Im buying a new sound card. But which one?

[Kraythe]

I just looked in my computer and noticed that I have a Diamond Mx300 sound card. I doubt Ive updated that sucker in 4 years or more. Whats good out there ? I dont knwo sound cards well and could use some advice.

What do you think I should buy (money not being a prob) and why?

[Hellsfire123]

Sound blaster audigy's are good. Speaking of which i should look into new drivers for that thing.

[Kraythe]

What setting in game do you use with your audiolgy?

[Hellsfire123]

lol default. Never botherd to learn much about sound cards, so all i screw with in that section is volume. Its a great card though, solved all my problems with CS sounds not playing over MP3's.

[phadE]

i would get a turtle beach santa cruz. sound quality is great, and there not to pricey.

[Raven15]

I second the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz idea. It doesn't support some of the EAX stuff as well as the Audigy does, but the Santa Cruz also doesn't make my box randomly bluescreen like the Audigy did.

I called Creative's tech support, and they knew what the bug was, they just refused to issue a patch for it. Creative makes shit. Buying an Audigy from them totally poisoned my opinion of them. Stay away from it at all costs.

[spideygut]

I would have to disagree with you Raven15. I have a Creative Audigy Gamer and it works great. Ive never have had a problem with it all. The software is great too. Creative play center is much better for playing MP3 then window media player. It easier to organize and sound better to. The card also comes with a firewire port too. Id recomend it to anyone

[Raven15]

Maybe the Audigy 2 works better, and maybe it was just an issue with my mobo or something, but I just hate Creative so much now that I'll never buy anything from them again. Ever. Seriously, save yourself the trouble and buy something from a company that gives a shit about its customers, because Creative sure as hell doesn't.

[d3ath4u]

I have a mad dog 6 channel sound card with logitech 5.1 speakers. Unfortunatly, i havent set it up yet. But i think there ok.

[NoYes]

sound blaseter live! value for sure, super super cheap and anything better want give u any advantages for just gaming, audigy's aren't worth the cost at all for most gamers.

[JonnyK]

i have on board audio with my nvida nforce mb, is that good enough? it sounds just fine. just wondering if it's shit or not

[Baphomet]

Originally posted by JonnyK
i have on board audio with my nvida nforce mb, is that good enough? it sounds just fine. just wondering if it's shit or not

Well.. if it sounds fine.... :)

[Kraythe]

Well .. as long as you dont need ANY software support. Software support will slow down the game for you. That is what im trying to avoid.

Problem with Audiology is that Im kind of interested in the A3d support.

[Raven15]

The Santa Cruz probably isn't such a good choice then. It kinda supports some of that hardware whatnot, but it's just as likely to crash as work right.

[stahl]

I'm not sure where I read that, I think it was somewhere regarding Teamspeak or so, maybe even on the teamspeak web site. Apparently the Santa Cruz seems to have a hardware problem with the mic-in picking up the sound from the line-out or whatever output it's usually using for speakers/headphones, which is really annoying for voice comm. I can't really verify this or anything since I don't have one, but it would be really annoying once PS has voice comm implemented.

The SB Live/Audigy cards aren't perfect either. I always make sure the sound card IRQ isn't shared, and it seems to work fine. Otherwise I get hangs every once in a while, which XP actually resolves though -- after "seemingly" locking up for ooh about 20 seconds. I used to constantly hit the reset button when I just sat there once, and noticed the game actually kept going. I moved the card (SB Live! Gamer) to a diff. slot and it never caused any problems after that.

[Cyanide]

I would go with an Creative labs sound blaster audigy. They have awsome sound quality. Everything supports them fully. I've never heard of them being responsible for causing problems with anything. Creative Labs also has the best support for EAX in games because well, they invented EAX.

Either way you go. Don't make your decision based on the software that comes with the card. Use the drivers but don't install any of the other uneccassary crap. If you need something to play mp3s use Winamp (www.winamp.com). It's free, it's skinable, and it's the best mp3 player available period, free or otherwise.

[Anam Nantom]

Originally posted by Hellsfire123
lol default. Never botherd to learn much about sound cards, so all i screw with in that section is volume. Its a great card though, solved all my problems with CS sounds not playing over MP3's.

That's probably because you didn't have a full duplex card before.. one that records AND plays at the same time. I got a generic card now that is full duplex, it's not bad, at least I can listen to music and play games, right? hehe

[Anam Nantom]

Originally posted by d3ath4u
I have a mad dog 6 channel sound card with logitech 5.1 speakers. Unfortunatly, i havent set it up yet. But i think there ok.

You didn't get that from Office Max did you? Not that anythings wrong with them, they seem decent.. I mean 6.1 channels is nice, but I think perhaps Office Max is a BIG seller of them.. just wondering.

[Cyan8313]

I have a Soundblaster Audigy 2 Platinum and I havent had any prob with it.

Seriously, save yourself the trouble and buy something from a company that gives a shit about its customers, because Creative sure as hell doesn't.
A friend complained to creatives support once and 3 days later he got a DVD player worth 200$ in the mail from them. They do care...


:)

C

[Kraythe]

Thanks for the input. anyone have exp with TerraTec 5.1 ?