I might need a chip sound card. Not looking a for spectacular sound quality but it still has to provide descent quality sound atleast on par with modern mobo sound. Looking to spend $20, hopefully less. Most of your higher end cards go for about $50 from the looks so I figure theres some descent budget cards out the for around $15-$20.
Which OS are you using? If Windows XP, an Audigy SE will serve you well, but if Vista/Win7 then that card is to be avoided, as Creative are able to disable it.
Win 7 x64 Ultimate. As for disabling, if memory serves me right, you even tried the Daniel K drivers and aside from one random BSOD, had no problem, right?
Not so any more, the sound stutters so badly it's unusable. I think they work in Vista, but not Win7.
http://support.creative.com/Product...gy SE&subCatName=Audigy&CatName=Sound+Blaster Creative has drivers for Audigy SE on there site. Whats wrong with these drivers?
They remove all functionality of the card. It will play sound in stereo. That is it. - no surround, no control panel, no EAX, no stereo upscale, no equalizer, no... you get the idea.
So is there a descent card for about $20 or so that will run fine in Win 7 x64 or is the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio the best bet?
X-Fis generally do, though I'm not entirely sure how well for the Extreme Audio - however, do note that the Xtreme Audio and Audigy SE are identical cards except for the driver support, and the Xtreme Audio, last time I checked, costs twice as much.
Well a sound cards not really a priority so I suppose I will wait on this till things are a bit more clear.
No, I am using those drivers for 5.1 sound without issue (you have to remove & re-insert each plug after driver install to make the speakers detect...this problem exists all the way back to the first XP drivers). I use windows as an equalizer/control pannel, and Media Center upscales stereo just fine...without any tweeks or anything. And who wants EAX anyway? That is why there is an equalizer.
Third party add-in equalizers are rubbish, they either only work for music playback (maybe sometimes video, but not often) or they cause horrendous problems with sound lag. Equalizers need to be run at the driver level.
Equalizers at the driver level are just as crap as the higher ones...at least on the old creative cards. If you realy want a good equalizer, it is external hardware or nothing.
