Sound Card for 3D gaming?

[IvesKu]

I’m new to 3D gaming and now considering a sound card to replace my crappy onboard codec………..
Can’t decide between ASUS Xonar and Creative X-Fi, is the fancy EAX5.0 really supported by so many games? Or 2.0 and Xonar’s DS3D GX will do?

As a matter of fact, I’m a little concerned about Creative’s nasty reputation of driver support….

[Varroa]

XP or Vista? XP you can consider Creative cards but for Vista I would only consider Asus Xonar or Auzentech.

[Supergrover]

Creative will never get another dollar out of me again, crappy drivers that never seam to get fixxed......... Oh wait they were "fixed" but not by Creative........ then they threaten to sue the coder. Hmmmm

The saga of Daniel K

[Digitaldemon]

ahh the creative issue.. stay away from them... i own and want to burn it and pee on the damned card...

go daniel k! u rock

[Robscix]

Originally Posted by IvesKu

I’m new to 3D gaming and now considering a sound card to replace my crappy onboard codec………..
Can’t decide between ASUS Xonar and Creative X-Fi, is the fancy EAX5.0 really supported by so many games? Or 2.0 and Xonar’s DS3D GX will do?

As a matter of fact, I’m a little concerned about Creative’s nasty reputation of driver support….

Well If your on a budget then the Xonar DX or X-fi X-Gamer might be the way to go.
It is not just EAX 5 or 2....you have many other games that use EAX 3 and 4. ASUS's GX 2.0 drivers sound much better then a Xonar without them playing the same game. They are good little cards for the price but if you want the best sound for your games then the Auzentech Prelude 7.1 is the card you need. Hope this helps.

[Sniper]

My Creative card came with both a CD for XP & one for Vista & I haven't had trouble with either plus i'm dual booting with still no issues whatsoever.

[no_pulse]

Originally Posted by Supergrover

Creative will never get another dollar out of me again, crappy drivers that never seam to get fixxed......... Oh wait they were "fixed" but not by Creative........ then they threaten to sue the coder. Hmmmm

The saga of Daniel K

I wish I would have known about this, otherwise I wouldn't have bought a Creative sound card recently. After reading that BS I too will not be buying another Creative product!

[Sniper]

Ha ok so because Toyota just recalled umpteen thousand of their truck frames(scrapping every truck) that makes me not want to ever buy one? Hell no Toyota is & will continue to be a sweet truck even though they are now more SUV's than trucks. Still you are one person out of how many that had a problem & I to had that same problem when I first installed Vista but they have since come out with propper drivers & you can install them from there site or anywheres for that matter. I like my sound card is all I know. it works bomb for me?

[enaberif]

Originally Posted by Sniper

Ha ok so because Toyota just recalled umpteen thousand of their truck frames(scrapping every truck) that makes me not want to ever buy one? Hell no Toyota is & will continue to be a sweet truck even though they are now more SUV's than trucks. Still you are one person out of how many that had a problem & I to had that same problem when I first installed Vista but they have since come out with propper drivers & you can install them from there site or anywheres for that matter. I like my sound card is all I know. it works bomb for me?

EAX is overrated and very few games really support it.. good games that is.
With the new sound mapper in Vista surround may or may not work properly.
Everyone knows that Creative cards do not play well with Vista.

Personally I say go with Auzentech.

[CanadaRox]

Originally Posted by Sniper

Ha ok so because Toyota just recalled umpteen thousand of their truck frames(scrapping every truck) that makes me not want to ever buy one? Hell no Toyota is & will continue to be a sweet truck even though they are now more SUV's than trucks. Still you are one person out of how many that had a problem & I to had that same problem when I first installed Vista but they have since come out with propper drivers & you can install them from there site or anywheres for that matter. I like my sound card is all I know. it works bomb for me?

That analogy doesn't fit the situation. Creative built tons of crappy sound cards that had tons of issues and did nothing for it for an extremely long time. If Toyota comes across an issue, it will recall the trucks as you said to prevent any problems and possible harm to the customers. Creative gave slow and bad support, Toyota spent millions to make sure their customers weren't harmed by their mistake, seems like its an unfair analogy.

There are far from a few people that have had problems with Vista and X-Fi. While trying to find some fixes for mine (X-Fi Xtreme Music) I read through so many horror stories I don't see how people would still buy Creative. And even if it has been fixed, its also a question of customer service. If it took creative over a year to get drivers that were decent, do you really want to have to wait that again if another major problem arises? And do you want to be stuck with very little and shitty service for any minor problems you have? And then there is the whole issue of Linux (which mostly affects anyone who might want to try it out, as well as more proof of terrible customer support). It took them about three years to get a barely alpha 64-bit only driver that required the use of an outdated kernal and barely gave any support.

I personally will never ever buy anything from Creative, nor anything with a Creative based core (ie. the new non-Creative X-Fi's). I barely noticed a huge change from EAX2 to EAX5 (when 5 would even work, which it never did on Vista). So I now have an HT Omega Claro and I couldn't be happier. Much better sound quality (oh yeah, X-Fi's sound is decent at best), much more intuitive drivers (no stupid game/media/recording modes to swap between), a much less bloated driver, and it actually works.

/end rant

Sorry about the long post, I just really hate Creative based on my experience with my X-Fi XtremeMusic.