I've also owned Soundblasters since the SB Pro and never really had a problem with em (ok, I had a defective SB 16 ASP once, but got it replaced by a functioning one).
Yes, I had the problem with the VIA chipsets, but as someone else already said, its was VIAs fault but could be fixed with a patch.

However, Ive also tried several other brands and always had huge problems with em. I had several Audioblasters for example which all were crappy, 2 Orchid soundcards which never worked 100% and a few others (incl. Turtlebeach) which also never worked well.

Audigys are also very popular in the Car-PC scene, because they offer such an awesome and very customizable audio processor. And if you call those guys idiots, youre one yourself.

Oh yeah, I think I already mentioned in another thread that I built PCs for a few years and we were always using Soundblasters as standard soundcards. Never did we get any complaints about the soundcards, unless the user misconfigured it.

And as good as the Prelude is, it is basically an X-Fi with some added features and drivers that are modified but are still largely Creative's code.

Creative Labs is the top seller of sound cards for a reason

Yeah, because they own the market, you jackass. A3D was the only competition for EAX until, guess what, Creative bought Aureal.

One in a million games comes with Dolby support. Some newer games have OpenAL, which *itself* is run by Creative Labs. There are no other universal standards like OpenGL and Direct 3D; it's EAX or nothing. And since Creative Labs does *not* license EAX out to other hardware manufacturers, the only option to gamers is to bite the bullet and side with shitty-dick Creative.

the Auzen Prelude is more or less the only 3rd-party EAX soundcard, and it costs $180.

I owned a Audigy 2 until I was fed up with driver issues and crashes. Part of the problem is at the time there weren't any alternatives that provided the same support. I ended up changing to a M-Audio Revolution 7.1, even though it wasn't a gaming card, supporting only up to EAX2. It was however, stable. I had thought my next card was going with the much improved on-board audio chips, but I ended up getting a good deal on a Razer Barracuda AC-1 on Woot. So far I'm happy with it.

This comment was edited on Aug 9, 18:47.

I've never had any problems with Sound Blaster cards. I've always enjoyed their wide support, though sound quality wasn't great until the SB Live or so.

Creative Labs is the top seller of sound cards for a reason, and I only rarely hear of anyone having problems with them, and never these 'I've never had a Sound Blaster card ever work' claims.. until now.

I suppose it's possible that some people can never get a Sound Blaster to work, yet they keep buying them..? Doesn't that make them stupid..? Obviously, if I could never get a Sound Blaster to work, or if they crashed my computer with any sort of vague regularity, I wouldn't buy them..

I've been trolled, right.. awww

A and C for me. I do feel kind of bad about C. Not too proud of A either - I can't even name another sound card on the market.

Quboid

Windows Vista got slated on release, I've found it usable since SP1.
Windows XP got slated on release. I found it usable since SP2.
Windows 2000 got slated on release. I found it usable since SP4.
Windows ME got slated on release. I found it usable ... well, you know. See the pattern?

Vista has been fine for me, I've had no driver issues, no performance issues, no compatibility issues - which I can't say for XP - no stability issues except for a couple which I put down to overclocking too much.

Vista is the Crysis of operating systems, you're quite right. It's flashy and hyped and it doesn't deliver because it actually just feels kinda the same and if you look closely, the art isn't that great. However, it is a solid engine and I think both Vista and the Cry engine will be around for a while.

This is just my opinion and my experiences of course, your mileage may vary.

Quboid

I have owned Sound Blasters ever since the Sound Blaster Pro and never experienced any driver crashes.. except that whole 'Via chipset & SB Live!' hard drive corruption issue, but I blame Via.

You guys with all your crashes and reformatting are either

a) incredibly unlucky
b) lying

You've owned Sound Blasters since the SB Pro? You are either

a) incredibly stupid
b) lying
c) a supporter of a POS company
d) all over the above

Neither a or b since I've never been able to successfully load up Creative's drivers and have had to use third party drivers. Since I have the Audigy 2 platinum and use the LiveDrive daily I have no interest in buying another $100+ sound card for zero performance increase. It's just annoying to have to jump through all the hoops just to get it running.

Sent from my iPhone (pardon the speeling)

I have owned Sound Blasters ever since the Sound Blaster Pro and never experienced any driver crashes.. except that whole 'Via chipset & SB Live!' hard drive corruption issue, but I blame Via.

You guys with all your crashes and reformatting are either

a) incredibly unlucky
b) lying

It should be noted that there were some significant improvements made in Windows sound with Vista's sound engine. Yes, there were some definite legacy sacrifices made in the name of progress, but let's hope that over time the end user sees benefit in the new tech.

What improvements exactly? In dual-booting Vista on my gaming system, all I've seen is sound that's far less configurable and tweakable and slightly older games that don't sound as good. I am no fan of Creative's drivers either but I run an X-Fi and have never had a blue screen or game crash the entire time I've had it installed. All I've seen so far is the removal of concrete support for older games (and if you look at the release notes for Alchemy, many of these games aren't old at all) and configurability of the sound system to supposedly increase stability that was never a problem for most to begin with. I'm still not convinced that the adjustments don't have something to do with accomodating the horrendous DRM layer in Vista.


This comment was edited on Aug 9, 13:03.

Yeah that's a blanket statement, but I think it's a safe one.

And the most popular one. Technically, it's not a horrible OS, it's just that the cost of entry is unreasonable for many and that there were promises made that Microsoft never followed through on. A lot of people were disappointed by this -- not for technical reasons, however.

Vista is the Crysis of operating systems.

D-Rock

Vista will always be a piece of shit.

I'm calling shill on D-Rock. No one with any technical sense supports that OS. Yeah that's a blanket statement, but I think it's a safe one.

"Progress", feh...

What did change with Vista?

You mean other than the fact that everything runs 10-15FPS slower now? Vista is still a fucking POS.

For more info on the audio architecture of Vista, look here for a good overview:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Technical_features_of_Windows_Vista

There's a lot of technical jargon there, but the overall design seems to make more sense. There's potential there to overcome the limitations of the "kmixer era".

With my audigy 2 I used to get blue screens in XP from the drivers. Most of the time it worked well, but it used to choke when I did any hardware upgrades or relocated the card to a different slot, often resulting in a reformat.

My audigy 2 in vista never caused blue screen type problems, but the drivers still had issues. Considering EAX has always been an overhyped POS and the benefits of sound hardware acceleration are negligible in this day and age, I've moved on to onboard sound. The HD Audio provided by my realtek chipset sounds great from a digital output. I'm glad to be rid of the oversaturated mess that is EAX and will happily listen through stereo speakers or headphones any day.

D-Rock
This comment was edited on Aug 9, 10:03.

The claim was it was to stop the ridiculous amount of sound card related crashes and related problems, mostly due to a near monopoly.

And being an owner of an SB Live through the windows 2000 release debacle and subsequently sucking drivers. Then an SB audigy through the XP release and subsequently sucking drivers, that didn't really improve OS compatibility after upgrading to an audigy2. And then that audigy2 through the Vista release debacle and subsequently sucking drivers (no OS crashes this time though!) I'm inclined to agree!

This comment was edited on Aug 9, 09:06.

What did change with Vista?

Quboid

And I love how Creative stepped up to the plate to give Audigy 2 cards full Vista support by updating all their drivers. Oh, wait...

Lol. Creative is a POS company, if there ever was one.

And I love how Creative stepped up to the plate to give Audigy 2 cards full Vista support by updating all their drivers. Oh, wait...

It should be noted that there were some significant improvements made in Windows sound with Vista's sound engine. Yes, there were some definite legacy sacrifices made in the name of progress, but let's hope that over time the end user sees benefit in the new tech.

Creative is no angel either when it comes to their business practices and development of technology. The fact that they had the rug pulled out from under them will hopefully bring new life and competition into a segment of the hardware market that became stagnant.


D-Rock