A good sound card is hard to find.

[PGRacer]

Hi guys I am looking for a decent sound card that works.

I have tried an X-Fi titanium and an Asus Xonar D2X and neither work as they should.

Bad drivers and incompatibility with windows 7 are a major issue, problem is, is there another manufacturer of a 7.1 card that

1) isn't cheap and nasty
2) does what it says on the tin.

 

[gamerk316]

?? Neither card has problems with Win7, though Creative IS known for a lot of driver problems in general...and if I may ask, what problem did you have with the D2X, since its still one of the best cards on the market? [Let me guess: The 4-pin power connector was being a pain?]

 

[PGRacer]

Actually no, the only problem I have had with the power connector was trying to find where I put the bag of bits for my modular psu.

I have two problems with the D2X..

1) Its incompatible with railworks 2012. I can use third party drivers to make it work (which completely disables EAX2).

I know its not the latest 3D title but its probably the main game I play.

2) I am writing an emulator, when I play back wav files with the D2X about 30% of the time it cuts the sample off after around 1/3 of a second.

I spent 7 hours yesterday looking for a bug which didn't exist. Play the emu on any other sound card such as AC97 onboard or the X-Fi and its fine.

I love the D2X but for the price of sound card its buggy. I am also getting random crashes of milkdrop (winamp visualiser) after changing to the D2X.

I want to avoid creative because of certain driver issues, but mostly after the debacle where they threatened to sue the guy who wrote working drivers for them (daniel someone?).

I just find it hard to believe that there are only two manufacturers of a mid->high end sound card.

Ive seen some Auzentech (i think thats the name) cards which look nice, but I am wary of the c-media chips as that's what the asus uses.

 

[MagicPants]

HT Omega would be another option, they do the Claro line of cards. There's also M-Audio but I think they are getting out of the sound card business.

I used to hate my x-fi titanium, then about 2 years ago, creative started sponsoring openAL and all my driver issues went away.

 

[gamerk316]

I have two problems with the D2X..

1) Its incompatible with railworks 2012. I can use third party drivers to make it work (which completely disables EAX2).

I know its not the latest 3D title but its probably the main game I play.

Highly unlikely, since most all the audio processing is done via the OS now. GX mode enabled or disabled? Game just might not play nice with teh Directsound wrapper enabled...

2) I am writing an emulator, when I play back wav files with the D2X about 30% of the time it cuts the sample off after around 1/3 of a second.

I spent 7 hours yesterday looking for a bug which didn't exist. Play the emu on any other sound card such as AC97 onboard or the X-Fi and its fine.

Question: If you play back the wav files outside said emulator, do they work fine? If so, its the emulator. [Welcome to the world of non-standardized hardware support]. GX mode could also be mucking things up...

I used the D2 [the PCI varient of the D2X] for years without issue, and I've had zero problems with my ASUS Xonar Xense.

Worst case. you can give the Xonar Unified Drivers a try and see if that helps.

 

[PGRacer]

Yeah its wav files its not happy with. Even playing them back with winamp causes the issue.

 

[gamerk316]

Huh...interesting.

Just for kicks, if you have the card intalled, can you post a screenshot of the ASUS Control Center; might be able to pick up if something isn't set up right. I've used lossless .wav formats before, and didn't have a problem...

 

[Demon slayer]

HT Omega would be another option, they do the Claro line of cards. There's also M-Audio but I think they are getting out of the sound card business.

I used to hate my x-fi titanium, then about 2 years ago, creative started sponsoring openAL and all my driver issues went away.

Have you tried them M audio AV40s per chance ?

 

[megamanx00]

Ah yes, the DainelK incident. I stopped buying creative anything after that. Before that I would always buy their stuff and even bought 4.1 creative speakers. Anyway.....

Not too many choices for dedicated sound cards with onboard audio doing so well and using proportionally less system resources. There's the M-Audio Delta Audiophile and the Auzentech cards though I don't own any myself so I couldn't tell ya .

 

[Demon slayer]

Ah yes, the DainelK incident. I stopped buying creative anything after that. Before that I would always buy their stuff and even bought 4.1 creative speakers. Anyway.....

Not too many choices for dedicated sound cards with onboard audio doing so well and using proportionally less system resources. There's the M-Audio Delta Audiophile and the Auzentech cards though I don't own any myself so I couldn't tell ya .

On board Audio is not "doing well" as you have stated you might want to restate that.

 

[megamanx00]

On board Audio is not "doing well" as you have stated you might want to restate that.

No, I don't want to. I remember when on board audio was so crappy computer makers would throw in a dedicated sound card on all but the cheapest models. Onboard audio has become much more prevalent and the quality of on board audio in motherboards has risen to the point that it's good enough for most users. If it wasn't the case more sound cards would be sold. True dedicated sound cards are generally going to produce better analog sound than on board audio, but only serious audiophiles are going to appreciate it. CPUs have also become so powerful that the performance penalty for the extra CPU cycles most on board audio requires is rather insignificant.

 

[Demon slayer]

No, I don't want to. I remember when on board audio was so crappy computer makers would throw in a dedicated sound card on all but the cheapest models. Onboard audio has become much more prevalent and the quality of on board audio in motherboards has risen to the point that it's good enough for most users. If it wasn't the case more sound cards would be sold. True dedicated sound cards are generally going to produce better analog sound than on board audio, but only serious audiophiles are going to appreciate it. CPUs have also become so powerful that the performance penalty for the extra CPU cycles most on board audio requires is rather insignificant.

Well lets not muck it all up but #1 just because onboard used to hiss, crackle, pop, and out right just quit working all together does not mean that it is now good or even aceptable quality just because it does not have said problems anymore and you can here sounds. #2 any relatively modern CPU purchased in the past 3 years will not have a problem running any sound configuration heck even an Intel Atom will run any sound config with 0 issues. The CPU cycles and sound issue was a thing of the past in the days of Pentium 4 and prior.