survey, sound card

[force=1am]

If you have the choice between a SoundBlaster Live! and another Vortex2 Chip Board with one would you pick?

is there any other board out there except for this two?

still decide on which board to buy. thanks.

[Brydon]

I would go with the Soundblaster live as it supports EAX while the vortex supports A3D and the company that does that have gone bust I heard. A3D also uses more cpu cycles than EAX. Besides I heard the Soundblaster live is a really good card anyway. I have a sonicstorm with the vortex1 chip and it is nuthin special.

[brandon184]

I'd go with Soundblaster Live!

http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

- Brandon

[AMDClocker]

soundblaster live for sure

[force=1am]

yeah, but A3D 2.0 have sound reflex pool which will give better quality in 3d environment while EAX and everyone else does not. A3D did not go bankrupt they only fired their CEO.

[RCN_Moose]

Well, I guess I'll be the lone man out. Vortex 2 ROCKS. I have a MX300 and love it. I'm using the latest A3D reference drivers which support A3D 2.0 and EAX. (granted the EAX support is still a bit buggy in some games)
Still, having played the same games in A3D on my comp, and in EAX (Live) on my friends comp, I can honestly say that A3D is way Better. IMHO.

Moose http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

[oxOGradiusOxo]

If you want my opinon, here it is, but it is a little biased.
I've never owned any sound card without the Creative name. They are a trusted brand by me, and it's very rare that you can buy a product by them and not be happy (performance or price)
I've got a SoundBlaster Live! Value and a Creative Encore DVD5x/32x with Dxr3 hardware decoder. They both work excellent together (with my 4.1 speaker setup) Until then, I had been using just "any sound blaster card" b/c I didn't think they mattered much. Boy was I wrong! I remember opening and installing the software. I was literaly blown away. EAX is wonderful. It sounds great in games and has fun uses like shifting and morphing your voice over a mircophone.

[RobRich]

I prefer the Live series cards. They have an extremely powerful sound processor onboard, and can offload most 3D and 3D sound operations off of your cpu.

I admit A3D does sound excellent, but it does have some cpu overhead. On a fast system, this isn't a real big issue. But if you have a lower end system, the Live will give you much better performance. Also consider support, esp. if you plan to use alternative operating systems. Creative has Linux drivers for the Live, but I don't believe a Linux Vortex 2 driver has ever been released. I really can't say a whole lot, as I still use an SB AWE-64 card for compatiblity reasons.

Good Luck,
Robert Richmond

[Gene C.]

In my personal machines I use soundblaster's and maxtor. but, I do have alot of the others I use for misc reasons.
and I know this dosen't really matter much. but, I always try to use the same name video card as the sound card. makes the machine specs. sound better and never any problems with each other.

I want my win2k drivers. he he

[wintz]

yeah,i`d go with soundblaster http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/wink.gif




[This message has been edited by wintz (edited 05-22-2000).]

[MadMatt]

Can't say I've ever played with a Soundblaster Live, but my MX300 sounds great to me! The positional audio in Half-Life still scares the s*** out of me at times!

oxOGradiusOxo - WOW! I've had the exact opposite experience with creative products. They're on my 'never'again' list - Had a Creative CD-ROM drive almost burst into flames on me once!

RobRich - There are Linux drivers available for Vortex cards, but they don't (yet) have 3d support.

[force=1am]

I guess SB Live! win. I will get the SB Live Value soon. thanks all

[Wendy21]

Hi, I work for a computer shop here and we did some reviews and testing, and we narrowed down all the parts for our Ultimate Gaming Machine to build to setup in the store down to 2 or 3 of the best parts for each that would go in,then test those 2 or 3 against each other on the same system to see which was best.

Overall a Card called Xitel Platinum that comes with good headphones came out no.1. with Sb live Platinum a close 2nd, but the Xitel in my opinion sounded better for games and music and was only 99 bucks.

So thats what I have now in my system.

[force=1am]

what kinda processor does the Xitel use?

[oblivion]

I was going to sell my SBlive and buy an aureal product..........that is until they went out of business,if that tells you anything.
I have heard them both and I do think that the aureal has the edge in audio output,especially when it comes to games.The biggest problem I have with SBlive is the enormous amount of(for lack of a better word)**** that is installed by default..........I mean come on..........130megs!!!!!!!!! You can get it down to 5megs if you do it right,or around 25 megs if you use some of the software that comes with it.

[bkehoe]

I thought Aureal went into Chapter 11?

Creative is always my 1st choice. SB Live - nothing else - SB Lives in all my machines. http://sysopt.earthweb.com/forum/smile.gif

Never had any problems with them, but I don't like their lack of interest in win2k.

Brendan

[pickel]

Well, nothing special here. I have an ESS Technoligies "ES 1869" 16 bit stereo sound card with 3D effect. When I got my computer it had really crappy speakers and I thought about getting a "fancy" card, but after getting my Labtec w/ subwoofer speakers, it really rocks.

the pickel

[SDT]

Bkehoe - Creative has sb live drivers for Win2k available at... http://www.soundblaster.com/liveware/w2k/
They work ok on my system although I have not thoroughly tested anything.

[This message has been edited by SDT (edited 05-29-2000).]

[bkehoe]

I know, but, in my and many others opinion, it is the worst excuse for software that exists.

Try any games with it. The EAX bogs the sytem down to a stutter pace. E.G. Unreal Tournament. The standard win2k drivers work better than the liveware 2000. The only thing that helps bring it out of its misery is DirectX8 beta, but that causes games to crash whenever you exit D3D.

Take a look at www.ntcompatible.com (http://www.ntcompatible.com) and see all the horror stories people have.

They have also pushed the Release date for Liveware 3 for Win2k forward by one month.

Brendan.