Why not just buy some gameport to USB adapters? That has been covered several times on this board and by all accounts they work pretty good. Then you don't have a need for extra sound cards being installed in the computer.
I've used three different brands of USB to Gameport adapters, and they are ..... okay.
They all use an analog-to-digital converter that's baked into some chip built into the converter, and it isn't terribly precise. I *think* they are all 6-bit or 7-bit converters, so they reduce the range of travel down to around 100 data points along each axis, as opposed to many times that for a native gameport.
Additionally, the adapters only provide power after the windows driver loads, so if your joystick also has a keyboard connector, only half the joystick is getting power at bootup. Right after I tried one of these adapters (along with a USB to PS2 adapter), I fried a WCS Mk II. Now to be fair, the WCS was more than a decade old, and maybe it would have failed on its own anyway, and maybe it was the PS2 adapter causing the problem, but since then I don't let my Thrustmaster gear anywhere near the USB adapters.
There is also some doubt that the CH Programmer is able to correctly send the programming to the stick with the USB to Gameport adapter, but not owning any CH sticks, I haven't been able to test.
Honestly, the solution is to get a good gameport on a good soundcard. I've used both an Audigy LS and Audigy 2 ZS in Windows XP and Vista with my TM gear without problems. The only wrinkle here is using 2 soundcards at the same time.
-Llama
