Diamond MX300 support for Win2K

[Goi]

Hi guys...
I'm just wondering if any of you have success running an MX300 under Win2K or XP? There are beta, unsupported drivers around, but I they aren't well documented. I'm thinking of adding my MX300 to a new system I'm building for my dad, rather than using the onboard sound...please don't suggest another cheap soundcard like the Creative SB Live! or something...since we're trying to keep this within a budget, so its either the MX300 or onboard sound. And Win2K is almost the confirmed OS...

Thanks!

 

[Adul]

works ok under windows XP actually. MS wrote a driver for it if i am not mistaken. At least I think I have it right,

 

[Goi]

Thanks Adul, that was quick...what about Win2K though?

 

[Zoinks]

http://www.vortexofsound.com

(I don't know if the links still work)

 

[Goi]

Thanks Zoinks...I already know of that site, and have downloaded the appropriate drivers. I was just asking if anyone has it working?

 

[Goi]

Wow, good news. I just did a fresh install of Win2K on the new system, with the MX300 plugged in. Without even running any driver installation, Win2K picked up and supported the MX300 right off the bat! It works so far - tested wav and CD sound functionality, but not anything A3D yet...don't think I'll need that with the system anyway.

 

[ganesha]

I just threw my old MX300 into my fiancee's brother's old IBM Craptiva. Sound's great with XP but his AMD K6III 550MHz chip is struggling a bit with 30% CPU utilization just playing MP3's w/ winamp.

 

[Goi]

Ganeesha, great to see this old horse still working like a champ
Anyway, it isn't really the soundcard's fault for the high CPU utilization. MP3 decoders are typically software based codecs, and I don't know of that many cards that provide hardware MP3 decoding. The MX300 definitely isn't one of them anyway...one thing you could try is disabling the graphical equalizer display in the main Winamp window, as well as the scrolling text and other eye-candy. I find that on my Celeron 850, with all these eye-candy, my CPU utlization is around 4-5%, but without them, its less than 1%...the difference might be more pronounced on a slower system such as your case.