Sound Cards & Games

I built a new system and thought that I would try to use the onboard sound.
I have tried it and it is not nearly as good as having a sound card. I am
going to buy a Sound Blaster card and I was wondering if the extra memory
that comes on the Extrem Gamer Fatality does anything for the two and three
year old games I play, Nascar Racing 2003, F1 2002, GTR2, Indy Series. The
other card I am thinking of is the Extrem gamer without the memory. In the
old system I had the Sound Blaster 5.1 Gamer and it was fine with the games
but I want a newer card for this machine. Anyway just looking for some help
deciding on the card or may someone has a better solution.

I've read a few of the reviews. most state that the x version of the
"gamer" card is quite sufficient and cheap. the basic card was not a good
choice for gamers, the higher up cards dealt with expansion box for front
panel & back {leastthat was the gist I was getting} and really not much
advantage unless you had equally optimised speakers/headphones and all that.
I read some user reviews saying the gamer helped his framerate but overall
the sound was not much better than the older cards with hiss and or buzzez?
hell my speakers are old, doubt my ears would hear a difference after the
onslought of years in loud environments, I suspect I would not mind freeing
up a few clock cycles in CPU ya know.

Not 2 weeks ago you could buy the lowly GAMER (no not the EXTREME or the
Fata1ty} it for under 70 bucks, even directly from Creatives store... now
they're around 90? geebus this seems backwards.


Dennis Croll enlightened us with:
> I built a new system and thought that I would try to use the onboard
> sound. I have tried it and it is not nearly as good as having a sound
> card. I am going to buy a Sound Blaster card and I was wondering if
> the extra memory that comes on the Extrem Gamer Fatality does
> anything for the two and three year old games I play, Nascar Racing
> 2003, F1 2002, GTR2, Indy Series. The other card I am thinking of is
> the Extrem gamer without the memory. In the old system I had the
> Sound Blaster 5.1 Gamer and it was fine with the games but I want a
> newer card for this machine. Anyway just looking for some help
> deciding on the card or may someone has a better solution.

I have the X-FI Elite Pro with the external box. It has a bit better
electronics, more RAM and, the main reason I got it, a true Guitar input.

Yeah, it was expensive as hell

-Larry

"Plowboy" > wrote in message
...
> I've read a few of the reviews. most state that the x version of the
> "gamer" card is quite sufficient and cheap. the basic card was not a good
> choice for gamers, the higher up cards dealt with expansion box for front
> panel & back {leastthat was the gist I was getting} and really not much
> advantage unless you had equally optimised speakers/headphones and all
> that. I read some user reviews saying the gamer helped his framerate but
> overall the sound was not much better than the older cards with hiss and
> or buzzez? hell my speakers are old, doubt my ears would hear a difference
> after the onslought of years in loud environments, I suspect I would not
> mind freeing up a few clock cycles in CPU ya know.
>
> Not 2 weeks ago you could buy the lowly GAMER (no not the EXTREME or the
> Fata1ty} it for under 70 bucks, even directly from Creatives store... now
> they're around 90? geebus this seems backwards.
>
>
> Dennis Croll enlightened us with:
>> I built a new system and thought that I would try to use the onboard
>> sound. I have tried it and it is not nearly as good as having a sound
>> card. I am going to buy a Sound Blaster card and I was wondering if
>> the extra memory that comes on the Extrem Gamer Fatality does
>> anything for the two and three year old games I play, Nascar Racing
>> 2003, F1 2002, GTR2, Indy Series. The other card I am thinking of is
>> the Extrem gamer without the memory. In the old system I had the
>> Sound Blaster 5.1 Gamer and it was fine with the games but I want a
>> newer card for this machine. Anyway just looking for some help
>> deciding on the card or may someone has a better solution.
>
>

"Larry" > wrote in message
...
>I have the X-FI Elite Pro with the external box. It has a bit better
>electronics, more RAM and, the main reason I got it, a true Guitar input.
>
> Yeah, it was expensive as hell
>
> -Larry
>
I have a several year old Hercules GTXP that also has standard musical
inputs and optical inputs. I use my soundboard's monitor output into it and
use EMagic Logic Platinum for mixing and effects. I play several instruments
and then can do vocals and can then add percussion and about any other
tracks I want. Kind of a neat setup and has very good sound for gaming. It
may be a bit old, but really ahead of it's time 5yrs ago. It is much like
your X-FI as far as having it's own memory and a seperate connector box with
tons of inputs.

Ed

I have one of the old Hercules GTXP's around here somewhere too. I may have
tossed it though

Hercules driver mis-management really annoyed me after a while.

-Larry

"Ed Medlin" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Larry" > wrote in message
> ...
>>I have the X-FI Elite Pro with the external box. It has a bit better
>>electronics, more RAM and, the main reason I got it, a true Guitar input.
>>
>> Yeah, it was expensive as hell
>>
>> -Larry
>>
> I have a several year old Hercules GTXP that also has standard musical
> inputs and optical inputs. I use my soundboard's monitor output into it
> and use EMagic Logic Platinum for mixing and effects. I play several
> instruments and then can do vocals and can then add percussion and about
> any other tracks I want. Kind of a neat setup and has very good sound for
> gaming. It may be a bit old, but really ahead of it's time 5yrs ago. It is
> much like your X-FI as far as having it's own memory and a seperate
> connector box with tons of inputs.
>
> Ed
>

"Larry" > wrote in message
news
>I have one of the old Hercules GTXP's around here somewhere too. I may
>have tossed it though
>
> Hercules driver mis-management really annoyed me after a while.
>
> -Larry

I found one that worked well with XP and never changed....:-). It was
released about the same time as XP IIRC. I still use it in my recording box
and it is still working great......It too was pretty expensive for it's
time. I'll keep using it for music 'till it drops...........:-)

Ed

I took mine offline and installed a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card, which I
then used for years. Absolutely wonderful, troublefree card.

It was based on the same hardware as the Hercules GTXP. Funny thing is, TB
had WHQL drivers available even before XP was released. If I remember
correctly, Hercules needed another 3 months before we got drivers that
worked right.

They were developed from the same code based provided by the chipset
developer. There was no excuse for it on Hercules part IMHO.

-Larry

"Ed Medlin" > wrote in message
...
>
> "Larry" > wrote in message
> news
>>I have one of the old Hercules GTXP's around here somewhere too. I may
>>have tossed it though
>>
>> Hercules driver mis-management really annoyed me after a while.
>>
>> -Larry
>
> I found one that worked well with XP and never changed....:-). It was
> released about the same time as XP IIRC. I still use it in my recording
> box and it is still working great......It too was pretty expensive for
> it's time. I'll keep using it for music 'till it drops...........:-)
>
> Ed
>
>

"Larry" > wrote in message
...
>I took mine offline and installed a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card, which I
>then used for years. Absolutely wonderful, troublefree card.
>
> It was based on the same hardware as the Hercules GTXP. Funny thing is,
> TB had WHQL drivers available even before XP was released. If I remember
> correctly, Hercules needed another 3 months before we got drivers that
> worked right.
>
> They were developed from the same code based provided by the chipset
> developer. There was no excuse for it on Hercules part IMHO.
>
> -Larry
>
Yea, that was a bummer. And some of the later drivers disabled some of the
GTXP features that I needed. Once I found a driver that functioned well I
stayed with it. Probably the reason that Hercules no longer exists as it's
own entity. I am not sure, but I can't remember seeing anything even branded
Hercules in some time.

Ed