-in sound cards with an audio codec chip (a combined audio AD/DA-converter) integrated into the motherboard. Many of these used Intel's AC'97 specification. Others used inexpensive ACR slot accessory cards.
From around 2001, many motherboards incorporated full-featured sound cards, usually in the form of a custom chipset, providing something akin to full Sound Blaster compatibility and relatively high-quality sound. However, these features were dropped when AC'97 was superseded by Intel's HD Audio standard, which was released in 2004, again specified the use of a codec chip, and slowly gained acceptance. As of 2011, most motherboards have returned to using a codec chip, albeit an HD Audio compatible one, and the requirement for Sound Blaster compatibility relegated to history.
Integrated sound on other platforms
Various non-IBM PC compatible computers, such as early
Several Japanese computer platforms, including the MSX, X1, X68000, FM Towns and FM-7, featured built-in
The custom sound chip on Amiga, named Paula, had four digital sound channels (2 for the left speaker and 2 for the right) with 8-bit resolution[f] for each channel and a 6-bit volume control per channel. Sound playback on Amiga was done by reading directly from the chip RAM without using the main CPU.
Most arcade games have integrated sound chips, the most popular being the Yamaha OPL chip for music coupled with a variety of DACs for sampled audio and sound effects.
Sound cards on other platforms
-
Melodik sound card with the AY-3-8912 chip for the Didaktik
-
ZX Spectrum with Fuller soundbox
-
Turbo Sound board manufactured by NedoPC, revision A
The earliest known sound card used by computers was the Gooch Synthetic Woodwind, a music device for PLATO terminals, and is widely hailed as the precursor to sound cards and MIDI. It was invented in 1972.
Certain early arcade machines made use of sound cards to achieve playback of complex audio waveforms and digital music, despite being already equipped with onboard audio. An example of a sound card used in arcade machines is the
The Apple II computers, which did not have sound capabilities beyond rapidly clicking a speaker until the IIGS, could use plug-in sound cards from a variety of manufacturers. The first, in 1978, was ALF's Apple Music Synthesizer, with 3 voices; two or three cards could be used to create 6 or 9 voices in stereo. Later ALF created the Apple Music II, a 9-voice model. The most widely supported card, however, was the Mockingboard. Sweet Micro Systems sold the Mockingboard in various models. Early Mockingboard models ranged from 3 voices in mono, while some later designs had 6 voices in stereo. Some software supported use of two Mockingboard cards, which allowed 12-voice music and sound. A 12-voice, single-card clone of the Mockingboard called the Phasor was made by Applied Engineering.
The ZX Spectrum that initially only had a beeper had some sound cards made for it. Examples include TurboSound[17] Other examples are the Fuller Box,[18][19] and Zon X-81.[20][21]
The Commodore 64, while having an integrated SID (Sound Interface Device) chip, also had sound cards made for it. For example, the Sound Expander, which added on an OPL FM synthesizer.
The
External sound devices
Devices such as the Covox Speech Thing could be attached to the parallel port of an IBM PC and fed 6- or 8-bit PCM sample data to produce audio. Also, many types of professional sound cards take the form of an external FireWire or USB unit, usually for convenience and improved fidelity.
Sound cards using the PC Card interface were available before laptop and notebook computers routinely had onboard sound. Most of these units were designed for mobile DJs, providing separate outputs to allow both playback and monitoring from one system, however, some also target mobile gamers.
USB sound cards
USB sound cards are external devices that plug into the computer via
The USB specification defines a standard interface, the USB audio device class, allowing a single driver to work with the various USB sound devices and interfaces on the market. Mac OS X, Windows, and Linux support this standard. However, some USB sound cards do not conform to the standard and require proprietary drivers from the manufacturer.
Cards meeting the older
Uses
The main function of a sound card is to play audio, usually music, with varying formats (monophonic, stereophonic, various multiple speaker setups) and degrees of control. The source may be a CD or DVD, a file, streamed audio, or any external source connected to a sound card input. Audio may be recorded. Sometimes sound card hardware and drivers do not support recording a source that is being played.
Non-sound uses
Sound cards can be used to generate (output) arbitrary electrical waveforms, as any digital waveform played by the soundcard is converted to the desired output within the bounds of its capabilities. In other words, sound cards are consumer-grade arbitrary waveform generators. A number of free and commercial software allow sound cards to act like function generators by generating desired waveforms from functions;[22] there are also online services that generate audio files for any desired waveforms, playable through a sound card.
Sound cards can also be used to record electrical waveforms, in the same way it records an analog audio input. The recording can be displayed by special or general-purpose audio-editing software (acting as an oscilloscope) or further transformed and analyzed. A protection circuit should be used to keep the input voltage within acceptable bounds.[23][24]
As general-purpose waveform generators and analyzers, sound cards are bound by several design and physical limitations.
- Sound cards have a limited sample rate, typically up to 192 kHz. Under the assumptions of the Nyquist–Shannon sampling theorem, this means a maximum signal frequency (bandwidth) of half that: 96 kHz. Real sound cards tend to have a bandwidth smaller than implied by the Nyquist limit from internal filtering.[23]
- As with all ADCs and DACs, sound cards produce distortion and noise. A typical integrated sound card, the Realtek ALC887, according to its data sheet has distortion of about 80 dB below the fundamental; cards are available with distortion better than −100 dB.
- Sound cards commonly suffer from some clock drift, requiring correction of measurement results.
Sound cards have been used to analyze and generate the following types of signals:
- Sound equipment testing. A very-low-distortion sinewave oscillator can be used as input to equipment under test; the output is sent to a sound card's line input and run through Fourier transform software to find the amplitude of each harmonic of the added distortion.[25] Alternatively, a less pure signal source may be used, with circuitry to subtract the input from the output, attenuated and phase-corrected; the result is distortion and noise only, which can be analyzed.
- Gamma spectroscopy. A sound card can serve as a cheap multichannel analyser for gamma spectroscopy, which allows one to distinguish different radioactive isotopes.[26]
- Longwave radio. A 192 KHz sound card can be used to receive radio signals up to 96 kHz. This bandwidth is enough for longwave time signals such as the DCF77 (77.5 KHz). A coil is attached to the input side as an antenna, while special software decodes the signal.[27][28] A sound card can also work in the opposite direction and generate low power time signal transmissions (JJY at 40 KHz, using harmonics).[29]
Driver architecture
To use a sound card, the operating system (OS) typically requires a specific device driver, a low-level program that handles the data connections between the physical hardware and the operating system. Some operating systems include the drivers for many cards; for cards not so supported, drivers are supplied with the card, or available for download.
- DOS programs for the IBM PC often had to use universal middleware driver libraries (such as the HMI Sound Operating System, the Miles Audio Interface Libraries (AIL), the Miles Sound System etc.) which had drivers for most common sound cards, since DOS itself had no real concept of a sound card. Some card manufacturers provided terminate-and-stay-resident drivers for their products. Often the driver is a Sound Blaster and AdLib emulator designed to allow their products to emulate a Sound Blaster and AdLib, and to allow games that could only use SoundBlaster or AdLib sound to work with the card. Finally, some programs simply had driver or middleware source code incorporated into the program itself for the sound cards that were supported.
- Microsoft Windows uses drivers generally written by the sound card manufacturers. Many device manufacturers supply the drivers on their own discs or to Microsoft for inclusion on Windows installation disc. USB audio device class support is present from Windows 98 SE onwards.[30] Since Microsoft's Universal Audio Architecture (UAA) initiative which supports HD Audio, FireWire and USB audio device class standards, a universal class driver by Microsoft can be used. The driver is included with Windows Vista. For Windows XP, Windows 2000 or Windows Server 2003, the driver can be obtained by contacting Microsoft support.[31] Almost all manufacturer-supplied drivers for such devices also include this universal class driver.
- A number of versions of UNIX make use of the portable Open Sound System(OSS). Drivers are seldom produced by the card manufacturer.
- Most present day Linux distributions make use of the Advanced Linux Sound Architecture (ALSA).[h]
- Mockingboard support on the Apple II is usually incorporated into the programs itself as many programs for the Apple II boot directly from disk. However a TSR is shipped on a disk that adds instructions to Apple Basic so users can create programs that use the card, provided that the TSR is loaded first.
List of notable sound card manufacturers
- Asus
- Advanced Gravis Computer Technology(defunct)
- AdLib(defunct)
- Aureal Semiconductor (defunct)
- Auzentech (defunct)
- C-Media
- Creative Technology
- E-mu (bought out by Creative)
- ESS Technology
- Hercules Computer Technology
- HT Omega
- IBM
- Korg
- Media Vision
- M-Audio
- Onkyo
- Turtle Beach Systems
- VIA Technologies
See also
- Audio signal processing
- Cross-platform Audio Creation Tool (XACT)
- DirectMusic
- DirectSound
- EAX
- OpenAL
- PC System Design Guide
- Sound card mixer
Notes
- ^ If the number and size of connectors is too large for the space on the backplate, the connectors will be off-board, typically using a breakout box, an auxiliary backplate, or a panel mounted at the front.
- ^ The percussion mode was considered inflexible by most developers; it was used mostly by AdLib's own composition software.
- ^ This was likely an Intel microcontroller relabeled by Creative.
- ^ The E-MU card family, the Gravis GF-1 and AMD Interwave support up to 32 channels.
- ^ ASIO drivers are also available for a range of consumer-grade sound cards.
- ^ With patches, 14/15-bit resolution could be accomplished at the cost of high CPU usage.
- ^ Revolution X used fully sampled songs from the band's album that transparently looped – an impressive feature at the time the game was released.
- ^ Up until Linux kernel 2.4, OSS was the standard sound architecture for Linux, although ALSA can be downloaded, compiled and installed separately for kernels 2.2 or higher. But from kernel 2.5 onwards, ALSA was integrated into the kernel and the OSS native drivers were deprecated. Backwards compatibility with OSS-based software is maintained, however, by the use of the ALSA-OSS compatibility API and the OSS-emulation kernel modules.
References
- ^ YAC512 (PDF), Yamaha, archived from the original (PDF) on 2013-10-13
- ^ "Covox ADPCM | Breaking Eggs and Making Omelettes". 21 March 2007.
- ^ a b PC 99 System Design Guide, Archived 2008-12-27 at the Wayback Machine, Intel Corporation and Microsoft Corporation, 14 July 1999. Chapter 3: PC 99 basic requirements (PC 99 System Design Guide (Self-extracting .exe archive) Archived 2007-02-16 at the Wayback Machine. Requirement 3.18.3: Systems use a color-coding scheme for connectors and ports. Accessed 2012-11-26
- ^ a b c d Latimer, Joey. "PC Sound Gets Serious!" (PDF). Compute!. Archived from the original (PDF) on September 6, 2014.
- ^ "Winds of Progress Unleashed in "Windy City"". Computer Gaming World. July 1988. p. 8. Retrieved November 3, 2013.
- ^ "The Gamer's Guide to Sound Boards". Computer Gaming World. September 1989. p. 18. Retrieved November 4, 2013.
- ^ English, David (June 1992). "Sound Blaster turns Pro". Compute!. p. 82. Retrieved November 11, 2013.
- ^ "Computing Will Never Sound the Same". Computer Gaming World (advertisement). July 1992. p. 90. Retrieved July 3, 2014.
- ^ "Sound Philosophy". Letters from Paradise. Computer Gaming World. January 1994. pp. 120, 122.
- ^ Brooks, M. Evan (May 1994). "Never Trust A Gazfluvian Flingschnogger!". Computer Gaming World. pp. 42–58.
- ^ "Realtek". Archived from the original on August 18, 2017. Retrieved September 7, 2017.
- ^ "Why is the volume low when I plug my headphones directly into the sound card jack?". Dell. Retrieved 2021-11-24.
- ^ "Elevate Your Sound: The Best Audio Interface for Podcast and Recording". Retrieved 2024-04-12.
- ^ "What is an Audio Interface?". Production Den. 2018-10-05. Retrieved 2022-06-27.
- ^ a b John Szczepaniak. "Retro Japanese Computers: Gaming's Final Frontier Retro Japanese Computers". Hardcore Gaming 101. Retrieved 2011-03-29. Reprinted from Retro Gamer, 2009
- ^ "System 16 – Midway T Unit Hardware".
- ^ "VeleSoft".
- ^ "WoS: Fuller Box".
- ^ "Crash Issue 01, February 1984". Archived from the original on 2017-04-04. Retrieved 2017-04-04.
- ^ "ZON X-81 Programmable Sound Generator".
- ^ "Sinclair User, issue 8, page 21".
- ^ "Web page with free function generator and oscilloscope software for sound card". Archived from the original on 2012-04-27. Retrieved 2012-04-03.
- ^ a b Eric Bogatin. "Turn Your Computer's Sound Card into a Scope".
For example, the Sabrent low cost ($8) USB sound card has an internal 16-bit ADC that can sample up to 196 kS/sec, but has a limited input frequency range from about 100 Hz to 20 kHz. The Waveforms software tool can drive this USB sound card.
- ^ Pervaiz, Saad (Winter 2010). "Use of Sound Card as an Oscilloscope and Function Generator" (PDF).
- ^ Detailed discussion of distortion measurement with sound cards, including suitable cards and software
- .
- ^ man dcf77rx (Commandes) - soundcard DCF77 (and HBG) beacon receiver
- ^ Time Signal Decoder
- ^ "Fukushima: online JJY time signal emulator". jjy.luxferre.top.
- ^ "Microsoft USB FAQ". Microsoft. Archived from the original on 2008-04-09. Retrieved 2008-02-03.
- ^ Universal Audio Architecture (UAA) High Definition Audio class driver version 1.0a available Retrieved September 7, 2017.
External links
- Jumper settings for many sound cards at the Wayback Machine (archived 2013-05-06)
- "How sound cards work". How Stuff Works. Archived from the original on 2017-12-22. Retrieved 2017-12-16.