AC97 compatilbe?

[Pafet]

My uncle wants to buy a PCMCIA TV-card for his laptop and in its spec it says it needs an "AC97 compatible sound chip". How can I tell if it is compatible?
The laptop is Dell Latitude D430, with Intel 945GMS chipset and "High Definition Audio codec speaker".

I always saw the AC97 and HD audio mentioned but never really gave it much attention until today. What is it exactly?

Thanks

[CaptNKILL]

As far as I know it means "Audio CODEC 1997". Basically, its just a standard spec that sound chips since 1997 have had to meet.

Its been pretty much replaced with the High Definition Audio standard for the past 4-5 years though.

Anything that requires AC97 is pretty much just saying that you can't have some ancient 16bit DOS-only sound card, so your Dell should be more than sufficient since it probably has High Def audio.

[Pafet]

Thanks Cap'n, I had a feeling it's something like but couldn't find anything concrete.

I remember you had to have "386 compatible" CPU for ages