CDRLabs.com

Just a couple of days ago, I posted a problem I had with not being able to play Star Wars Battlefront. I came to discover that my video card was quite outdated; Here's the link to that post http://www.cdrlabs.com/phpBB/viewtopic. ... highlight=

My question now is, could the same problem hold true with me having problems with Dragon Naturally Speaking. For those that are not familiar with this app, it is a voice recognition program. Could my sound card be the problem with dragon not working as advertised. I know some might say that I have to train my computer. Well, at first I had version 6 and I trained my computer for 8 months with no luck. I lost that app after a reformat, so I now have the latest version 7 perfered. The same mistakes that V6 made, v7 also made. I'm not talking about mistakes like Ice Cream and I scream, I'm talking about Me saying cat and it types monkey. In the "getting started" part of the program, It gives a visual example of a man Talking and the computer typing what he says. He's talking at a moderate and regular speaking manner and the computer is right on point with no mistakes at all. Also Ive seen, on TLC, doctors using a voice recgnition program during their procedures speaking with masks on their faces and there computer isn't making mistakes. Could it be my system setup.

Operating System System Model
Windows XP Home Edition (build 2600) Dell Computer Corporation DIM4400
System Service Tag: 9CP8F11 (support for this PC)
Chassis Serial Number: 9CP8F11
Processor a Main Circuit Board b
1700 megahertz Intel Pentium 4
8 kilobyte primary memory cache
256 kilobyte secondary memory cache Board: Intel Corporation D845PT AAA67834-304
Serial Number: MY01K5291934124701B1
Bus Clock: 100 megahertz
BIOS: Intel Corp. A05 03/14/2002
Drives Memory Modules c,d
39.98 Gigabytes Usable Hard Drive Capacity
9.73 Gigabytes Hard Drive Free Space

Generic DVD-ROM SCSI CdRom Device [CD-ROM drive]
OPTORITE DVD RW DD1203 [CD-ROM drive]
3.5" format removeable media [Floppy drive]

ST340016A [Hard drive] (40.02 GB) -- drive 0 256 Megabytes Installed Memory

Slot 'J5G3' is Empty
Slot 'J5G1' has 256 MB

ATI Technologies Inc. RAGE 128 PRO Ultra GL AGP [Display adapter]
DELL E771a [Monitor] (15.2"vis, s/n 8J85421R849A, January 2002)

Intel(r) 82801BA/BAM AC'97 Audio Controller

Generic SoftK56 [Modem]
CNet PRO200WL PCI Fast Ethernet Adapter
Network Card MAC Address: 00:08:A1:15:5D:81

You may need a better sound card as well; onboard sound is notoriously bad and as the adage states "garbage in, garbage out" -- if Dragon is getting low quality (noisy, choppy, etc) sound in from your microphone/sound card, it's going to do a poor job.

That said, voice recognition software still has a very long ways to go. You have to be very precise, even at best. Keep in mind, you're using a $100 program with probably a $20 microphone, using an onboard sound card that probably cost less than $5 in parts. Any advanced medical system (or even a more professional system) is going to cost in the hundreds of thousands of dollars. You get what you pay for. It's using dedicated hardware designed specifically to do one job; you're using Microsoft windows on a general purpose PC.

I think you should be getting better results than you claim to be getting, though, so look into getting a new sound card and a nice headset/microphone. More RAM wouldn't hurt, either.

Before getting a new soundcard, I'd try a different mic. In particular, I'd try one of the ones that go on your head that you can talk directly into.

you could try a usb microphone, and if the problem still occurs just return the microphone to the retail store that you bought it at