No, but they're shitty value for money for most typical consumers.

>>55129990
They would only be worth it if you created audio and used a low-latency kernel.

Back 20 or so years ago? No. They were essential.

Now? Yes. On-board will handle most shit just fine. Now, if you have a fancier setup or work in the music industry and need specific ports, no, it isn't.

>>55129990
no, they are just garbage.

>Your soundcard works perfectly.
>Your soundcard works perfectly.
>Your soundcard works perfectly.
>Enjoying yourself?
>Your soundcard works perfectly.
>Your soundcard works perfectly.
>Your soundcard works perfectly.
>It doesn't get any better than this!
>Your soundcard works perfectly.

>>55130057
That's very...
/shadeflip
CREATIVE of you

USB ones have uses

>>55129990
External interfaces are still needed to connect lots of simultaneous inputs and to achieve low latency recording. Otherwise, not really.

>2016
>not loading MIDI on hardware

Fucking plebs get out REEEEEE

>>55130553
wut

>>55130561

Lots of PCI(-E) sound cards today still have MIDI synths with support for uploading soundfonts to the card

>>55129990
Yes

>>55130590
Soundfont is 1999 pleb tier. Load your midi files in a DAW and play them with modern vst synths/samplers.

>>55130602
>Soundfont is 1999

That's the point. A lot of 90's games have excellent MIDI tracks that you replicate best with soundfonts

>>55130649
Oh, like those people that listen to FF soundtracks. Some shit I will never understand.

They're fucking awesome if your motherboard has shit audio isolation, like mine does.

>>55129990
>sound cards
Ahahhahah what a fucking noob, see any audiophiles use them with HD800, HE-1000, LCD4 headphones? No. They use external DAC and Amplifiers.

But yeah. Sound cards are awesome as fuck if you're not a audiophile. I miss my 7.1 surround gimmick. I can't go back because colored sound isn't what I want. Disable all enhancements for better music. Then what's the fucking point in buying a surround sound card if you disable enhancements?

>>55129990
It's rare to get a motherboard that has bitstream encoding to Dolby so that all audio can be sent multi channel over Toslink to your receiver.

A few do have it though.

>>55130040

I think VR will cause a resurgence in sound cards being actually useful, once VR games actually start getting released (in general, but specifically ones that can leverage hardware audio tracing). The shitty software solutions we have now simply won't cut it for VR.