[imtim83]

i am wondering if there is any soundcard out there that works well in win2k , has very good win2k support with drivers updated a lot , not any issues like the sb live with *cracking* , good qaulity sound in games and music , not full of extras when you install the drivers like sb lives , will not have issues with DX 8.0 or future DXs and will work with all games ok.

[ValkyerieK7]

Turtle Beach Santa Cruz or the Hercules XP Game Theatre

[imtim83]

Sure it works with win2k very well and everything ? and has all the features like 98 in win2k both of them ?
which one do you prefer or like better in win2k ?
and which makes more updated drivers for win2k and has better tech support?

thanks

[imtim83]

hey btw why you got a SOUND BLASTER LIVE VALUE in your specs? and it works well with win2k ?
or you getting one of the 2 you recommended to me when you get a new sound card ?

[BladeRunner]

*Shrugs*
I'm one of the people who time and time again say 'get a card from the SB Live! family'.
I have a SB Live! Value card I bought about a month after they came out and haven't/don't have one single issue with it under Win2k.

[imtim83]

ok but you do have a intel processor

[ValkyerieK7]

Well I was gonna Go reply but i had to get to my evening summer class. Well the reason why I have sblive is because i didn't know about hte potential problems at the time although I am not suffering from it. But everyone seems to like the Santa Cruz for good music playback and stuff

[ThC 129]

SC and GTXP both work flawlessly in 2k. No issues whatsoever. Same driver base for both too.

[ValkyerieK7]

Not exactly. The deal behind the chips on both the santa cruz and xp game theater is the fact that they support more audio api's such as a3d and sensaura(I think). Plus they use different chips as a whole. The sc and xp used the circus logic or something like that ..while sb live utilizes the emuk chip.

[99CobraCvt]

Santa Cruz has acknowledged gaming issues with Santa Cruz and DX 8. They haven't issued any patchs or updates that I am aware of. they just reccomend staying at DX7. :-/ ...kind of a bite, being as I bought my Santa Cruz to get away from issues of the SBLive!.

[ValkyerieK7]

thanks for the heads up

[sapiens74]

I got the Hercules Game Theatre with all my new stuff and it Kicks A@s in Windows 2000. Its 150 bucks tho so go if Santa Cruz if money is an object, if not the Hercules rules. Mp3's sound so much better, and games like Half-life the 3d sound is way better.

[ZoSo]

I'm trashing my SBLive and picking up the Hercules tomorrow, and the Klipsch ProMedia 4.1's.

[ThC 129]

i have no problems with DX 8 and my SantaCruz. When i was using 2k i had DX 8.1 on and didn't have any problems DirectSound 3d and EAX and A3d all worked fine still.

[99CobraCvt]

I found it when researching why my system was still getting occasional freezes. Oddly enough TBeach has pulled reference ato the issue from their knowledgebase. They appear to have replaced it with a generic line about if you have problems to de-accelerate the card.

Here is a blurb and link from viahardware that references what I am talking about:

Quote:

http://www.viahardware.com/scfaq.shtm:
There have been reports of certain 3D games bouncing users back to the desktop within ten or so minutes of play. It does not happen to all users or all configurations. Turtle Beach has acknowledged the problem in their knowledgebase and are advising affected users to employ DirectX 7. My thanks to Thomas Jaeger on Usenet for bringing this to my attention.

[Wolf87]

It is not clear that the Santa Cruz is the responsible party to those throw back to desktop (like in Shogun Total War even with 12.41 Detonators) but it remains the prime suspect.

Pushing the hardware acceleration tab to the left creates more problems than it solves with DirectSound 3D and EAX 2.

Turtle Beach have delivered efficient drivers in the past and the next drivers set should resolve any problems with DirectX 8 before Whistler goes on market.

Now Via has bugs and problems with SB and SC but my computer is Intel.

ACPI causes slowdowns and may be involved. It resolves annoyances like SWFF2 now working in Tachyon the Fringe and occasional USB mouse lockups after installing Lexmark USB printer.

But it all might come from the known unresolved bugs in Nvidia nv_disp.dll driver file. Nvidia promised a patch on June 22, 2001.

Baldur's Gate 2 presented sound problems with Santa Cruz but their new patch for Windows 2000 solves those.

I consider the Santa Cruz a superior gaming alternative to SBL and it also includes a 5.1 hardware decoder making it preferable for DVD.

[Brian Frank]

I have something to add: Dell seems to think we want to purchase a Dell PC and sends us order mags. In the one that came yesterday, the high end machines were equipped with a Santa Cruz card.