Need sound card advice.........

[Navy Chief]

Ok shipmates, I need some advice.

I have used Creative sound cards for years; not without problems. When they work, they work fantastic! The problem is lately, I have had problems with them, as I am running Vista 64. Although I am almost to the point of changing over to Windows 7, I am not quite there yet.

So what I need input on is what OTHER brand of sound card to "y'all" recommend?

I have a 5.1 surround sound system, with a Creative DTS decoder. I am not hard set on using the decoder though, if the sound is good enough.

Any suggestions?

Thanks.

Pete

 

[PRB]

Good question, Pete. I've used the "on board" sound that comes with the mother board for my latest computer, which I have had for some time. Haven't bought an actual sound card in some years, although I did buy an Edirol sound interface device (USB2 out) for listening to music from the PC.

 

[harleyman]

Take it out , put in box..Use your On Board...

Creative drivers are horrible..many times if you use their newest drivers you get corruption and lousy sound..

Roll back to the earliest ones you can find

 

[Wing_Z]

Take it out , put in box..Use your On Board...

You could also disable the onboard sound and run everything through the PC speaker... :d

I agree the low-end cards aren't worth the effort, and the drivers can be temperamental.
But good sound more than doubles my flightsim pleasure - I have some stonking sound packs, it just opens a new dimension to hear a Merlin reproduced with good fidelity.

Not to mention, how d'you listen to music on a rubbish system?
If budget dictates, I'd go looking for a good used previous-best of the range sound card.
I'm not sure Creative has any competition, however.

But switching from V***a will probably solve all your problems anyway.

 

[Willy]

Last separate sound card I tried was a Sound Blaster Audigy and my framerates dropped from the onboard sound. So I pulled the card and put it in my wife's comp. Been using onboard sound ever since.

 

[MaddogK]

I had nothing good to say about my SB Live 5.1 untill I started using a 3rd party driver for the Audigy. Been 5 years now and I still use it (3rd compy since I purchased it). Seems creative was so steamed about this guys drivers unlocking some primo features they decided to sue, but I havent heard anything in a couple years about it. Who knows if those drivers work on the newer windows versions, but it rocks in XP, and in DOS. I use it mainly for the gameport, but occasionally I'll use it to program my synth.

 

[Moparmike]

I've been using on-board sound chipsets for so many years I almost forgot how much fun it was to get those pesky Creative Labs drivers working (back in the Win98 days). I haven't used any extra add-on sound cards in years so I'm not of much assistance...

My latest rig has 7.1 on-board but I'm still running just a plain old 2.1 speaker set at the apartment (so I don't irritate the neighbors too badly).
Back at the farm I used to run my comp's sound output into a 5.1 home receiver with a nice big old 8" powered sub and some healthy home audio speakers. Great sound...and I miss it too.