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oard or sound card typical sound card functionality includes providing the audio component for multimedia applications such as music composition editing video or audio presentation education and entertainment games and video projection sound cards are also used for computer based communication such as voice over ip and teleconferencing 1 general characteristics edit close up of a sound card pcb showing electrolytic capacitors smt capacitors and resistors and a yac512 two channel 16 bit dac 2 the integrated circuit on the left is a 3403 single power supply quad operational amplifier sound cards use a digital to analog converter dac which converts recorded or generated digital signal data into an analog format the output signal is connected to an amplifier headphones or external device using standard interconnects such as a trs phone connector a some sound cards offer a headphone amplifier specially for analog headphone output a common external connector is the microphone connector input through a microphone connector can be used for example by speech recognition or voice over ip applications most sound cards have a line in connector for an analog input from a sound source that has higher voltage levels than a microphone in either case the sound card uses an analog to digital converter adc to digitize this signal 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 direct memory access to transfer the samples to and from main memory from where a recording and playback software may read and write it to the hard disk for storage editing or further processing sound channels and polyphony edit an important sound card characteristic is polyphony which refers to its ability to process and output multiple independent voices or sounds simultaneously these distinct channels are seen as the number of audio outputs which may correspond to a speaker configuration such as 2 0 stereo 2 1 stereo and sub woofer 5 1 surround or other configurations sometimes the terms voice and channel are used interchangeably to indicate the degree of polyphony not the output speaker configuration for example much older sound chips could accommodate three voices but only one output audio channel i e a single mono output requiring all voices to be mixed together later cards such as the adlib sound card had a 9 voice polyphony combined in 1 mono output channel 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 stereo voice s and channel s are usually dedicated to playback of digital sound samples and playing back more than one digital sound sample usually requires a software downmix at a fixed sampling rate modern low cost integrated sound cards i e those built into motherboards such as audio codecs like those meeting the ac 97 standard and even some lower cost expansion sound cards still work this way these devices may provide more than two sound output channels typically 5 1 or 7 1 surround sound but they usually have no actual hardware polyphony for either sound effects or midi reproduction these tasks are performed entirely in software this is similar to the way inexpensive softmodems perform modem tasks in software rather than in hardware 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 positional audio and real time dsp effects list of sound card standards edit see also list of sound chips 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 covox speech thing 1987 8 bit 7 khz disney sound source up to 44 khz cpu speed dependent pcm 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 dsp 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 dsd 3 dsp up to 15 independent output channels 1 2 the tandy 1000 and the pcjr used the same sound chip but the tandy 1000 used the audio in pin whereas the pcjr did not this allowed the tandy to produce the speaker sound at the same time as the sn74689 color codes edit connectors on the sound cards are color coded as per the pc system design guide 4 they may also have symbols of arrows holes and soundwaves that are associated with each jack position color pantone 4 function type connector symbol pink 701 c analog microphone audio input input 3 5 mm minijack light blue 284 c analog line level audio input input 3 5 mm minijack lime 577 c analog line level audio output for the main stereo signal usually for front speakers output 3 5 mm minijack 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 stereo 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 game port midi input da 15 game port midi many desktop pcs also include a front panel and the front panel usually includes analog audio jacks color symbol function connector pink analog microphone audio input mono or stereo 3 5 mm minijack lime analog audio output for headphones 3 5 mm minijack history of sound cards for the ibm pc architecture edit the adlib music synthesizer card was one of the first sound cards c 1990 note the manual volume adjustment knob isa 8 bus sound card mozart 16 for isa 16 bus a turtle beach sound card for pci bus echo digital audio s indigo io pcmcia card 24 bit 96 khz stereo in out sound card a via technologies envy sound card for pc 5 1 channel for pci slot sound cards for ibm pc compatible computers were very uncommon until 1988 for the majority ibm pc users the internal pc speaker was the only way for early pc software to produce sound and music 5 the speaker hardware was typically limited to square waves the resulting sound was generally described as beeps and boops which resulted in the common nickname beeper several companies most notably access software developed techniques for digital sound reproduction over the pc speaker like realsound the resulting audio while functional suffered from the heavily distorted output and low volume and usually required all other processing to be stopped while sounds were played other home computers of the 1980s like the commodore 64 included hardware support for digital sound playback or music synthesis leaving the ibm pc at a disadvantage when it came to multimedia applications early sound cards for the ibm pc platform were not designed for gaming or multimedia applications but rather on specific audio applications such as music composition with the adlib personal music system ibm music feature card and creative music system or on speech synthesis like digispeech ds201 covox speech thing and street electronics echo in 1988 a panel of computer game ceos stated at the consumer electronics show that the pc s limited sound capability prevented it from becoming the leading home computer that it needed a 49 79 sound card with better capability than current products and that once such hardware was widely installed their companies would support it sierra on line which had pioneered supporting ega and vga video and 3 1 2 disks promised that year to support the adlib ibm music feature and roland mt 32 sound cards in its games 6 a 1989 computer gaming world survey found that 18 of 25 game companies planned to support adlib six roland and covox and seven creative music system game blaster 7 hardware manufacturers edit one of the first manufacturers of sound cards for the ibm pc was adlib 5 which produced a card based on the yamaha ym3812 sound chip also known as the opl2 the adlib had two modes a 9 voice mode where each voice could be fully programmed and a less frequently used percussion mode with 3 regular voices producing 5 independent percussion only voices for a total of 11 b creative labs also marketed a sound card called the creative music system c ms at about the same time although the c ms had twelve voices to adlib s nine and was a stereo card while the adlib was mono the basic technology behind it was based on the philips saa1099 chip which was essentially a square wave generator it sounded much like twelve simultaneous pc speakers would have except for each channel having amplitude control and failed to sell well even after creative renamed it the game blaster a year later and marketed it through radioshack in the us the game blaster retailed for under 100 and was compatible with many popular games such as silpheed a large change in the ibm pc compatible sound card market happened when creative labs introduced the sound blaster card 5 recommended by microsoft to developers creating software based on the multimedia pc standard 8 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 5 and lapc i roland cards sold for hundreds of dollars many games such as silpheed and police quest ii had music written for their cards the cards were often poor at sound effects such as laughs but for music were 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 9 responding to readers complaining about an article on sound cards that unfavorably mentioned the gravis ultrasound computer gaming world stated in january 1994 that the de facto standard in the gaming world is sound blaster compatibility it would have been unfair to have recommended anything else 10 the magazine that year stated that wing commander ii was probably the game responsible for making it the standard card 11 the sound blaster line of cards together with the first inexpensive cd rom drives and evolving video technology ushered in a new era of multimedia computer applications that could play back cd audio add recorded dialogue to video games or even reproduce full motion video albeit at much lower resolutions and quality in early days the widespread decision to support the sound blaster design in multimedia and entertainment titles meant that future sound cards such as media vision s pro audio spectrum and the gravis ultrasound had to be sound blaster compatible if they were to sell well until the early 2000s when the ac 97 audio standard became more widespread and eventually usurped the soundblaster as a standard due to its low cost and integration into many motherboards sound blaster compatibility was a standard that many other sound cards supported to maintain compatibility with many games and applications released industry adoption edit three early isa 16 bit pc sound cards showing the progression toward integrated chipsets when game company sierra on line opted to support add on music hardware in addition to built in hardware such as the pc speaker and built in sound capabilities of the ibm pcjr and tandy 1000 what could be done with sound and music on the ibm pc changed dramatically two of the companies sierra partnered with were roland and adlib opting to produce in game music for king s quest 4 that supported the mt 32 and adlib music synthesizer the mt 32 had superior output quality due in part to its method of sound synthesis as well as built in reverb since it was the most sophisticated synthesizer they supported sierra chose to use most of the mt 32 s custom features and unconventional instrument patches producing background sound effects e g chirping birds clopping horse hooves etc before the sound blaster brought digital audio playback to the pc many game companies also supported the mt 32 but supported the adlib card as an alternative because of the latter s higher market base the adoption of the mt 32 led the way for the creation of the mpu 401 roland sound canvas and general midi standards as the most common means of playing in game music until the mid 1990s feature evolution edit this section does not cite any sources please help improve this section by adding citations to reliable sources unsourced material may be challenged and removed may 2024 learn how and when to remove this message early isa bus sound cards were half duplex meaning they could not record and play digitized sound simultaneously later isa cards like the soundblaster awe series and plug and play soundblaster clones supported simultaneous recording and playback but at the expense of using up two irq and dma channels instead of one conventional pci bus cards generally do not have these limitations and are mostly full duplex 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 earli...