I want to change my audio card, need help.

[Drizzt]

I do want to burn my SBLive Player.

Can someone tell me the name of a good audio card to substitute the Live?

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Italian Guy, Bad English

D'ya want an Italian version?

[Gurm]

What Ayoub is trying to say is that there is currently no card that is better or even on par with the SB Live! since Aureal (their primary competitor) went out of business and has no new drivers.

There is the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz, but why spend $100 to step sideways when you haven't given us a shot at fixing your Live! yet?

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Drizzt]

Well, it's not just a problem, a bug, or something like this that make me want to do that.

It's simply a bad feeling.
I've spent a lot of money, a year ago, to buy that Live, and after a year I've not yet seen/heard nothing that make me happy or just satisfied to have bought it.
It's an amount of facts: ridicolous little bugs here and there, little problems with this chipset, other problems with that videocard, something here and something there, and I have become bored.
I do not want a perfect audiocard (with a 20 watt/10 dollars speakers it should be useless).
I want a card that simply make its work.


An example:
I own from the same time a G400 (I've bought them together), and all game and apps that I've used-played-tested until now have gone very well. Yes, I've never had 200+ fps but I've never had a problem.
My G400 gives me a good feeling, cause it does what it has to do without claiming itself to be the best, or something else useless (like Java Audio, or that toolbar).

Here is, one of the things that make me want to burn the Live. Can't it do its work without needing that ridicule toolbar to choose every time wich sound quality/system I want?

It was funny the first time, when with friends I listened the chipmunk Pink Floyd.
I hate all those unnecessary things.

This is all. I want another Audio Card.

[Wombat]

>Here is, one of the things that make me want to burn the Live. Can't it do its work without needing that ridicule toolbar to choose every time wich sound quality/system I want?

I've never seen that problem. Is it a W2K thing?

[Hunsow]

I've spent a lot of money

I didn't, I got an OEM.

Can't it do its work without needing that ridicule toolbar to choose every time wich sound quality/system I want?

Yes it can, why do you think it can't? You don't have to install it you know, and if you did, it takes about two seconds two switch it off and choose to never load it again.

I hate all those unnecessary things.

So? Don't use those things. Nobody is forcing you. I don't use them.

This is all. I want another Audio Card.

And spend even more money?

[Rik]

Drizzt, have a look at this one: http://www.videologic.com/Press/SonicFury.htm
It looks quite promising.

Ciao.

[Greebe]

Rik, suggesting that he should look into another product will not help him... the problem is due to him not setting it up right in the first place.

[Hunsow]

Yeah, especially when that product has even more options than the live. On paper a nice product, but I'm not impressed with their driver page, or should I say drivers on that page. Looks like a bunch of unfinished drivers, also notice the lack of win2k drivers.

[Rik]

Consider my wrist well and truly slapped...
...however I'm not dictating what someone's course of action should be, just drawing attention to the alternatives (as originally requested).

[ayoub_ibrahim]

"I do want to burn my SBLive Player". perhaps if you tell us your problem(s) with the card,someone may be able to resolve it/them.

[Gurm]

Once again, I mention the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. It joins the Guillemot Maxisound Fortissimo (and another Guillemot card that I noticed the other day at E-Bo) as the only real alternatives right now (real meaning WITH driver support).

Turtle Beach seem to have somehow squeezed a miracle out of a Cirrus Logic chipset - in that it takes very little CPU overhead, and while it isn't as nice as the Live all around, it does have MP3 compression support in hardware, and supposedly stable drivers.

But Drizzt really needs to just learn how not to install Liveware. It's pretty easy, if he asks us how we can step him through it.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Bohrn]

I'm happy with my Vortex2 powered MX300. I know you SB guys will probably flame me, but it is a good card. I have always had SB cards, but I liked this one. It is quality. I had a bit of a problem with the reference drivers, but it would have worked fine if I had just installed them in the first place! It has gold plated connectors, 4 speaker support, and of course A3D2 in hardware. It sounds very nice and these days you can pick one up for well under a hunred bucks Canadian. Or if you want a cheap but perfectly working card, grab a Yamaha YMF-24 based PCI card. Mine had SPDF, and other stuff including Sensaura 3D sound and DirectSound 3D. It is cheap like 30 bucks or so. Very easy to use and reliable. Best of luck. I would try to get your SBLive working tho...It is a kickin card.

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AsusP3B ,iCeleron525(7x75), 128megs PC133, G40032megSH, Diamond MX300, 13.5gigs of HD's, 52X CDrom and 98SE w/shutdown patch, PD 6.04,Altec Lansing ATP3,Envision 17incher,1 grey cat, 1 black cat and 1 calico

[Himself]

Santa Cruz == Sonic Fury, btw.

As for the live drivers, just install the full lw3 package and use the control panel add/remove programs thing to get rid of most of it afterword, no need to disable creative annoyer, etc, just uninstall it. I rename the latest drivers to replace the file lw39x.exe and get them installed that way.

I hate all of Creative's drivers, video cards, webcams, and the live drivers, they are too concerned about skins and glitz and not enough about basic functionality and intuitive user interfaces. 50% of my peevishness towards NVIDIA is from owning a Creative TNT, the other 50% from owning a Diamond Riva 128.

[Gurm]

The only problem with the Vortex2 is that the Win2k drivers weren't even close to done when they closed shop. There are "better" betas out there, but Vortex of Sound (http://www.vortexofsound.com) doesn't have permission to post them.

- Gurm

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Listen up, you primitive screwheads! See this? This is my BOOMSTICK! Etc. etc.

[Bohrn]

Yea, if I ran W2K i'd be pissed too...

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AsusP3B ,iCeleron525(7x75), 128megs PC133, G40032megSH, Diamond MX300, 13.5gigs of HD's, 52X CDrom and 98SE w/shutdown patch, PD 6.04,Altec Lansing ATP3,Envision 17incher,1 grey cat, 1 black cat and 1 calico