2 sound cards at once?

[papasmurf]

is it possible to have windows use two sound cards at the same time? I have a sound blaster live which I have my speakers plugged into and I would like to use my onboard sound at the same time so I can plug my headphones into it, I can switch between them for certain tasks but I wish there was a way tou use them both at the same time. does any one know how to do this, maybe there is a program or something?

Life . A sexually transmitted disease which afflicts some people more severly than others.

 

[ritesh_laud]

is it possible to have windows use two sound cards at the same time?

Sure, but they can't use the same resources (except maybe IRQ which can be shared between PCI devices). You can often manipulate resources for the cards within Device Manager. I'm currently running two cards in my machine: SB Audigy and SB AWE32. They co-exist perfectly and I can choose either one to play sound in Windows. Of course the AWE32 is from around 1993 and has crappy sound quality so I only use it for DOS games, for which the Audigy has major compatibility issues.

You may have to use a switch (available at Radio Shack) to switch between the outputs. Or you can simply direct one sound card's output into the Line In of your other one, then mess with the Line In controls on your mixer when you wish to use one or the other. Personally I have to use a combination of both techniques because I have two additional devices hanging off the AWE32: a Roland SCD-15 daughtercard and a Roland MT-32 external MIDI module. The back of my computer's a mess of spaghetti wiring but it actually all works fine.

Ritesh

<P ID="edit"><FONT SIZE=-1><EM>Edited by ritesh_laud on 08/30/02 10:41 AM.</EM></FONT></P>

 

[papasmurf]

I got it figured out, I go into sound n control panel and switch to my onboard when I need to use headphones, makes it much easier than unpluging my speakers and hunching over to make the cable reach lol, I am worried that having my onboard sound running is eating up cpu cycles though.

Life . A sexually transmitted disease which afflicts some people more severly than others.