yes Kahless, soundcards / audio chips weather they be on a seperate sound card, or directly on the motherboard can only produce / calculate a cirtain number of channels at one time. However, Even onboard sound can produce more than three channels. Not to mention that when three people are talking it is not actually creating 3 seperate channels. It is liekly that HL microphone is one channel. if lots of people are tlaking then the voice patturns are combined before output. Although - it is just as likely i made that up.