I recently bought a Creative Sound Blaster Live! 24-bit internal sound card and it worked fine for most things such as listening to music. However, when I tried to use it with EAX in games such as Far Cry it would work for a few seconds then suddenly a loud "SCREEECH" noise would burst out of the speakers that would die out after a few seconds and cause the sound to become silent. I tried to find a solution for this problem but to no avail. Everywhere I searched just had people complaining about the same problem. I tried to ask in the Creative forums but they were already filled with people complaining about the same issues. However, people wern't just complaining about the same product. It seems like all of their sound cards are having the same problems and Creative isn't doing anything to fix it. I tried google but I just found information about the "screech of death" but no way to fix it.
Anyway, after searching for hours for a solution I eventually gave up and I returned it. Now I'm confused about what I am susposed to buy for a sound card mainly because I'm used to using Creative's sound cards.
I would go buy another card but I really like using soundfonts and I like EAX. I know there are other cards that support EAX but is there a way to use soundfonts on non-creative cards? I tried searching on google but all I found were tools and plugins for people who compose music. I don't use soundblaster's soundfonts to make music. I use them for games that use MIDI music. I play a lot of small 2D freeware games and old PC games that use MIDI and on most soundcards MIDI sounds like.. well.. crap. However with soundfonts I was able to change that by combining various soundfonts and MIDI instruments. If I buy a non-creative soundcard I won't be able to control how the MIDI files sound like.
I really liked using that feature and because of that I'm in sort of a dilema. If I buy a different brand other than creative, I won't have the same features as I did before, but if I try to use Creative's cards I'm most likely going to run into problems again with that screech of death problem that a lot of people are having.
I'm not sure what to do. Anyone have any advice?
edit: btw, I forgot to mention but I tried to return the card and use a different creative card and ran into similar problems. A lot of people at the Creative forums seem to be having the same problems (such as loud screech noises).
edit 2: I guess I wasn't clear on what I'm asking. Bascially I want to know whats a good soundcard to use other than creative/soundblaster and if there is a way to play midi files with soundfonts without soundblaster.
Thanks in advance.
Anyway, after searching for hours for a solution I eventually gave up and I returned it. Now I'm confused about what I am susposed to buy for a sound card mainly because I'm used to using Creative's sound cards.
I would go buy another card but I really like using soundfonts and I like EAX. I know there are other cards that support EAX but is there a way to use soundfonts on non-creative cards? I tried searching on google but all I found were tools and plugins for people who compose music. I don't use soundblaster's soundfonts to make music. I use them for games that use MIDI music. I play a lot of small 2D freeware games and old PC games that use MIDI and on most soundcards MIDI sounds like.. well.. crap. However with soundfonts I was able to change that by combining various soundfonts and MIDI instruments. If I buy a non-creative soundcard I won't be able to control how the MIDI files sound like.
I really liked using that feature and because of that I'm in sort of a dilema. If I buy a different brand other than creative, I won't have the same features as I did before, but if I try to use Creative's cards I'm most likely going to run into problems again with that screech of death problem that a lot of people are having.
I'm not sure what to do. Anyone have any advice?
edit: btw, I forgot to mention but I tried to return the card and use a different creative card and ran into similar problems. A lot of people at the Creative forums seem to be having the same problems (such as loud screech noises).
edit 2: I guess I wasn't clear on what I'm asking. Bascially I want to know whats a good soundcard to use other than creative/soundblaster and if there is a way to play midi files with soundfonts without soundblaster.
Thanks in advance.