Duel Sound Card Setup for Gaming

[Cyclic]

Can anyone shed some light on if I would be able to install 2 sound cards in the same rig?

The reasons for this are I still use a Joystick system called the Thrustmaster F22/TQS which requires a GAMEPORT. In my current RIG I am running an old Creative Sound Blaster Live purchased back 2004 which was probably one of the last Sound Cards to come out with the old Game port on it.

What I would like to achive is having the Joystick running on the old SB Live Game Port but have all my Games and sound systems running on a Creative XF i. Of course I dont want to waste the money on one if I cant as I must have the GAMEPORT on the old Creative card as with no Joystick I cant fly SIM

Hoep someone can help me here.

Thanks

 

[Outlander_04]

The simple solution is to buy a USB joystick

 

[Cyclic]

My current HOTAS setup is a great bit of kit. (SWF22 Digital Upgraded/TQS System) The only choice for new sticks that are comparable would be the Cougar HOTAS which costs around $200 to buy then you need to upgrade the pots becauise they suck and break down after a while which would be around another 300$. The other one is the Saitek X52 which is not as good as what I have now.

Yes the simple solution is to buy a USB stick but thats not what im asking...

 

[Outlander_04]

whats the worst thing that could happen if you use both sound cards? .

Probably that every time you boot windows it will tell you you have a device [ the sb live card ] that has no audio drivers .

Or you could head over to google and do a search like
"game port usb adapter"

 

[13thmonkey]

you may be able to disable the sound portion of the old card in device manager and leave the game port active? I know that on my laptop I have 2 sound devices one for the normal jacks and one for the hdmi port, so its not that much of a problem, i also recall leaving my onboard sound active with my Sb1024 or Xi-Fi.

 

[Cyclic]

The worst thing that could happen is dropping 200 bucks on Fxi sound card to find ive got conflicts running both and cant use it. I suppose I could try to borrow one. Of course the new sound card would be a PCI express and the old card which is actually a Audigi 2 ZS which is a fairly good card is PCI so I would hope not to get a conflict.

Disabling the sound portion sound interesting though. Anyway thanks both of you for your replies and I suppose the best option here is going to be trial and error using a borrowed card.

 

[13thmonkey]

try disabling the sound portion and seeing if the gameport still work before you buy the new card. Does a friend have one you could borrow? Do you know a store with a decent restocking policy?

 

[will_chellam]

I was going to look at this problem frm the opposite end - is there a reason you want a new soundcard? in my experience its never made that much noticible difference - and i run my pc through a $7000 arcam/linn stereo.

maplin (uk) do this adapter
http://www.maplin.co.uk/Module.aspx?ModuleNo=23256&ForceUpdate=Y

In addition there's several up for sale on ebay....

Technically, there shouldnt be a problem installing two soundcards or even more under windows - although i seem to remember windows xp being a lot more tolerant than earlier versions like windows 98, the only problem i can forsee is installing two very similar cards might cause problems with them installing driver files with the same names in the same place which one card wont work with....

 

[boomhowar]

get a GAMEPORT to usb adapter. I bought a few months back at radio shack for under 10 bucks.

 

[jitpublisher]

It is nearly impossible to get 2 sound cards to work at the same time.
You will have many, many problems, just don't go there. Whether you use it or not, no matter what you disable or enable, every time you boot up you are going to get messages and more problems, and driver conflicts.
Get a USB adapter, good grief they are dirt cheap and will solve the problem instantly.

 

[roadrunner197069]

Using 2 sound cards is asking for trouble.

 

[Zenthar]

+1 for USB adapter

2 cards may result in conflicts, pain and way more trouble than a 10$ adapter is worth. Some devices simply aren't made to be redundant...

 

[radium69]

Just browsing by, and want to show my appreciation , mechwarrior 3 isn't fun with a keyboard.

(I own a Microsoft Sidewinder with force feedback) And need to found an adapter aswell...
Thanks

 

[nukemaster]

You can use 2 sound cards without issues I did it for a long time when I did not want TS/Ventrilo on the same speakers as my games. There is no reason for it not to work, You just have to tell windows what card you want to use as your default sound device and it will use the X-fi for everything.

You can even disable the Live! in the device manager and the game port will still run.

If that does seem like too much trouble, those USB adapters to work very well.

 

[malveaux]

Heya,

I have two sound cards. In fact, I have worse, I have my soundcard (auzentek 7.1 explosion) and my onboard sound enabled. Both are Cmedia chipsets. I'm running both in Vista x64. Both work flawlessly. You can run as many sound devices as you please. One will be set (your choice) as the default output.

Your joystick is just input. It doesn't matter which device you use as the default output; it's not like your joystick is taking up the audio out jack. It'll be fine. Just get latest drivers, default the audio to the device you want to hear things from.

Cheers,

 

[PsyKhiqZero]

Under windows vista I was running up to 3 different sound devices, onboard sound, creative audigy 2zs and a wireless headset and mic from logitech. It worked fine.

I had my logitech z5500 hooked up to my audigy, headphones hooked up via onboard, and the logitech wireless headsest was a USB stick. It was simple enough to switch the default sound device to which ever I needed.