Atomic Systems

Hi,

I'm coming to the end of a project to upgrade my PC and one of the last things I'm considering is the soundcard. At the moment I have a Creative Labs Sound Blaster Live Value 1024 card which is 2+ years old as it was the original card in the PC and I bought the PC almost exactly 2 years ago.

I was just wondering if anyone had any recommendations on better sound cards I should be looking at or if infact I need to bother as my current one is probably OK.

Any advice gratefully received.

Well i'm well impressed with the Audigy 2.
I paid £99 for it (at PC World on Christmas Eve though.... needed it there and then) and it's just the basic card but it's bloody good.
Comes with some excellent Media software and i got Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix and Hitman 2 with it.
It comes with a 1394 Firewirse port as well if you want one of them for the future, in addition to a Gameport (although you'll need space for the addition bracket).

Not sure about the Audigy 1, but it seems very popular and magazines still rave about it.

Unless your seriously into editing and the like i don't see the point in going for the Platinum! cards and the like, simply due to the price.
If i remember correctly i saw the Audigy 2 Platinum! for some daft price like £280!!!

The 1024 should keep you going for a while. Unless you've surround sound speakers and the 1024 doesn't support Dolby 5.1/6.1 (??) then i wouldn't bother to be frank. I only got the Audigy 2 due to the onboard card supporting Dolby, but didn't have enough points for Creative 5.1 5300 speakers. Daft, but true.


60085 "MANNA".

if u want the audigy 2 platinum with live drive and remote the one which i have its awsome u shud buy it from http://www.scan.co.uk its only £150.99 which aint bad for the amount of kit ur getting

stick with ur current card, u wont get much btter, unless u wanna spend lots and not notice much of a difference. I had a soundblaster 16 pci for 3 years and recently got a soundblaster live 5.1 and apart from buying a 5.1 surround sound speaker set, i havent noticed much difference. Sound is something that is hard to improve, over digital 5.1 purely because there isnt much more ur ears can pick up.

So unless u have the speaker set and money to burn (excess expense) its not worth it.

For MSTS alone then any 5.1 sound card will do. The way MSTS hammers your system means that even an expensive hardware accelarated sound card will give you very little, if noticable, performance improvement. For the cost of such cards you would be much better off spending the money on a CPU/memory as far as MSTS goes. I have a £10 digital 4.1 card and that works MSTS fine. It just need to be DirectX/Direct3D compatible.

i have an old creative pci 128 and it works fine, its been in and out of my last three pc's.

The thing that prompted me to ask in the first place was that watford electronics/savastore have a Sound Blaster 5.1 Digital PCI Sound Card at £44.65 incl. VAT and I wondered if that was a substantial improvement over my current card and if it was value for money.

Robbie S.

Get anything but a SoundBlaster Live!

Creative has a terrible reputation for drivers.

Audigy works although there are better cards to be had.

Admittedly it's OEM, but i've seen a Creative Soundblaster Live 5.1 for £24.57inc. Is that what your comparing it too?

Also a Audigy 2 for £84.05inc and that must be a full retail version for that price cos i paid £100 for it at PC World. It does support Dolby 6.1 but then you have to have a 6 point surround sound speaker system in order to take advantage of it, something like the Digital range of Creative speakers (5500, 5700 etc) but they aren't cheap (£125-£175).


60085 "MANNA".

At http://www.tcwo.com. the Live! is available for $US 32.00.

Without going overboard, I should think the Audigy of some flavor should work for you in the MSTS realm for cheap.

Need help?

e-mail me for my phone number.

Go to a REPUTABLE computer fair and get a SB 5.1 for approx £20..new and guaranteed ...or a 52X LG CD reader for also £20...in fact I get everything from computer fairs.....you'll realise how much you are paying in the high street shops!!!!

Thanks for the info everyone.

The best option it seems to me is to stick with what I have for now and splash the cash that might have gone on a new card on something more MSTS related!