SB Live Value vs. SB PCI 512

[mrdisco]

What's the diff???

[phecky]

The programmble EMU chip on the live cards. After 5 years using my trusty old SB16 ISA I almost bought the 512 but opted for the live cause the EMU chip. It's slightly less CPU intensive as well. The price diff. is not that much either. Mines matched up with the Yamaha YST-MS30 (2 front + sub) and it sounds great!

[mrdisco]

I thought both cards had the EMU chip. What do you mean by the Live being programmable?

You're right, there isn't much of a price difference. That's why I was trying to figure out the difference.

[NavyDood_ F/A18_Mech]

Ok then..... to go one step further......
AllStarShop has the Live Value 1024 for sale for $44. Now I'm getting confused.

Jim

[seti]

The chip is somewhat upgradeable. Meaning that you can update your hardwear without buying a new card. As for what these upgrades do I havn't looked into it....but my sblive x-gamer sounds great!

[potassium]

About the SB Live family,I think sound blaster has integrated a chip similar to the chip on motherboard so in fact you can "flash" it.It is called liveware .Honestly I just went to creative web site and found no real difference. I'm not sure about that but the value page mention dos support and the 512 doesn't maybe...

[seti]

Now I'm really curious! A quick glance at the tech specs page at creative shows it to be identical, with the exception of the digital out, and that's $20 less than an Live value. It does have the exact same chip, then EMU10K1, though I find no mention of the 512 concerning the LiveWare updateds. Also I can't even seam to find a reveiw of the 512, or any comparison in SBLive reviews.

hmmm.

[U-96]

I'm not sure if the 512 supports EAX 3D sound. It's nice for recent games that encode it...
Also, as someone said above, the 512 has hardware DOS support, but the Live series uses software emulation (and steals an IRQ for it)

That's how I see it anyway... like you say, information is scanty

[AuraEdge]

Live!ware is not flash memory! Live!ware is just a software program that consists of software for the SBL! and drivers. I just disable my software emu, since I never use dos outside of windows anyways, short of reformating.

Probably should just go with the Live for support reasons alone.

[This message has been edited by AuraEdge (edited 02-29-2000).]

[mrdisco]

Maybe somebody could try installing LiveWare on a 512 and see if it works??? I mean, they use the same chip...

This is starting to sound a lot like the controversy between the SoundBlaster PCI64 and the old Ensoniq (pre-Creative) AudioPCI. Same card (ES1370, identical layout), different drivers, different price. I have an Ensoniq card and am using the SB drivers. Can anyone out there visibly compare the Live and the 512?

Also, what's this about no DOS emulation on the 512? Does this mean it defaults to the 0x220 address instead of the higher PCI bus address for I/O? What about the MIDI port (0x330) and DMA's?

Also, I wonder what the differences are like in audio quality? I mean the actual hardware sig-to-noise stuff, and not whether some new audio standard is supported. I don't really care all that much about 3D audio. Is one better than the other for making music?

So many questions...

[neo_otyugh]

i have a sblive value, and am using the cambridge soundworks 4 point surrounds, my friend had the same speakers and teh sb 512, after hearing mine he went and bought the sblive mp3, and liked it a lot better...