alternatives to creative?

[.cage]

Anyone got any alternatives to the SB series? To be frank, they're fucking shite.

Thanks

 

[Nos-]

I've got a Hercules Gamesurround Fortissimo II, it's pretty good, drivers are a bit dodgy at times tho.

 

[Miles_Binck]

Originally posted by .cage
Anyone got any alternatives to the SB series? To be frank, they're fucking shite.

Thanks

http://www.komplett.co.uk/k/kl.asp?AvdID=1&CatID=16&GrpID=3&t=867&l=2

Hercules
Terratec

both reputable brands

my choice (other than Creative) would be this

 

[Skyler]

Hercules/Yamaha are usually far superior to SB cards tbh.

 

[Rubber Bullets]

I love my Hercules Game Theater XP. Very cool breakout box makes everything easy to get at, and it has all the connections you could ever want.

Probably agree with Nos- that driver support could be a bit better, but TBH it has never made a big difference to me.

Love my surround sound through my headphones, and mp3s using all my 6 speakers

s

 

[.cage]

Thanks guys

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

Originally posted by Skyler
Hercules/Yamaha are usually far superior to SB cards tbh.

Anything is better than Creative, even those skanky ac97 onboard chips beat them

 

[Nozzer]

Fuck you! Industry standard boy

 

[Embattle]

Hercules suck too, well at least my GTXP did.

Audigy 2 review http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/creativeaudigy2/index.html

The problem with creative, from my point of view, is the lack of any good new drivers for so long. It seems all to often you buy the product and end up waiting at least a year for a good driver to appear.

 

[granny]

What's wrong with creative? I've never had a problem with them... cheap, cheerful, do the job, compatible with everything

 

[S-Gray]

Yeah... ive not had any Serious Trouble with Soundblasters, but i hear the Audigy's can be biatches

 

[dysfunction]

Ive never had a problem with SB drivers

...they work the hardware...what more do you want?

Ive had SB cards since 1991 and never had a problem with sound...

 

[legendario]

Originally posted by Scooba Da Bass


Anything is better than Creative, even those skanky ac97 onboard chips beat them

Audigys look nicer than the ac97 chipset.

 

[xane]

Creative have always had poor driver support, my father's PC had an old 8-bit Soundblaster in it, when I upgraded it to Windows 98 the volume control suddenly dissappeared, and you couldn't enable it any more, apparently the newer drivers discontinued this feature !

I have Aureal Vortex2 cards in two of my machines and they work fine, the 3D sound is way better than Creatives EAX crap, I'm interested in this thread as I may upgrade my sound card soon to prepare for Windows XP as it is unlikely the Aureal will be supported correctly.

 

[granny]

I had no end of trouble with Aureal drivers, they were incompatible with anything and everything, never worked properly and were bug-ridden like nobody's business. Then Aureal went bust so I gave up and went back to Creative and have never had a single problem. Just never install the full suite of software, always just the bare minimum drivers and all is well

 

[FatBusinessman]

Talking of which:

I've got one of these multi-speaker setups which has, as its inputs, line-in, rear-in and SPDIF-in. So far, I haven't been able to find any sound cards which support SPDIF, which is a shame, cos I want the full 5.1 speaker digital-a-rama.

Any suggestions?

 

[Scooba Da Bass]

Uhm, there's literally millions of SpDIF soundcards, if you're just looking for a card to do that I'd get a cheap one and use it solely for surround payback.

 

[FatBusinessman]

Preferably one which will do everything my current one does (3D sound in games, some kind of EAX equivalent, etc)

 

[old.TUG]

Me got a Videologic Sonic Fury aka Turtle Beach Santa Cruz

Cost me next to fuck all (50ish RRP tho!) and is plenty good

 

[Me²]

My Audigy's rear speaker outputs keep turning off and I can't get them back on with uninstalling and reinstalling the drivers

 

[Pro]v[etheus]

I have a SB Live 5.1 and never had any probs with it at all

 

[kryt]

Scooba : ever actually *heard* an ac97 chipset blasting out some high volume music?

No, course you haven't, they ain't capable of it.
Anything over quarter volume on my poxy little cambridge soundwords 4.1 speakers and it fuzzes like merry fuck : that goes for all of em, crank up the volume and you might as well have poured lighter fluid down your lug jugs and lobbed in a match.

The best thing about SB's up to the Live, is support : everything was built to run with the Sound Blaster after adlib died its death. I'm not a fan of the Audigy's. I've built a couple, they can be a pain, but only i found, with AMD/VIA combinations (typical really, what could I have possibly expected).

These days though, it's worth spending just a little more than usual : Hercules' cards are certainly worthy of the penny imo.

For the time being though, my trust Original Sound Blaster Live! will do the job for another year or so yet

 

[Embattle]

My Creative Labs Inspire 5700 are fine loud.

 

[old.D0LLySh33p]

You lie.

 

[Happy Go Lucky]

I still use my sb 128.. still reluctant to upgrade..a few things i'm not sure about.. like creative unified driver set..or I might just get 4.1 speakers and put them on the sb 128.. trouble I only actually use my soundcard to listen to cd's..very happy with my usb ms digital sound system.. but I'd like 4.1 sound at some point for use on games at some point..

what are the nforce drivers like for sound?