Can you run dual sound cards?

[joeryu]

hi, i was wondering if you can run dual sound cards, ie audigy and audiophile 2496. i like the audigy for games, but i want to get the 2496 for music. i run windows xp, can i have it setup so music plays through the 2496, and games play through the audigy? or am i smoking crack for thinking its possible to run 2 sound cards at once 😱 ?

 

[amdskip]

You might be smoking crack😉

J/K, but I really don't think this is possible unless you want to enable/disable a sound card each time you do something through windows control panel.

 

[joeryu]

damn..i guess i better put down that crack pipe 🙁 , would have been nice to have the best of both worlds at the same time...

 

[Baronz]

I know alot of programs let you choose the sound driver, but the majority dont.

Couldn't you just disable the one you arent using, and use the other? or do you want to use them at once? That probably won't be possible.

 

[paralazarguer]

That information is INcorrect. In the mixing system, there is currently an audigy platinum, an echo mia, and a Delta 66. One of the soundcards is set as the primary sound driver. The audigy platinum is set as primary but you can still use the mia and delta for balanced inputs and multitracking.

 

[MSantiago]

Yes, two sound cards should work fine. Just make sure that each card's resources aren't stepping on each other's toes and conflicting. When you want sound to come out of either card, just set up the DirectSound stream to use the device you want.

 

[paralazarguer]

Yeah, you're uh, not even going to need to do that. When you say that you want to use the audigy for games and the 2496 for music I assume that you're going to want the positional audio, eax advanced hd etc of the audigy and the 2596 for recording. That's what it's built for after all. I highly doubt that you have a set of speakers hooked to each card and want to use one to listen to music and the other for game audio :-/
Just make sure that the audigy is set as the primary device and you will be able to use the 2496's inputs to record at 24/96 and multitrack. This is actually a very good arangement since if you need more tracks you can always use the audigy. The Phillips ADC used are actually quite good but you will be stuck with 16/44 because of the DSP. Just make sure you're using an OS that supports ASIO and the app will not care how many sound cards you have installed (cubase for example) but if you're using XP I'm not sure if the 2496's WDM drivers support multitracking or no. At any rate, you can install both of them and there is no need to switch any settings. Unless of course, you actually want to just use the 2596 to listen to music in which case you're throwing your money away and you won't be able to PRACTICALLY do that.