What sound card to purchase?

Hi, I'm new to computer upgrades. I want to upgrade my sound card from the onboard AC 97. I'm running Windows XP with a Soltek SL-915GPro-FGR mainboard..PCI Express. System is about 2.5 yrs old now. I have a pair of Zalman 5.1 headphones that I want to put into action on Hl2dm, but have not had much luck with the stock sound setup. I have heard that some sound cards will not work well with Hl2dm...so I don't need any more crashes/clashes. Any ideas would be very helpful...thanks in advance.

i went with this little guy Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 Channels 24-bit 96KHz PCI Interface Sound Card, it is only 90 bucks at newegg and it has mad settings, i think it's great and works beautiful with dm. it has improved my sound a good deal over my onboard (shitty realtek). check it out see what you think

K not many gamers see this but I have 2 of these
http://www.m-audio.com/products/en_us/A ... -main.html

Street will be cheaper.
Pluses are the BEST audio drivers out there; prosumer connectors; decent midi drivers; can use more than 1 simultaneously; bla bla.

nvm fanboy crap, these are the bomb for stability

I have owned a number of sound cards, I used to own the Creative X-Fi, while the sound was decent (but not amazing) they were not stable as is usual with creative products and they caused me to lose a trivial yet important 1v1 match after which i was eliminated from FIOS. After that I would have problems that creative has known about for literally years (since this problem existed in audigy) and has been never solved. The headache and time lost dealing with that card has cost me more then I can calculate. Finally I returned it to new egg and was refunded. This problem has happened to other people I know it is not an isolated incedent.

Much research has produced no real good alternatives. I would try the m-audio and see how that works. I am curious to see how the razer baracuda sound card works out.

I have the Razer Barracuda sound card and headphones. I got them when i was running a med quality xp system and I know it sounds crazy but they completely changed how i hear things in-game. Lots of little sounds like clips being reloaded are clear and loud even when they are at a distance. I also found myself spending hours listening to music with my eyes closed. This combo creates real bass (not just vibrating phones) and sounds almost like $500 studio mixing phones. If you are running xp and can afford it i definately recommend this combo.

NOTE - I got the headphones first, but when I plugged them into the Razer card, they sounded 10x better than on the old card. Razer created these products go work together.

Now the bad news. I recently built a retardedly powerful system, with Vista ultimate 64-bit os. Razer has not released Vista 64 bit drivers at all, and only has beta Vista 32 bit drivers. So until razer releases them, I am stuck using onboard audio, which isnt really that bad.

If you are on an xp system this is more than worth your $.

Even though I don't have a matched Razer system, I can echo Trousers comments on new sounds.

For a couple years I used on board audio, with so-so head phones, and I thought it was OK...then I got an X-Fi card, and suddenly there were so many more sounds to pay attention to, giving me clues to where other players were....

I totally recommend a good sound card/headphone combo. It just seems to get you that much more than the built in stuff.

it is like they say with pc parts, sometimes you win and sometimes you get royal fucked

ok, so next bit of money i put away goes to new sound card and head phones... already got the turantuala keyboard.. so why not

SoundBlaster X-Fi Elite Pro (64MB onboard)
SoundBlaster X-Fi Fatal1ty (64MB onboard)
SoundBlaster X-Fi XtremeMusic

Sound quality is the same for all X-Fi, don't buy those "gamers" editions because they reproduce entertainment sound very crappy!

You have 3 modes

Enteirtanment Mode

Game Mode

Audio Creating Mode

The quality is impressive, I play with the XtremeMusic @ Game Mode with my Sennheiser pc155 and it ownz

A lot of great ideas to look at. I like the way the plugins are set up on the m-audio. I might go with that one, need more time to research...something I don't seem to have a lot of lately.

So a big thanks for letting me know what you are using...the more info the better!

Razer now has working drivers for Vista 32 and 64!! Finally!

http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?s ... 19&loc=273

There is a good deal 60$ for a razer barracuda. I have no idea why it is 1/3rd the price of a regular one I bought one and cannot tell any difference. This is more like the price this card should be. It works so far so if any of you need one this is an option.

Fearsome* wrote:http://www.buy.com/retail/product.asp?s ... 19&loc=273

There is a good deal 60$ for a razer barracuda. I have no idea why it is 1/3rd the price of a regular one I bought one and cannot tell any difference. This is more like the price this card should be. It works so far so if any of you need one this is an option.

PostPosted: Thu Aug 16, 2007 12:42 pm is a bit of a old thread

I have the X-Fi Fatal1ty sound card and its worked like a charm. Theres lots of options and I seem to be able to hear everything that you are supposed to hear in the game, that you don't with on-board. I cant go back now, especially after using on board since I first had a computer like 8 years ago.

Another bump.

I have a cheap Sound Blaster Audigy and it works pretty well.
I have pretty good hearing so I can pretty much hear little details far away.

If I would upgrade cards at this point I would go beyond a simple PCI sound card. I would go straight ahead and get a sound studio quality card..
Something a long the lines of this
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829121115
Not only will I get good Audio quality out of it, it would help me more when I also use this rig to be my sound studio for mixes.

My holy grail of sound cards would be something like this one.
http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.a ... 6829121010

Insane, yes.. but its all the more awesome.

Kinda funny this was bumped today, since I decided to resume my search for the right sound card. But allas I can't find one that does all that I want. I want a card capable of 7.1 audio, is stable, and has jacks that I can use to hitch up midi devices. I don't know enough about the connector/jack types to determine whether a certain card would support midi devices or not.

You might be able to help me with this crowbar ninja. I am trying to make a setup that I can use Reason 4.0 (music production software) with a midi input device like a simple 61 key midi keyboard. That is like that basics of what I want to do other than have great sound while I play music and games. When I was learning how to use Reason and Protools in highschool I remember an M-Audio adapter box that allowed you to plug in midi inputs and audio chord inputs (like an electric guitar cord) and then plug that into an Emac. So really I guess I need a card designed for music production but will also flawlessly support my gaming needs. I dunno I feel like a lost sheep in the world of technical specs, its all fuckin greek when you don't know what to look for. I hate the supported connector specs, all acronyms that are easily mixed up, at least for someone as ignorant as I. lol

I don't wanna buy two cards. can you run two cards? I know too little about sound cards *sigh* I just want to cop out and buy the Razer one lol.

I think the first link that I posted is one that you might be interested in.

I, myself, have been trying to get two sound cards running on mine. I'm trying to set up Traktor 3 properly and I have yet to make it work the way I want it to. It seems to me that the card you're looking for has an external box where you hook up all your inputs and outputs. Thats probably your best bet.
I've been reaserching a bit in my free time, if I find anything that you might be interested in I'll let you know.

Just foudn this as I was writing this post:http://www.m-audio.com/index.php?do=pro ... 52182c7e20 This apparently hooks up though USB and provides me with those two multi jacks that can support mic/analog (guitar jack)/midi and S/PDIF equiped digital audio gear. Not quite sure if this does what I need. I really only need something for the time being that I can plug midi keyboards into so I can use that as the input device that manipulates my synths in reason. I just wanna make some techno!! so confused lol.

cool cool thanks man. yeah I really need to do more research on the peripherals I'm going to need for my music setup so I can educate myself on the cornicopea of connectors out there. I really hate having to use adapters and such things so I always try to get items that are compatible with one another, more work, better results.

Ok this is probly gonna be a super noob of a question, but I was checking out the card you suggested, and how would I plug normal computer speakers and headphones into that setup? Would I have to get something else to plug into the box that would give me those jacks? The only connector I see coming off the sound card itself is that 15 pin D-sub cable.

Edit: Ahahah I just went back and looked at that page and found a diagram that I didn't see before that answers all of my questions about this piece of hardware. http://www.m-audio.com/layout/imgview.p ... ackPro.jpg Granted it has limited imputs but I'm pretty sure thats all I'll need unless I start getting more hardware.

Yeah.. I was going to get a midi controller a few weeks ago but the place I ordered it from was giving me crap about my shipping and billing adresses.

I believe the connectors for that card go Card to PCI slot> Cable from card to input/output box> Speakers and whatnot to the outputs and midi, guitars and whatnot to the inputs.

I dont know how the card works myself but it seems like a logical way it would be set up.

the controller I was going to get was from Numark. I decided I would work a bit more and save up the money to get a laptop and this instead. The controller is included in the package.
http://www.numark.com/totaldjbox