Back in the DOS days and early windows days. They were one of the gold standards for PC audio. Even if you didn't own a sound blaster card, you likely owned a clone that emulated one. They were the bees knees so to speak when it came to PC gaming.

But by the late 90s the company had spread itself so thin on branding and other things. Sound blaster CDROM drives? Yep. Sound blaster video cards? Yep. Etc Etc Etc. They tried to parlay being a lucky defacto standard into something else. Wanted to be a premium brand. Prices go up, quality goes down. Kinda like Nvidia now. Fake frames, AI slop, shitting on traditional customers.

Turn of the century and a standard set in 97 finally started rolling out on consumer motherboards. No longer when you bought your computer if you wanted it to make anything more than basic beeps boops and buzzes. Did you have to go out and spend hundreds or thousands of dollars to get an ad in card. It was on board. On the motherboard.

The newest computer I own is an early ryzen from the previous Dark Times. Not to be confused with these dark times. So I don't have first-hand experience. But it is my understanding that Intel integrated Graphics isn't quite the joke is that it used to be. Just a bastard stepchild that Intel can't decide if they really want to support of not. And some AMD chips have an APU on it which is similar. But still chokes under anything very intense. It's getting close. But just not quite. Give us a truly standardized setup with the basic power of a mid 2010s graphics accelerator and vulkan api, most people would be in business.

Honestly I'm hoping something along this line happens and becomes common with risc-v systems. Like Mali with arm.