i have x-fi platinum for one i'm tired of seeing the same beta driver for vista64 since may i'm tired of the bsod in BF2142 that is caused by both nvidia and creative, the process locked pages one, i googled and most say its a mixture of both drivers. and today was the last straw, i'm trying to record sound from my pc and no matter which sound recorder i use or format type, it crackles horribly, i messed around and really think its probably the sound drivers. so i googled some reviews and comparisons...still undecided if $179 is going to benefit me over x-fi, but cuda does have updated drivers. i'm not looking for better sound quality in games, just equal to with hopefully something a little better supported driver wise. i already have the barracuda headphones and read this card activates the built in transcducers for more bass realism and digital sound as well anyone think its worth it? i mean i have the cash, not to blow mindlessly on junk hardware but ya know.
I would take a Look at the Auzentech Prelude and the Asus Xonar D2. The Cuda great but it never hurts to shop around.
could you explain why the drivers are aweful, i'm assuming then you have one right. i'm not exactly seeing great drivers from creative either, in fact it kinda feels like they gave up, i dont see a reason to have the exact same beta for 4 months i read prelude had the same chip and if i understood correctly the reference drivers work for cuda as well. never heard of xonar but i'll look into it.
The prelude has the same chip, and uses really similar drivers for now. But Auzentech is developing their own drivers for it.
Drivers are not awful. They have vista 32bit/64bit drivers now. I have no problems with my razer in vista. I have yet to have a problem with the drivers. But since you dont have the razer headsets go for the asus Xonar, The only reason to get the AC is if you had the headsets. My headset works the way it should in vista since there beta drivers that they put out last month. Right now it looks there updating them more then before.so its a matter or time before they have every thing fixed and move it to final. If I was you, I would grab a xonar just becuase it has the tech to let it go around the DRM in music for backing up purpose. And it comes with the bracket to use with midi keyboards. If you get lucky some how and find a store that still have x-merdians in stock go for that.
Auzentech X-Meridian might be what you're looking for. Great card, but I don't know anything about Vista support. Still, it's something I'd look into.
The X-Meridian is great in Vista. It really boils down to gaming. How much do you game and do you like EAX effects when you game? -If no, then there are lots of awsome sounding cards out there. If you want EAX/OpenAL effects then the only choice is the Auzen Prelude. I just reviewed that card, It is a amazing piece of kit. If you wait for a bit you may be interested in my next review
well there people who dont game with eax on or dont care about openAL in there games. so it really should be. Do you care about eax3-5/openAL or no.
Even without the gaming effects the Prelude is still a major player. This card sounds amazing. @Gen, I understand alot of people don't use gaming effects.
These are my main issues with the card, build quality notwithstanding. In a 5.1 setup, the wrong sounds often get outputted to the wrong speakers. Meaning, for example, that sounds meant to come from my front-left speaker often came out of my front right speaker, while sounds meant to come out of the front right would also come out of the front right speaker. The volume of sound in general coming out of my speakers would occasionally jump all over the place, randomly becoming very quiet, and then turning itself back up loud again. Settings you make in the driver control panel are not saved, not saved after restart, and sometimes they would reset without a restart (Very annoying) The card was also really bad for mic input, making me sound like I was underwater with a sock in my mouth. (same microphone sounds fine with onboard audio) There were also glitches where the control panel would be half the size it was supposed to be, with no text on it, so you couldn't see what any of the controls were supposed to be, and the only way to fix this was to restart my computer and open the control panel again, losing all my settings in the process!
I know quite a few guys that own AC-1's and love them. Read some reviews and compare the cards your interested in and buy the one that has the features you want. Hope that helps.
thanks all, the only reason i keep gearing towards the AC1 is cause i have the HP1 headphones, so i would get the digital signal and better bass response. i dont know how well i like EAX, i use it in BF2142, seems ok but i never compared with it off, doesnt it just make the sound more spacious sounding? other than BF i dunno if my other games use it and openAL or not, dunno what the real differences are.
The AC1? Good luck. The best review of the AC1 (or any other CMI8788 card) http://www.ixbt.com/multimedia/razer-barracuda-ac1.shtml
