Recommend A Win2K SoundCard.

[Easty]

I've been fighting with my Vortex 2, A7V and Windows 2000 for too long now...Growing a little tired..

Can anyone reccomend a good sound card for win2K.. The Vortex 2 suits me great... Good in games ..fantastic Tos/link out to my MD recorder and also supports four seakers... If I could find something that could do the same job but worked in win2K i'd more than happy... I've searched high & Low for good recommendations of new cards but all I see is problems!! Don't want to lash out on a new card specifically for win2K and still have problems..

P.S If you know any secret fixes for the vortex..don't hold them back.. I've already tried 3 sets of Vortex 2 WDM's ..two sets NT 4 Drivers and the latest 2048 WIN9X drivers... and a mish/mash of them all.. Thought the new almighty win2k SP 2 might fix it but.. didn't seem to do much!! Tink it just integrated another 2 million links to MS's product page into my OS..

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Ath SOC1 750Mhz,G4MAX,Asus a7V, Vortex 2, Maxtor+ 40 30GB, 256Mb(133)

[SCompRacer]

Since you didn't say I gotta ask, did you try different PCI slots?

Read many posts and the SB Live usually is the culprit with Win2000, but mine works, on an Abit board.

[XHotKolaX]

www.vortexofsound.com

I'm using a Game Theater XP from hercules. It works fine. Don't hold your breath on win2k driver updates tho'.

[EchoWars]

Been through all this myself. Sell the card to someone who is happy to run in W9x, and take a look at the Turtle Beach Santa Cruz...]

[JLP]

I have SoundBlaster Live! and I have nothing but troubles with it in Windows 2000. SO I recomend not to buy that card.
I tried Turtle Baach Santa Cruz and it works without a problem (too bad it's not mine ). It also has much better sound and drivers.

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Live long and prosper!

[dZeus]

_ALL_ my troubles with my Live! went away with the release of DirectX 8.0 + LiveWare3 drivers.

I can even use SP/DIF passthrough in PowerDVD (wait for Win2k SP2 for passthrough with othe DVD software players). Hardware accelerated DirectSound, DirectSound3D, EAX, etc.

Just too bad that it doesn't have A3D and A3D2 support... if that will appear in a future driver, than I can only recommend this card.

[Liquid Snake]

I was quite disappointed that Aureal's Win2K drivers were so bad. So, I went out and got myself a SBLive! Platinum 5.1. No problems so far. Only thing I miss is A3D 2.0. Man, that was great, it gave me an edge in CS

[DentyCracker]

xgamer 5.1 and no probs in win2k

WARNING
Long string of gibberish follows

------------------
1° System
Inwin Q500 Case
Abit KT7 Motherboard
AMD Duron 700@850 MHz.
256MB PC133 Cas 3 running at PC100 Cas 2 SDRAM.
Maxtor 20 GB 5400 RPM UATA 66 HD
Seagate 2.5 GB HD
Plextor PX-W8432 burner
Toshiba SD-M1402 DVD ROM drive
Creative Labs SoundBlaster Live! X-Gamer 5.1
Matrox G400 DH 32MB
Mag Innovision DX17T
Klipsch ProMedia v2.400 Speakers
ATI TV Wonder*sigh*
Kingston KNE20 (Realtek 8139 based) NIC
Running WinME, Win2K SP1, BeOS 5.03, Mandrake 7.2

2° System
Generic Finger Slicer AT Case
FIC VA503+
IBM Cyrix PR 266 *brrr* (long story)
128 MB Generic PC100 SDRAM
Maxtor 10 GB 7200 RPM UDMA33 HD
IBM 10 GB 5400 RPM UDMA33 HD
Creative Labs Ensonic AudioPCI64 (es1371)
Matrox Millennium G200 AGP
Compaq MV500 Monitor
Kingston KNE20 (Realtek 8139 based) NIC
Win2k SVR Service Pack 1

3° System (Leased Out LOL)

PCChips M571
Intel Pentium MMX 233
128 MB EDO DRAM (SIMMS)

Diamond Stealth S3 trio 64
Realtek 8019 ISA NIC

[This message has been edited by DentyCracker (edited 13 March 2001).]

[Easty]

I Know exactly what you mean Snake.. the thing that really gets to me is that aureal had just fixed exactly the same problem with the 2048 win9X drivers.. Why the hell didn't they just do the same for NT.. before they liquidated all their assets obviously... They should bring some kind of law out..where a company needs to support hardware for a minimum period.. Companies like techworks (now buffalo technology), videologic and multiwave.. All sold the 8830 vortex based chipset boards well after aureal's demise... At least one have these could have put the effort in!! ...O' there I go ..putting the world to rights..think I'd understand about the money grabing hamshankers by now!! Just wish they'd put a little of the effort which obviously goes into the eyecatching brand image into the product support... Imagine if VW found out that there latest golf GTi braking utility wasn't quite compatible with water, ice or a little heat.. Don't think they'd quite get away with letting you have a beta design fix for 6 months till the released version is available.

[xortam]

Blame Creative Technology if you want to blame somebody about your Aureal woes.

[Easty]

If Aureal was in that bad a business state..anyone would have done the same...I mainly blame the various other companies for still cashing in when they knew this chipset would not be supported in the future.. Including Diamond MM for their Monster MX300..which I missed of the previous list.... All these Out of worked bored programmers around.. U'd think someone would start up a hobbyist group to create drivers.. For orphaned hardware!! I know it would be as boring as hell, but hey programmers aren't in the search of an interesting life!! or what dam reason would they have for their career preference! (better be a little careful next time I visit seatac after that comment).

[Easty]

Anyway cheers for the Info... Think I'll probably push my budget a little and go for the SB Live 5.1... Don't know what you guys do with all these +£100 cards... run private sound studios or something... One things for sure I'll be deadly p|ss{d 0ff to loose my Aureal Vortex 2...

Thanks!

[xortam]

Consumer products is a thin margin business. Aureal was an up and coming company that didn't have the resources to battle the Creative powerhouse. No business is going to support a dead platform. Why would anyone want to pay programmers to develop/enhance vortex drivers? Diamond?! They didn't do anything with the newer drivers that Aureal did develop. Their support for the MX300 has always been the same ... non-existent. What kind of business could an independent developer build off of providing vortex driver support? I doubt you'd be willing to pay much for it. You think somebody should work for you for nothing?

[Easty]

Simply!! Capability of the product... If I "MR Joe Bloggs" Goes into PC World tomorrow to buy a Sound card upgrade for my PC using windows 2000... O' this techworks sound card looks good... Wow it has A3D.. Optical Out... supports 4 speakers...And its cheaper than the competition... think I'll buy this... Bugger it doesn't run on my windows version.. so I pick up the next box to it!

+ these companies want to get the point about customer support.. With this "IT" revolution word of mouth is everything... I posted here for a reccomendation on a sound card.. with the kind help from these guys I'll depend on there opinions and go spend my hard earned beer tokens on a new piece of kit.. If Diamond lets say out of the companies I mentioned above decided to support their product... I'd be dammed more inclined to buy and reccomend to others their products for the rest of my days..

[xortam]

Your last post is unclear. Are you complaining about companies that currently produce a vortex sound card and don't have W2K support? I checked Techwork's site and I don't see any sound cards listed. If a company isn't currently selling vortex sound cards, there isn't much incentive for them to provide driver support. What vortex sound card company are you complaining about? If you want support for any sort of product, you might as well skip even considering buying a Diamond product.