Hercules XP soundcard

[XHotKolaX]

Yep, I broke down and got a new soundcard. I didn't want to get a SBLive! For one it's the same card they had 1-2 years ago 'cept now it costs more.

I used to have a SBLive plat and ended up getting a Aureal2500 cuz EAX sounds more like a whole lotta static than anything else.

Aureal is dead, so must move on. Saw those phillips soundcards but they had no SP/DIF outputs so that was a no go. Go to my bestbuy and whoa! a new soundcard=)

It uses a Yamaha chip. Has an external "Live Drive" type thing decked out w/ evry connection known to man...'cept a remote. The Card itself...is sparse. only a CD/Aux thing for your CD drives. Outputs on the back is a connection to the "live drive" and an Aux.

Drivers available for Win9X/ME/2000. I'm using 2000 at the moment. Sound is decent. Control Panel let's u control just about anything you want. Only prob is that A3D/EAX doesn't work yet. Or not correctly, either one. It doesn't crash in CS w/ either enabled but shows up as "failed." I'm guessing drivers are the cause.

I just hope hercules isn't like creative in bring out drivers. This is my only hope=)

Any Q's feel free to ask. I'll be testing w/ more games later.

[XHotKolaX]

CS is fine. Starcraft on the otherhand...it has major issues with. Most of the time units "echo" veeery slowly. It gets annoying. Partly because of lag but I never had the problem w/ my aureal so it's the card.

[XHotKolaX]

Alrighty. After breaking it in for a week or so. I decided people be careful if you're gonna buy this card.

Hercules.com has no drivers at all for their page. You do a search and nothing comes up. It's really scary how they don't even have the initial drivers up.

Win2k 3D sound support sucks like no other. 2D sound, well is 2D sound=)

I'll keep it updated as new stuff comes up.

[paulcs]

Thanks.

It seems the new players in the soundcard business are adopting Creative's driver policy: never release any and you don't have to worry about it.

Paul
paulcs@flashcom.net

[Thundrchez]

Thanks for the info. I'm still clinging on to my ol Aureal based sound cards. They're still a rockin, but I'm still with win9x for the time being.

Maybe the next real competitor in sound cards will be *gasp* nVidia with their X-box integrated audio/video chipset.