New Soundcard for Vista

[shaithis]

Using on-board is fine if you don't have issues but I've seen and experienced so many issues with various different solutions that I avoid it like the plague now.

Crackling, popping, microphone channels that make you sound either distant or underwater....even a number of issues with games (framerate, sound cut-outs/cut-offs etc)

I am currently using an X-Fi under Vista Ultimate x64 and its working a treat.

[Enda]

I second that ^. X-Fi replaced my Live card that was doing the job for 7 years. I can't say this about any other piece of hardware in my PC. Dedicated sound cards are very good value for money and they also take the processing load from CPU. This is a benefit even with modern, fast CPUs, see this article:
http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=39978

[this_is_gav]

Dedicated sound card good value for money for a supposed max of 12% CPU utilization from the most ridiculed and supposedly biased of all tech sites? Given how little the CPU influences most modern games I'd say that were anything but value. That leaves pretty much database work and media encoding as the only real CPU crunchers I guess.

Just playing the same 320kbps MP3 on both my main system (Core2Duo @ 3.0GHz with dedicated Audigy 4 Pro) and my HTPC (Core Duo @ 808MHz (SpeedStep was in effect at the time) with onboard Realtek HD ALC882) returns almost the exact same results... 0-1% total CPU usage for the main system and 1-2% for the HTPC. Given the difference in speed at the time, I'd call that a dead heat.

[frazered]

there are custom drivers for the older creative cards

I got my super old (9 years) sb live! value working

[wedge22]

Where can I find these custom drivers?

[DataMatrix]

I have one of the original Audigy's (Gold connectors etc...). When in XP I crackling (could have been motherboard/graphics card as these have been upgraded since I went to Vista) and in Vista I don't.

The major problem I have with Vista is things take longer to find, and it keeps resetting my damn folder view layout

[this_is_gav]

The major problem I have with Vista is things take longer to find, and it keeps resetting my damn folder view layout

Off topic, but regarding that last issue (the folders), here you go:

Regedit > HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Classes\Local Settings\Software\Microsoft\Windows\Shell, delete BagMRU and Bags and then restart the PC (a log off will likely work too).

[DataMatrix]

I have tried deleting Bags but not BagMRU.

The folders reset to default for a short while. But then went back.

[No.72]

Speaking of sound drivers in vista, my sound card that came with the commando has suddenly become a bit confused, sometimes when i boot into vista it saies that I have no audio drivers installed, then if I want to reinstall the correct drivers then it just gives me 'these files are incompatible with your audio hardware'. Then if I try and uninstall the sound drivers that are suppose to be there I just get 'this app has stopped responding'.

[No.72]

I have even had the BSOD giving me sound error codes.

[frazered]

Where can I find these custom drivers?

http://kxproject.lugosoft.com/index.php?skip=1

Just install the driver and nothing else i.e. the software and mixers

i used kxdrv3538m-full.exe