new sound board choice ....

[straffo]

I'm actually thinking of replacing my SB "scratch scratch" crap with a Philips Rhythmic Edge OEM

I'm only using it for games with a headset so I don't need fancy 5.1 nor dolby things ...

Is it a good choice or should I put my buck in another card ?

[Staga]

SB-Audigy and Hercules Fortissimo cards are using less CPU cycles than any other sound-card.
Both card cost begun from 70-80€ here.

[straffo]

I can have a Fortissimo III for 67,00 € is that ok ?

(it's christmas in advance )

[Animal]

Avoid Creative's Live! cards like the pleague. Their hardware may be good but their software is atrocious. Yeah, their sound cards dont take much CPU cycles, but their software makes up for it by hogging your ram, plus its packed full of spyware and bloatware.

Get a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, wich is widely regarded as the best consumer sound card for under $100

Or if you wanna spend a little more for nice things, research the Hercules Game Theater XP. I have one and its awesome.

For more info,

http://www.3dsoundsurge.com


-edit-
looks like you can get the Turtle Beach really cheap, check out this Arstechnica thread
http://arstechnica.infopop.net/OpenTopic/page?a=tpc&s=50009562&f=67909965&m=6860970435

[Staga]

There weren't anyone pointing my head with the gun so I did install only drivers for my Audigy

It's also having a Firewire connector (like they all) so if I ever need one (for external HDs, vid-cameras etc.) I already have it.

[AcId]

Strange.....there was no gun pointed at my head either....so I only installed the drivers for the Audigy. I must say I'm very satisfied with the increase in sound quality. I was previously using the onboard AC97, man what a difference. And on XP too, I had Zero issues.

[Kirin]

Replaced that SB Live! Crap with a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz - and I am nothing but happy with it!!!! The Live! card causes a lot of probs in different games, especially IL2 for example.

[Animal]

Originally posted by AcId
Strange.....there was no gun pointed at my head either....so I only installed the drivers for the Audigy. I must say I'm very satisfied with the increase in sound quality. I was previously using the onboard AC97, man what a difference. And on XP too, I had Zero issues.

The drivers alone are bloated.

Also, the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz actually sounds better (if you have good headphones or speakers)

[weazel]

After you execute the installer, but before you give it the final OK to proceed, navigate to Windows\Temp and edit the AUDIO.INI file and choose the features you desire before allowing it run.

Reboot and after restarting  in system properties make a copy of your current hardware profile and rename it.

Remove the SB16 emulation from the system applet and when prompted choose to remove from a specific profile.

Remove only from the new profile, I also remove the SBLive game port (and IDE controllers) since I don't use them, save it and reboot again.

Before Windows starts it will prompt you for which configuration to use, choose the new one and then delete the original profile so it won't ask you at every boot.  

A great way to free up some IRQs if you ever need to.

[Reschke]

Or just do like me and search far and wide for any MX300 (A3D Vortex2 chipset) sound cards left laying in some warehouse. And hope that they don't want more than $10 buck for it. Sure its a bear to get running in WinXP but once you do it is silky smooth. I have a line on 3 more that I was told I could buy for $20 for all three. Hopefully that can keep me out of buying high dollar sound cards for a while.

[Kratzer]

I've been looking around for a new sound card myself after running into some problems with my SB Live.  I've heard nothing but the best of things about the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz...  I also heard that Amazon sometimes has them on sale for as little as $40.  Still $80 in stores around here, but $62 for an OEM from Newegg.  I'm waiting for a good price, then grabbing one.

[sourkraut]

Weazel -

Is there anyway to (cleanly) remove the SB16 emulation after you've already installed?

Sour

[214thCavalier]

Just follow weazels instructions starting at the second sentence.
I also use this to free up IRQ's as i use my onboard raid controller to drive my C drive, (not in raid mode) use primary IDE for the CDRW/DVD and disable the secondary IDE controller.

[Raubvogel]

This is the thread I been waiting for...looks like it a Santa Cruz for me.