JoanMichele
Hey Beagle, what would you recommend if I only intend to use it to render MIDI files that I wrote to Audio?
that would depend on how you "wrote" the MIDI files. if it's all done in the box (ie using a mouse to create the MIDI files in the PRV or Staff views) then the soundcard doesn't come into play EXCEPT that you have to have one, sorry to disagree with Kalle - he's mostly right on that.
the soundcard doesn't really matter in that circumstance because it's all done by processing in the program. however, you can't do it if you don't have a soundcard installed in MC. for this situation even the onboard soundcard is sufficient, but you do have to have something installed in MC or MC won't render anything for you.
now, if you're creating your MIDI files by using a keyboard recording into MC then that's a completely different story and you do need a proper low latency high efficiency driver soundcard for that purpose.