strictly gaming sound card

[xcoldricex]

What's the best gaming sound card to get with 4 speaker support? I'm planning on getting a Midiman 2496 for everything else and have a separate sound card for gaming. Running it to Klipsch Promedia v.2-400s. mx400? santa cruz? acoustic edge?

 

[SaturnX]

All I know that if you want a sound card for gaming only, don't use the Acoustic Edge, it has great sound quality, but it is more CPU dependent than for example an SB Live, which does then affect your FPS etc.. Haven't tried the other cards though.

--Mark

 

[Buddha Bart]

having two sound cards in one computer is so annoying it might as well be impossible. In fact I never really got it to work, so it may be impossible.

bart

 

[bacillus]

<< so it may be impossible >>


it is possible having seen it work with a sb live &amp; an older creative soundcard(can't remember exactly which one)!

 

[Dufusyte]

The best gaming sound is A3D on a Vortex2 chip by Aureal.

btw, the MX300 is better than the MX400. The MX300 has the vortex2 chip, but for various business reasons, Diamond stopped doing business with Aureal, and had to use a different (inferior) company's ship in the MX400.

The Aureal chips do not have workable drivers for Win2000 though. Keep that in mind.

 

[nortexoid]

uh, there does exists aureal vortex 2 reference drivers for win2k, which do work....

as for the rest of what you said, i totally agree...a3d 2.0 (emaphsis on 2.0) is by far the best implementation of positional 3d audio on the market...everything else for gaming is inferior...

the mx400 would be my last choice of those u listed...in order, i believe these to be the best for gaming...

1) Aureal SQ2500 w/ digital out (or other vortex 2 chipset based cards - ie.. mx300)
2) Turtble Beach Santa Cruz
3) Acoustic Edge
4) any other four channel sound card

 

[Trashman]

An Aureal soundcard and Klipsch ProMedia's......dats gotta rock!!...a setup like that can't be beat.

 

[xcoldricex]

i was just throwing out some names i've been hearing... any suggestions will do. and i am running win2k so hopefully that doesn't cause any crazy problems.

 

[Vrangel]

A3D 2.0 does not work in win2k.
They never finished wi2k drivers
and apparently never will...

 

[twong82]

Aureal or the Santa Cruz

 

[limsandy]

You got your hard earned cash.
You want to get the best gaming sound card that supports 4 channel speakers.
Well, get the best of all, get Sound Blaster Live! Platinum 5.1

 

[LXi]

For Win9x, Vortex2. For Win2K, SantaCruz or SB Live!.

 

[Mem]

SBlive Value 1024 OEM,it`s excellent for gaming, it`s not the best sound quality wise, but still good,supports 4 speakers &amp; you get excellent driver support,for general gaming you don`t really need anything else.

 

[xcoldricex]

A3D 2.0 won't work in win2k? is this certain? :\
I actually have a SBLive! Platinum right now, i'm selling it to pay for half of my Midiman 2496. So i don't exactly feel like paying another 200 for a SBLive! Platinum 5.1 that i'll be using for just games.. although that live drive has a lot of inputs that i'd use...

 

[Leo V]

Whoa, you didn't tell us that! Then you're basically &quot;downgrading&quot; from Platinum to a cheaper card. If you actually use your LiveDrive, maybe this is the card you should keep for games.

 

[xcoldricex]

yeah, but i'm probably selling it to my friend cause i'm buying so much crap (because of this lovely forum....) anyway, i've been hearing a lot of 'better' things about other cards for gaming than the platinum- so i figured it'd be a more cost effective way to sell the platinum, buy a midiman 2496, and add another strictly gaming card. Are Live Drive II's compatible with the normal Platinum? Those things cost a bundle by themselves though.. hmmm.

 

[Vrangel]

Quote from Santa Cruz review on 3dsoundsurge.com
regarding 3d gaming performance:

&quot; It?s on par with the A3D engine and significantly better than the Live&quot;

Win2k drivers are on voyetra website.

 

[xcoldricex]

i looked at the review of the santa cruz on 3dsoundsurge and it shows that its behind the live in most things- except that the live would complete stop the game sometimes. (although that is probably fixed by now- i know i haven't experienced it with this platinum card). So let me get this straight- is the vortex2 and a3d 2.0 different or the same? and what's supported in win2k? So Aureal SQ2500, MX300, Santa Cruz, or Live!?

 

[Vrangel]

In win2k SQ2500, MX300 or any other Vortex2 card
will not give you A3D sound . Its not implemented
in beta drivers. Works great in win98 ,but not in win2k.

EDIT
You asked about gaming only. Review states that
Santa Cruz 3d gaming sound is better than Live.

 

[duragezic]

Santa Cruz or Philips Acoustic Edge.

 

[nam ng]

A3D 2.0 and all the 3D sound demos do work in W2K or Win9x without any problems, even allowed hardware EQ, had always worked since RC3 though currently I used latest W2K's 59 driver. Neither Half Life nor FAKK complaint under W2k as an example.

 

[Supradude]

yeah, funny people are mentioning incompatability with win 2k, i have a Xitel Storm Platinum on Aureal Vortex 2 on win ME, and my roomie has a Aureal Vortex 2 based card as well on win 2k... we got drivers from vortexofsound.com and both our systems are running fine on them...

 

[nam ng]

Probably because Vortex2 users without any problems not complaining about it so non_vortex2_users had no ideas.... No crackles, no pop, no hangs, nothing

 

[xcoldricex]

dang this is extremely confusing. some people say it'll work and some don't. but the bottom line is that the aureal SQ2500 IS the best gaming sound card out there? and it supposedly does work under win2k? good enough to replace a platinum

 

[nam ng]

There're only 2 things of most important in installing a Vortex2 card for proper working condition, which are --- the motherboard has a PCI bus-master slot available and assigned IRQ5 to the sound card.... THAT'S IT, you can run afterward with shared IRQs (ACPI) within window or not it won't make any difference.