true enough, Virgo, a hardware accelerated soundcard is a hundred times at least better than those pathetic on-board soundchips.

if u don't want to spend too much on a soundcard, just get the old trusty SoundBlaster Live series. even a Value works beautifully. just mke sure u get the latest driver/patch for it since the initial one is quite buggy. to be on the safe side, there is a WDM version so it's completely barebone driver. i am using a Live Digital Edition now. if Audigy's cheap & affordable to u, why not? but i haven't tried this one so i can't tell how well it works. still Creative soundcards are among the best in the market so u can hardly go wrong there.

another good thing about getting a Soundblaster Live series card, especially Digital Edition or better, is that it supports 5.1 channel sound, all hardware accelerated (no need to beg for processing cycles from CPU).

just a warning: don't ever get Extigy! well unless u plan to use that for your laptop exclusively though in a way it's a bit of a waste. Extigy is clunky to handle as it's a fully external unit & since it's a USB device essentially, it can be very slow as it's only USB1.1 & not 2.

as for the rest of the things, i think u will do well to listen to Lady Rain. she's a professional.

[Linked Image from i3.photobucket.com]
......a gift from LaFille......