dying sound blaster...


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I have a sound blaster here that appears it's on it's last legs. From the horror stories of VIA and Creative as well as creatives craptacular drivers, what are other good sound card replacements that give the same quality or better that the Live! offers?

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Herculese game theatre XP ... soundblaster audigy ... i have had no problems with soundblaster on via's KT133 chipset, and there are like no problems on the newest chipset KT333.

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Thanks, I haven't really had problems with the SB Live other than driver related issues. It seems creative leaves alot to be desired in driver updates and such. If I can afford an Audigy or SB Live 5.1 I'll go that route. Or if a Hercules is cheaper with same quality of sound I'll go that route.

Right now I'm just looking for other peoples experiences with sound cards in which direction to go.

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Hercu is more expensive. almost twice as expensive as the basic audigy card.

Yes i agree creatives drivers are just awful (easily some of the worst in the industry) but FINALLY after 4 years the drivers are good.

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This is all crap. I m using SBlive for the past two years , No Problems so far. and what r u guys crying for driver updates from creativesaying "they suck". this is crap, what do u mean when u say "worst in the industry" tell me any onther company(audio) which has better driver record than Creative.

just that u dont have anything to download in Sound card section doesnt mean u have to flame that company and talk about changing it just for "No driver updates".

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Actually, Creative DO SUCK. First of all, they still have not fixed the bug which still plauges systems with VIA chipsets (even on my Abit AT7 mobo - KT333 chipset...) even after like 4 or 5 generations of sound cards....

Second of all, their stuff is overpriced and you hardly get any extras with their stuff (for example, ther Creative Geforce 4 ti4600 - you don't get any cables, or analogue to digital adapters). Due to my Cretive card breaking (my own fault), I had to purchase a new Geforce 4. In fact, I purchased a Leadtek Geforce 4 ti4600 Ultra (has two fans instead of one). Not only is it CHEAPER, it comes with many, many extras, including games like Aquanox and Rainbow Six, cables, analogue to digital adapter, etc.

It also has more overclocking capablilties due to the massive heatsink (which encapsulates the board) and fans on the board.

Now, allow me to reitterate some points.

The Creative card was dearer, less overclockable, had less extra stuff, had no games with it, looked less cool, did not have any memory heatsinks, did NOT have two fans.

Straying off the topic here ;)

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Oh yeah, their sound card problem is to do with PCI latency - they refuse to lower it to make it compatible with certain chipsets, even though all the other sound cards have done.

For example.. think about it like this

start of bus

|

card one [64ns latency]

|

card two (Soundblaster X) [128ns latency]

|

card three (Soundblaster X) [64ns latency]

|

end of bus (uh, wheres the data? It should have arrived 64 ns ago? oh well, I'll just have to wait for it, and send the next lot of data from the start of the bus, even tho the CPU cannot cope with that and it causes errors related to sound distortion and DATA distortion from PCI IDE devices (data distortion fixed in VIA KT333))

And Creative Liveware software has alos been found to transfer null bits across the PCI bus for no reason, therefore slowing other devices in the PC down. Liveware also sucks and is SO SO bloated.

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