Soundblaster MP3+ 5.1 questions

[dy-kim]

I'm in the market for a new sound card and I'm trying to decide between the Sound Blaster Live! MP3+ 5.1 or the X-Gamer 5.1.

I know that hardware wise these cards are identical and so it's just a matter of figuring out which software bundle I want to go with.

Of the 4 games that come with X-Gamer, I've already got Unreal Tournament. My feeling is that the games will eventually go down in prices and I've got enough games sitting on my shelf anyway. And so I'm leaning towards the MP3+.

But if the sound softeware that comes with MP3+ is ****, then I might as well get the games that I may play someday.

Can anybody shed some light on the quality of the MP3+ software bundle?

Thanks!
Dave

[dy-kim]

Looing over the box descriptions, it seems that the main sound softs are Mixman Studio, Cakewalk Express Gold 8.0, and Sound Forge XP 4.5.

Anybody use these programs?

[Bsdboy]

They are all ok for what they are,Mixman is fun to play with for a while,I don't use Cakewalk but SoundForgeXP is the best of the bunch not as good as the full version but still a pretty good sound editing program.

Bsdboy

[siamesenick]

I think you should get an SBLive! Value. 5.1, of course. You can't hook up live drives to them, but who cares?! Mixman is worthless, I bought it thinking that it would be practical. Cakewalk is pretty cool if you're into that sort of thing.

[dy-kim]

Ok, I've done some more research and found another option. How do people feel about the Hercules Game Theater XP? I know it costs more than the other two, but how does the system stack up against Creative Labs?

[This message has been edited by dy-kim (edited 05-03-2001).]