Sound Card

A sound card is a computer expansion card that can input and output sound under control of computer programs. Typical uses of sound cards include providing the audio component for multimedia applications such as music composition, editing video or audio, presentation/education, and entertainment (games). Many computers have sound capabilities built in, while others require these expansion cards if audio capability is desired.
A typical sound card includes a sound chip, usually featuring a digital-to-analog converter, that converts recorded or generated digital waveforms of sound into an analog format. This signal is led to a (typically 1/8-inch earphone-type) connector where an amplifier, headphones, or similar sound destination can be plugged in. More advanced designs usually include more than one sound chip to separate duties between digital sound production and synthesized sounds (usually for real-time generation of music and sound effects utilizing little data and CPU time).
Digital sound reproduction is usually achieved by multi-channel DACs, able to play multiple digital samples at different pitches and volumes, optionally applying real-time effects like filtering or distortion. Multi-channel digital sound playback can also be used for music synthesis if used with a digitized instrument bank of some sort, typically a small amount of ROM or Flash memory containing samples corresponding to the standard MIDI instruments. (A contrasting way to synthesize sound on a PC uses "audio codecs", which rely heavily on software for music synthesis, MIDI compliance and even multiple-channel emulation. This approach has become common as manufacturers seek to simplify the design and the cost of the sound card itself).
Most sound cards have a line in connector where the sound signal from a cassette tape recorder or similar sound source can be input. The sound card can digitize this signal and store it (controlled by the corresponding computer software) on the computer's hard disk for editing or further reproduction. Another typical external connector is the microphone connector, for connecting to a microphone or other input device that generates a relatively lower voltage than the line in connector. Input through a microphone jack is typically used by speech recognition software or Voice over IP applications.

Sound devices other than expansion cards

Integrated sound on the PC

In the late 1990s, many computer manufacturers began to replace plug-in soundcards with a "codec" (actually a combined audio AD/DA-converter) integrated into the motherboard. Many of these used Intel's AC97 specification. Others used cheap ACR slots. As of 2005, these "codecs" usually lack the hardware for direct music synthesis or even multi-channel sound, with special drivers and software making up for these lacks, at the expense of CPU speed (for example, MIDI reproduction takes away 10-15% CPU time on an Athlon XP 1600+ CPU).

Integrated sound on other platforms

Various computers which do not use the IBM PC architecture, such as Apple's Macintosh, and workstations from manufacturers like Sun have had their own motherboard integrated sound devices. In some cases these provide very advanced capabilities (for the time of manufacture), in most they are minimal systems. Some of these platforms have also had sound cards designed for their bus architectures which of course cannot be used in a standard PC.

USB sound cards

While not literally sound cards (since they don't plug into slots inside of a computer, and usually are not card-shaped (rectangular)), there are devices called USB sound cards. These attach to a computer via USB cables. The USB specification defines a standard interface, the USB audio device class, allowing a single driver to work with the various USB sound devices on the market.

Other outboard sound devices

USB Sound Cards are far from the first external devices allowing a computer to record or synthesize sound. Virtually any method that was once common for getting an electrical signal in or out of a computer has probably been used to attempt to produce sound.

Driver architecture

To use a sound card, the operating system typically requires a specific device driver. Some operating systems include the drivers for some or all cards available, in other cases the drivers are supplied with the card itself, or are available for download.

• DOS programs for the IBM PC often had to use universal middleware driver libraries ([such as HMI Sound Operating System, 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 (pretty inefficient) middleware TSR-based drivers for their products, and some programs simply had drivers incorporated into the program itself for the sound cards that were supported.
• Microsoft Windows uses proprietary drivers generally written by the sound card manufacturers. Many makers supply the drivers to Microsoft for inclusion on Windows distributions. Sometimes drivers are also supplied by the individual vendors for download and installation. Bug fixes and other improvements are likely to be available faster via downloading, since Windows CDs cannot be updated as frequently as a web or FTP site. Vista will use UAA.
• Linux has two different driver architectures, the older Open Sound System and the newer ALSA (Advanced Linux Sound Architecture). Both include drivers for most cards by default. Sound card manufacturers seldom produce stand-alone drivers for Linux.