Getting a new soundcard...

[Greebe]

We (Rags and I) fixed all the threads in the time warp so the cookies worked correctly again.

[EchoWars]

Nice job! Myself...I chickened-out and ordered a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz. I know it has issues too, but I have the feeling that driver support will be better than from Phillips. If it turns out to be a bust, then I'll just have to sell the card to one of my next customers...

**fingers crossed**

[Gurm]

Quick Follow-up:

I picked one of these cards up yesterday. I'll be trying it out at work today, and I'll let everyone know how it is with the current driver set. The Hercules Game Theater XP is a great card but has some utterly unacceptable bugs that Hercules seems unwilling to address (doesn't run in Windows XP, and you need to keep Media PLayer open to fix sound in many games).

If worse comes to worst, I'll have to order away for a Santa Cruz. This is getting a bit ridiculous.

- Gurm

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

[XHotKolaX]

Gurm,

Could you post your thoughts on the philips card compared to the GTXP?

I just gave away my GTXP to a friend and can buy either card. I want to see your opinion on which is better.

[Gurm]

The GTXP is a brilliant card, but Hercules seems to REALLY be dropping the ball on this one... which is unusual. My Kyro2 from them has a new update every week or so, shortly after PowerVR update their reference drivers. This is what I expect from Hercules, which is one of the reasons I bought the card.

Unfortunately, the outstanding bug list on the GTXP is as follows:

1. Can't use both WinXP and all my RAM. Ouch! I'm not taking 512MB out just to run a damn sound card.

2. Skipping in both media player and in games, unless a media player window (yes, a second one!) is open. Very weird.

3. Digital out only plays digital sounds. No CD audio, no line in, etc.

4. Only A3D, EAX, and DVD go to the rear speakers. Bad. The Philips and Santa Cruz and Live! all at the very least mirror the fronts to the rears. Philips creates a simulated surround field on the fly if you want.

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As for the Philips, I'm still putting it through its paces. At first glance it seems pretty good. I have to check the SP/DIF output though and let y'all know.

- Gurm

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

[MultimediaMan]

Make sure to go to www.pcsound.philips.com to get the latest (downloadable!) drivers.

In Win98SE (I gave up on Millenium last week), the new drivers are all that I expected them to be, but there is still no S/PDIF output for anything but DirectSound. Philips seems to be rather forward thinking as far as their interface and speaker options go...let's hope they keep going with it.

Win2k SMP stability is still not there from the AE, and from what I've read, it may be nigh-well impossible in Win2K for any PCI sound card to be 100% reliable and artifact-free.

The WinXP builds I've seen seem to have changed things a bit for the better, though there are no drivers for the AE yet for WinXP, I expect good things...