Decent soundcards..

[aidanjt]

Anything baring the mark 'Creative', and passing off the notion of 'working' is merely a testament to modern marketing and salesmanship. The X-Fi is the first piece of hardware ever made that sucks as badly on Windows as it does on Linux, but at least the ALSA crowd has the source code for it now and they can start fixing it themselves without getting sued into oblivion.

As such, stick with anything made by Auzentech, Razor, or Asus. They all make good cards and they're well supported by the common operating systems.

[Zak33]

All cards work well with Vista, got mine running on Vista x64 now.

that's a brave statement..... I have heard lots of angry cries and many teeth being gnashed while trying to get surround sound to work in Vista on Creative soundcards.

But it has to be said, a proper sound card IS much better for gaming that onboard sound. The 3d positioning, even in stereo is far superior to most onboard chips.

[format]

that's a brave statement..... I have heard lots of angry cries and many teeth being gnashed while trying to get surround sound to work in Vista on Creative soundcards.

But it has to be said, a proper sound card IS much better for gaming that onboard sound. The 3d positioning, even in stereo is far superior to most onboard chips.

I'm only 2.1 so I should be fine... right

[DDY]

that's a brave statement..... I have heard lots of angry cries and many teeth being gnashed while trying to get surround sound to work in Vista on Creative soundcards.

But it has to be said, a proper sound card IS much better for gaming that onboard sound. The 3d positioning, even in stereo is far superior to most onboard chips.

From personal experience I can say all cards work fine on Vista x64. Bar the game compatability problems the Xonar cards, my Xonar DX has been great.

I must admit, I've had problems with X-Fi cards with Vista in the past but with the latest lot of drivers; my X-Fi Titanium, Elite Pro and Xtreme Music have been running well.

[Jay]

I use an X-Fi on XP for gaming with no real issues and one on my Vista media center, once again with no real issues. Granted I don't game on Vista (Why would anyone even think about doing that??) so I can't really say how the X-Fi performs on Vista but in XP its pretty good.

[Zak33]

Granted I don't game on Vista (Why would anyone even think about doing that??)

DX10 I think, but I'm with you, I'm an XP man for games.

[Zsev]

I've been considering sound cards too few months back but in the end I bought a USB DAC instead. Decided that I don't want all the driver issues associated with vista and a sound card.

Most USB DAC uses superior DAC compared to an internal sound card, delivering higher quality sound output. Plus they don't need drivers to work, I can bring them around and plug it on any computer I use.

Sure I don't get 5.1 or all the crystallizer gimmicky stuff, but that's fine because I use a headphone for gaming and 2.1 speakers for music.

[Jay]

DX10 I think, but I'm with you, I'm an XP man for games.

DX10 is just a marketing trick if you ask me. What a joke Vista turned out to be!

[Dr Cool]

I am currently RMA'ing my X-fi after 3 months of pain lol. Xonar D1 here I come!

back on OP topic:

Are they worth it... YES.... VERY MUCH, I'm not even an audiophile and I can realy feel the difference.

[Enda]

I swapped my X-Fi for Xonar DX for one week (with my flat mate)

I was happy to get back to the X-Fi. Reasons:

1. Xonar did not render effects in games properly. Once in CSS the shots at front came from rear speakers, besides that the sounds were much thinner sounding, lifeless.
Maybe I just got used to X-Fi.

2. I missed CMSS-3D Headphones setting on the X-Fi for gaming. Dolby headphone does not come near to this. (Admittedly I'm FAR less impressed with regular CMSS for speakers - do not confuse these two: the X-Fi headphone mode is great)

3. Asus support is appalling. They do not respond for weeks and then - IF a reply comes - it is written in gobberish. My wild ass guess is they use baby slaves that work for a bowl of rice. I contacted both ASUS and Sound Blaster in the past and it was much easier to get an answer from Sound Blaster (it was written in gobberish, too, though

4. I read reviews saying that Xonar D2 had better components, dunno about DX, but it seems that you need very expensive speakers to be able to hear any difference in components quality, above certain treshold that is. Despite my best efforts I failed to wet my pants when listing to music via Xonar for the first time. It was not any better then X-Fi, both quite decent though.

Dunno, maybe I expected too much from Xonar, but overall I was disappointed.

Glad to have the X-Fi back in my rig now.

[magneticman]

The Xonar is miles better for music, immediately found it was warmer with far less sibilance and a generally fuller sound.

[DanceswithUnix]

Are there any cheap sound cards that work well with the HD-audio connections on the front of my PC? Just ditched my old audigy OEM card (17 quid) whilst trying to track down a problem, but don't want to put it back as I now think having a headphone socket is too useful to give up.