to hell with creative, i need a new soundcard

[delirium]

after much installing/uninstalling, switching pci slots, etc., i've had it with my live card. i keep getting popping sounds with any audio and i've tried all of the "fixes" (pci latency patch, not sharing any irqs, removing lan card & cards near the live card). so, what i would like help with is knowing which non-creative card would be best for me. i have my 600+ cd collection all on mp3 as well as watching dvds & tivoed shows through my tv-tuner, so music and video audio is very important to me, yet i am also a very big gamer, so game compatablility is an issue too. i've heard good things about santa cruz, but how is game compatability? i've had good luck with hercules video cards, do their soundcards have the same quality? or can anyone point me to a site that has done comparisons of the various cards? or *shutter* would a audigy2 not have the same problem as my current live card?

sys specs:
athlon xp 2100+
asus a7v8x (w/ all options)
512mb corsair xms pc2700 cas 2.0
geforce 2 gts 32mb
sb live-gamer(soon to be out of here)
ati tv-wonder
3 hdds, dvd-rom, & cd-rw drive

 

[4Ryan6]

Creative Cards I've Owned used and tested for myself, PCI 128, PCI 512, SB Live 5.1, SB Audigy Gamer, I finally wised up and tried the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, Creative makes good paperweights, and I would go as far as to say, that the Audigy 2 is probably an attempt on their part, to actually try to make right, some of their past, false, product performance claims. Get yourself a TBSC Soundcard, I promise you, you won't be disapointed, and I won't have to eat these words. Ryan




Details, Details, Its all in the Details, If you need help, Don't leave out the Details.

 

[Black_Cat]

Yeah! Down with Creative! Get a TBSC or Hercules Game Theater. You'll be extremely happy.

To start press any key. Where's the "any" key? --Homer Simpson.

 

[4Ryan6]

Hey Black Cat how've you been, did you get your slotket problem solved? Ryan




Details, Details, Its all in the Details, If you need help, Don't leave out the Details.

 

[r2k]

Check the thorough sound card comparison on <A HREF="http://www.tech-report.com/reviews/2002q2/soundcards/index.x?pg=1" target="_new">Tech-report</A>. They do sound quality comparison for music and games (refer to pages 13, 14 and 15). IMHO it's a great review with few points if any missing.

 

[Black_Cat]

did you get your slotket problem solved?

Let us never speak of this again.

It all started with a phone call from my sister demanding I upgrade her current Abit BH-6/PII 400 to something that my 8 year old neice could use to play 3D FPS's. Meanwhile, she never fully paid me for that system! Being the good uncle that I am I "sold" her my beloved P4S533 with my 1.6 oc'd to 2.3 with my old Radeon 8500. She paid me what she owed me plus $100. I was shocked to even get that. So now my neice is happily fragging the hell out of people 3 times her age.

The slotket "problem" was of my own doing. To make a long story short I figured since I had the BH-6 I would get a slotket and a Tully and see how much I could overclock it. I was too cheap to buy a PowerLeap with the voltage regulator so I bought a $10 CompUSA special.

To make a long story short, after intense research, hours of reading and a lot of help from a now laughing Crashman I destroyed the slotket, broke a pin off the processor, soldered it back on, picked up a POS MSI 694T Pro mobo cheap and prayed that the Tully survived. Surprisingly it did and oddly enough is completely stable! This is the board I'm currently using.

I picked up an 800MHz coppermine not knowing for sure if I completely destroyed the slotket. Upon confirmation of the total destruction of the slotket I was left with the coppermine. I went to a show and picked up a mini ATX mobo cheap and put it in an old Gateway mini ATX tower I had lying around. I figured I would get rid of two things at once. I had to modify that case because none of the leads would reach. So after I broke the reset button and replaced it with one that didn't quite fit (epoxy is good stuff to have around) I sold that system and broke even.

Well, my short story turned into a long and painful reliving of a very traumatic time in my life. In retrospect all I lost was time. Approximately 8 hours of time! So now I sit here and wait patiently for the P4 with HT.

The End... for now. I still have the BH-6. :lol:

To start press any key. Where's the "any" key? --Homer Simpson.

 

[4Ryan6]

The problems you ran into were definitely serious bummers, but you have triumphed and survived computer hell this time. Working on computers can really be a lot of fun when things go right, that Crashman is a wizard isn't he, he's probably forgotten more than I'll ever know, and he doesn't mind letting you know it either. Well its nice to bump into you out here in THGC every now and then, glad everythings up and solid, hope it stays that way, catch you later. Ryan




Details, Details, Its all in the Details, If you need help, Don't leave out the Details.

 

[tigershark]

I'm in the same situation. I've had it with my SB Live! going into some infinite loop and freezing up my games (or real audios or netmeetings or Windows sounds or...).

I want to make sure, however, that the card I get has full DOS support because I still like some very old games, and for those games, the AWE64 sounded WAY better. Something to do with the Live only having DOS emulation, which the old games don't use, so they downgrade to MIDI (YUCK!).

The other important feature is digital output. I have Cambridge Soundworks FPS 2000 5 point surround sound speaker system, so I want to maximize their power.

Do these two criteria favor any particular card(s) or rule out others?

<A HREF="http://perlprogrammer.net" target="_new">PerlProgrammer</A> :: <A HREF="http://modperldev.com" target="_new">ModPerlDev</A>

 

[4Ryan6]

The TBSC can definitely handle your needs! Ryan
I also have the Cambridge system.




Details, Details, Its all in the Details, If you need help, Don't leave out the Details.