People just dont read what i write....I used the Live 5.1 then the Audigy for over 9 months each. I am now fully converted to GTXP. As i carefully stated in previous posts, Advanced HD and massive Reverb is overrated. 1. because its rarly positioned properly by the audigy. 2. because massive reverb which is used to create these effects is not realistic sounding, it sounds downright funky. IF your an effects junky then by all means buy the audigy, just dont mistake it for high quality sound output. Its got alot of sound output for sure..but no where near as fine as the GTXP. I prefer the GTXP cause it sounds more realistic. It translates the sound clearer and better posisioned, which is more important to me than massive reverb and Advanced HD effects. Having played all but the very latest on both cards (the only one i havnt being SoF2, which, btw, sounds great on the GTXP) i can honestly say that i prefer the GTXP. If you wanna claim i'm some sort of biased freak spreading misinformation then your misinformed, i was fanatical about the audigy and loved it immensely until i found out for myself just how biased i was. Havning compared the two side by side, i no longer find i can enjoy the audigy's sound. Its harsh, its not well positioned, its effects are way overdone. And, its software install is indeed about 250MB unless your an "advanced user" who can go in and ajust it so you only install the bare minimums. Granted, we here are all more than advanced users(i hope). However, it remains true, the default audigy install is huge.
And just waht the heck is being implied now? That SC and GTXP users have to constantly upgrade their drivers for every new game? You can eat that if thats what your implying. At least we get driver updates...someone's been suckered into thinking no updates is a good thing. I've had to upgrade entire cards when i was with creative because they could care less about backwards compatibility.
I didn't have any technical problems with my audigy at all...but it did hog resources compared to other cards. Hogging resources is comparitive, not an absolute. If there were something even better then i could perhaps say GTXP hogs resources, at the time however, these cards are at the top. Fact: resource hungry games run better on GTXP/SC than on Audigy. Fact: Advanced HD EAX is a massive resource hog compared to anything else i can think of.
If you already own an audigy and love it and arent a sound quality nerd, stick with it, its a good card, no doubt about that, its second place in my book and thats quite high up. If you love games and sound quality though, you should at least give the SC/GTXP another look, it does have quality in at least a few areas that definitely surpasses the Audigy. If your addicted to reverb though, stay with the audigy, all reverb does is cover up the bad positioning. 3D effects come across very realistically on the GTXP so don't say the GTXP is lacking there, its not, its just not overdone.
The itsy bitsy spider climbed up the empires state building, along came goblin, wiped the spider out