sound card reccomendation

[[BOON]bunsen]

can anyone recommend a good sound card (xfi so i can put audio at ultra high) that works in vista 64bit? i used to have a SB extreme music but it caused my game to crash in vista 64bit, it worked fine though in 32bit. so any suggestions? or should i stick to onboard audio?

[BPCrusher01]

Re: sound card reccomendation

I use the extreme gamer version and am happy with it. It's pretty cheap too.

[[BOON]bunsen]

Re: sound card reccomendation

and it works without issues on vista 64bit?

[BPCrusher01]

Re: sound card reccomendation

it does

[=98=]

Re: sound card reccomendation

I have Vista Business 64bit and an XtremeMusic, works fine.

Any X-Fi card will do except the XtremeAudio. Don't buy that model.

[[BOON]bunsen]

Re: sound card reccomendation

well i ended up getting the asus xonar d2x, i installed it but the in game sound was terrible, worse than onboard audio. perhaps this was due to me not setting up the card properly or maybe something else. regardless, i returned that card and ended up getting the soundblaster extreme gamer fatality edition and it works great. thanks for the help guys!

[=98=]

Re: sound card reccomendation

well i ended up getting the asus xonar d2x, i installed it but the in game sound was terrible, worse than onboard audio. perhaps this was due to me not setting up the card properly or maybe something else. regardless, i returned that card and ended up getting the soundblaster extreme gamer fatality edition and it works great. thanks for the help guys!

The Xonar D2X requires you to turn on EAX5/HD emulation since it cannot "legally" decode EAX directly since it's a Creative product.

Therefore it converts it to it's own code on the fly. All good reviews said it sounds the same once set up and music quality (not in games) sounds better. I think you just needed to set it up properly.

[BPCrusher01]

Re: sound card reccomendation

Be sure to disable your onboard sound. Sorry if I sound condescending, but did you plug your speakers/headset into the new card?

[[BOON]bunsen]

Re: sound card reccomendation

yes, i disabled onboard audio, uninstalled the drivers, plugged in my mic / headset. anyways i had sound, it was just of poor quality, and i did try playing around with the settings but i probably missed something or really that card is just no good for this game. anyways im glad i switched because the sound im getting from this new card is amazing... i only wish i had space for a complete surround setup.

[MatTheCat]

Re: sound card reccomendation

I have Vista Business 64bit and an XtremeMusic, works fine.

Any X-Fi card will do except the XtremeAudio. Don't buy that model.

I would advise to AVOID ALL X-FI CARDS like the plague.

Overpriced, made with cheap parts, buggy as hell.

Just google X-Fi and 'crackling' or any of the other 100 commonly encountered problems.

[=98=]

Re: sound card reccomendation

I would advise to AVOID ALL X-FI CARDS like the plague.

Overpriced, made with cheap parts, buggy as hell.

Just google X-Fi and 'crackling' or any of the other 100 commonly encountered problems.

Then take a real poll of the amount of people who have actually had problems and realise it's not as bad as it seems.

[MatTheCat]

Re: sound card reccomendation

Then take a real poll of the amount of people who have actually had problems and realise it's not as bad as it seems.

Well, I have had a X-Fi on 2 totally different rigs now and have had problems on both!

So do I get two votes?

P.S. There are 'workarounds' that took me many hours of valuable spare time to discover.......but I will never purchase Creative nor X-Fi ever again.

[=98=]

Re: sound card reccomendation

I've had X-Fi's on 2 different rigs and no issues. So we are even

Most people run their X-Fi's fine. Like any product, the drivers have bugs. Admittedly there are quite a few more on Creative software.

However, the amount of people that have unsolvable issues are quite small.

[Berrern]

Re: sound card reccomendation

[...] i returned that card and ended up getting the soundblaster extreme gamer fatality edition and it works great.

Good choice!
I've had that card myself for about two years, and I've loved every minute with it

One tip for better BF2-performance is to update BF2's OpenAL driver. You should definitely do this, it helps against many of the errors/bugs/issues you might encounter.

Oh, and depending on your sound system/headset quality, experiment with the Crystalizer! It's a great option :)