ASUS launches Strix range of discrete soundcards

[AGTDenton]

But disabling half the things right? I've not had recent creative cards, but my old Audigy 2 was fantastic, until the drivers for which ever OS stripped out a bunch of functions. A third party driver put them back until it got a slap down from the lawyers.

Must admit I didn't realise that, but should have guessed it really. I have an Audigy 4 Pro I was hoping to revive, be interesting to see what features I may lose. I'm thinking my next sound card will be an external amp via optical. Hoping that the optical of onboard will suffice. At least then I'll have the sound controls I want.

[TooNice]

But disabling half the things right? I've not had recent creative cards, but my old Audigy 2 was fantastic, until the drivers for which ever OS stripped out a bunch of functions. A third party driver put them back until it got a slap down from the lawyers.

Ah, I remember that episode. Either Creative has relented, or they've come to a compromise as I see that he is still updating his drivers: danielkawakami.blogspot.jp
To be honest, I am not sure what I will do the next time I build a new desktop. I guess that nowadays EAX isn't such a big deal, but I rather liked Creative CMSS when watching movies on headphones.
But I don't like them as a company, and feel like they've held back advancement in audio technology. I would definitely support a competitor if there is one that is viable.. but there is a lack of reviews and overall interest in discrete sound cards nowadays so it is hard to find information that covers sound cards from all relevant perspective (movie, audio and gaming).

[Marenghi]

I was just about to post that website TooNice. My Auzentech prelude has come to life again thanks to his drivers along with what the original drivers came with (mainly the dolby digital and DTS packs) without his support for my old card I would have been forced to get another as Auzentech have long since disappeared. His site does provide drivers for win 10 and most of the Asus soundcard range by the looks of it

[Corky34]

But I don't like them as a company, and feel like they've held back advancement in audio technology.

Not going to disagree with them as a company, but to say they held back advancement in audio technology is incorrect, although I understand why people blame them.

Creative and every other audio hardware manufacture were dealt a massive broadside from Microsoft when they changed the way Windows (Vista onwards) interacted with audio hardware, stability issues caused by drivers, basically they removed hardware accelerated sound and replaced it with the Universal Audio Architecture.

[gwp]

Which gives better music quality? These Strix cards or the Asus Xonar Essence STX II?

[Roobubba]

Creative don't exactly fare much better to be fair, but I know what you mean.

Looks like Creative have got some Windows 10 drivers out for the XFi but no mention of Windows 10 support for my Asus Xonar D2X yet. I'm assuming Creatives Windows 10 drivers work ofcourse

I tend to steer clear of Creative, too, since buying a current webcam about 2 weeks before windows 7 came out, and there was STILL no win7 driver for it over a year later! I haven't bothered to check since, but still...

[devBunny]

So if I want a raid card do I order a "Strix Sound DLX"?

[TooNice]

Creative and every other audio hardware manufacture were dealt a massive broadside from Microsoft when they changed the way Windows (Vista onwards) interacted with audio hardware, stability issues caused by drivers, basically they removed hardware accelerated sound and replaced it with the Universal Audio Architecture.

I was referring to the Aureal episode way back. It is not just killing their most promising competitor via lawyers that bothered me, but it was also around that time they started taking longer and longer to release new products. Obviously there is no telling how things would have turned out if Aureal has stuck around. They might've been a one-hit wonder. But with something as good as they had at the time it was made, one can't help but wonder what if. Had Creative aggressively developed more products afterwards, perhaps using some of the technology they acquired, I might have overlooked it, but they shelved most of what they acquired and started taking their sweet, sweet time to develop future products.

[nazt]

No optical, how very quaint.

[kalniel]

No optical, how very quaint.

It's more or less been replaced by coaxial these days, which these cards have.

[GuidoLS]

I tend to steer clear of Creative, too, since buying a current webcam about 2 weeks before windows 7 came out, and there was STILL no win7 driver for it over a year later! I haven't bothered to check since, but still...

The only company out there that updates their WebCam drivers over new iterations of Windows is Microsoft. Anything else that works beyond the current version of Windows is purely by coincidence, or the fact that, for the most part, anything that works on 7 will also work on 8 or 10 with the same drivers, and nothing the actual company did.

The only companies that were blatantly worse were Belkin with their USB sticks and Lexmark and their one version of Windows only printers.

[Metro]

The problem is they never get any firmware updates, as you have seen with the Xonar series