Audigy Platinum or on-board

wiekey

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Jul 20, 2010
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I built my current PC about 2.5 years ago and have been using on-board sound from my EVGA nForce 780i. It's been working fine, but I know I could do much better. Rather than purchasing a new sound card, I've considered popping in my old SB Audigy Platinum (yes, the original Audigy line from way back), and am looking for some advise on this.

My PC is primarily for gaming, and I'm hoping this card will take the game-audio load off of my CPU. I'm also hoping for better sound quality. It also has the front-panel with optical in & out, headphone jack, SPDIF in & out, and a remote. I have a 5.1 speaker setup (x-540), so I have no need for the 7.1 capability of the on-board audio system.

I didn't install this card in my new system when I built it b/c of the incompatabilities with Windows Vista, and I didn't want to deal with ALchemy (or whatever is involved). I'm willing to get this working now, if it's worth it. BTW, I'm now running Win 7 64-bit. Does it has the same problems as Vista?

Thanks!
 

sarwar_r87

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Mar 28, 2008
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i cant speak for your card, but x-fi is fully supported in windows7 x64. i get all the usual settings in my console. note that with vista, it had the same problem initially, with the need to ALchemy :S

looking at the creative support site, i can see the drivers for w7 x64 but no console. so m not sure if u will get all the features.
http://support.creative.com/Products/ProductDetails.aspx?catID=1&subCatID=205&prodID=4846&prodName=Audigy%20Platinum&subCatName=Audigy&CatName=Sound+Blaster&VARSET=prodfaq:pRODFAQ_4846,VARSET=CategoryID:1

however, it is not a gaming cards and will no help in any way, except for slightly lower cpu, which is not worth mentioning. however, sound quality should improve, provided you can get the console working.
 

wiekey

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Jul 20, 2010
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Yeah I was surprised they're still supporting it. There was a driver release on April 9th, 2010. It's the drivers for the whole Audigy series, but they actually call out my ancient Audigy Platinum in the driver notes.

I'm not sure what your referring to by the "console". Is that the front-end application for controlling the card's features (EAX effects, speaker setup, audio levels, etc.)? I seem to remember there being something like that when I was using the card on my old Win XP box, but I thought it was just part of the driver download. Is the console a seperate download? Do I need it to get/configure EAX effects? I haven't used the ALchemy software (which I think I'll need?) and I guess I assumed it would serve the purpose of audio configuration.