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Vista gaming sound card

I

imported_MadHatter

Member
Creative's latest X-Fi drivers get the distinct honor of giving me my very first Vista blue screen...and that's using Vista on 4 different machines with varying hardware over the past year. I've had it with their piece of $hit drivers, randomly cutting out, deciding that the rear left speaker is actually my front right and then randomly correcting itself.

Someone please tell me there is an alternative for gaming in Vista in surround sound. Please!

EDIT
After posting this I realized this might be better suited for the PC gaming forum. Sorry if this is the wrong area.
 
I have Logitech Z-5300 and Turtlebeach HDA2 surround sound headphones. I'm certain they are connected correctly. I went from XP to vista and that's when all my audio troubles started. Some drivers fix the problem, but then they introduce new ones. I thought the latest drivers solved my problems, but then I got the blue screen, sigh. No budget
 
Originally posted by: MadHatter
I have Logitech Z-5300 and Turtlebeach HDA2 surround sound headphones. I'm certain they are connected correctly. I went from XP to vista and that's when all my audio troubles started. Some drivers fix the problem, but then they introduce new ones. I thought the latest drivers solved my problems, but then I got the blue screen, sigh.
Click to expand...

I would personally go with the HT OMEGA Claro for that set of speakers. I wouldn't spend the money on the Claro plus+ as I don't think you would notice the difference on them.
 
I removed my Audigy and used my onboard a couple years ago and haven't missed it at all. Might want to give yours a try and see if it suffices.
 
unfortunately with gaming you're stuck with EAX and only creative has EAX 3-5 i think so you're kind of stuck in Creative's monopoly of EAX until computer games start going Dolby digital and beyond, which not many of them do.
 
Originally posted by: narzy
unfortunately with gaming you're stuck with EAX and only creative has EAX 3-5 i think so you're kind of stuck in Creative's monopoly of EAX until computer games start going Dolby digital and beyond, which not many of them do.
Click to expand...

with vista, eax is irrelevant.

op, myself and others are very happy with cards based on the c-media 8788 chip. pricey, but good.
 
Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
Originally posted by: narzy
unfortunately with gaming you're stuck with EAX and only creative has EAX 3-5 i think so you're kind of stuck in Creative's monopoly of EAX until computer games start going Dolby digital and beyond, which not many of them do.
Click to expand...

with vista, eax is irrelevant.

op, myself and others are very happy with cards based on the c-media 8788 chip. pricey, but good.
Click to expand...

With Vista, EAX and Creative are particularly relevant. Asus may finally offer an alternative with EAX5 emulation but if you don't know how important ALchemy/OpenAL are in Vista you simply don't care enough about gaming sound to know any better.
 
Originally posted by: chizow
Originally posted by: The Boston Dangler
Originally posted by: narzy
unfortunately with gaming you're stuck with EAX and only creative has EAX 3-5 i think so you're kind of stuck in Creative's monopoly of EAX until computer games start going Dolby digital and beyond, which not many of them do.
Click to expand...

with vista, eax is irrelevant.

op, myself and others are very happy with cards based on the c-media 8788 chip. pricey, but good.
Click to expand...

With Vista, EAX and Creative are particularly relevant. Asus may finally offer an alternative with EAX5 emulation but if you don't know how important ALchemy/OpenAL are in Vista you simply don't care enough about gaming sound to know any better.
Click to expand...

CoD4 has no EAX, and the DDL gives an outstanding sound.
 
I'm pretty sure with Vista they've removed the need (and the ability to use) hardware accelerated audio.

I'm personally happy with the integrated audio on my nForce chipset motherboard. I have a feeling that a good soundcard will only give you a good SNR at this point if you're running Vista.
 
Originally posted by: SickBeast
I'm pretty sure with Vista they've removed the need (and the ability to use) hardware accelerated audio.

I'm personally happy with the integrated audio on my nForce chipset motherboard. I have a feeling that a good soundcard will only give you a good SNR at this point if you're running Vista.
Click to expand...

Pretty much. I occasionally get some distortion with my Onboard, but other than that I haven't noticed any differences. I still get good quality for Music and even good positioning in Games. I'm using WinXP 64 and on top of pretty much equivalent sound quality, I also don't have to deal with Creative's crappy Drivers anymore.
 
Aren't there Vista drivers for Creatives cards that some guy wrote? I heard they actually work. They're the ones that the VP of Creative pulled down.
 
The most advanced game engines tend to utilize OpenAL and the hardware acceleration and effects capabilities of Creative DSPs remain operational in Vista. DirectSound3D can be translated to run in hardware. There is no doubt that they remain the best if not only true game cards up to XP and the only question is whether adoption of OpenAL will continue so that they remain particularly relevant.

OpenAL seems to be a Good Thing for end-users yet other hardware companies are not on board, as 'twere, and at the same time the transition to an open standard for effects would be preferable to EAX. So, alas, we are still stuck inbetwixt the necessity of proprietary gear on one hand and the lack of features (and lower quality experience) on t'other.
 
I know it varies from board to board, but are there any boards with digital 5.1 output or only analog? I want to have 5.1 sound from both my computer and an external DVD player?
 
I bought one of the Razer Ac-1's that were on Woot yesterday. Seems like it's a pretty decent card based on a couple of reviews that I read. Supposedly it doesn't require system memory and gives you more fps in games. One review I read said there was ~200 megs of memory free vs onboard but as for the fps increase looking at the benchmarks it was only ~2 fps average.

I've been using a Creative live 4.1 card for the last couple years. I dabbled with onboard (AC650) for awhile but it never really sounded as good as the live. I was thinking of getting a new creative but thier drivers and support are too horrible to deal with.
 
Almost everything, including motherboard solutions, will have a digital output. That same plug may also be used as a pair of analog channels, so you will need to enable the digital output in the sound software/drivers.
 
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