Best Sound Card SB Live or MX300?

What would be the best sound card for NR1999 and GPL? TIA, -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Scott Eslick ICQ # 3889251 Scott's Sim Site Director-Offline Racers Speed Association - Bronze Cup Click to subscribe to the ORSA Mailing List Click to subscribe to the NASCAR 1999 Mailing List --------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Neither of those games use EAX or A3D so don't base you hardware choice on either of those games. The MX300 is the better card based on a lot of things other than those 2 games.

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>What would be the best sound card for NR1999 and GPL? >TIA, >-------------------------------------------------------------------------------- >Scott Eslick >ICQ # 3889251 >Scott's Sim Site >Director-Offline Racers Speed Association - Bronze Cup >Click to subscribe to the ORSA Mailing List >Click to subscribe to the NASCAR 1999 Mailing List >--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

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>Neither of those games use EAX or A3D so don't base you hardware choice on >either of those games. The MX300 is the better card based on a lot of things >other than those 2 games. >>What would be the best sound card for NR1999 and GPL?

The MX300 is an extremely POOR choice right now! the drivers are extremely immature and grab huge amounts of cpu resources. Please read the ZDbench mark results in the latest Computer *** World. If someone is wanting to run GPL they couldn't pick any worse of a card! If Diamond comes through with some good drivers then I agree that the MX300 seems tike the best of both worlds (EAX or A3D): but only if they show me the money! I've been burned a couple times with video cards this way and I won't let it happen again if I can help it. The STB 4400 drivers don't work and Hercules has yet to release an approved win98 driver for their thriller 3d. In the later case, I'll bet we never see one. Ah the price of the leading/bleeding edge. Jeff

I recently (4 days ago) selected and installed the SB-Live. I have to say that it sounds a LOT better than my old Guillemot Maxi Sound. I've never seen or heard an MX-300, but I am not prone to buying ANYTHING from Diamond because their track record for supporting legacy hardware (something they came out with last week, for example) is not very good at all. -- ========================================================= John Simmons - Redneck Techno-Biker (Zerex12) http://www.members.home.net/jms1/index.html John Simmons - Barbarian Diecast Collector http://members.home.net/jsimm/diecast_index.html IGPS Director http://members.home.net/jms1/igps.html If you want to send me email, go to either of the URL's shown above & click "Send Me Mail" in the contents frame. =========================================================

The huge difference you point out is when using more than 16 44kHz 3D audio streams, when the MX300 offloads to those to the CPU. Comparing apples to apples you see that the MX300 gives about 6-7% CPU utilization with 16 44kHz 16-bit 3D sound streams while the SBLive! gives about 2-3% (Aureal has alpha drivers that are said to beat the SBLive! in DirectSound3D and match it in DirectSound). This is hardly a huge difference, and in fact at 16 22kHz 8-bit streams the two cards are nearly identical with the current drivers. In real world tests with games it doesn't make much difference at all (though game tests of EAX vs. A3D2.0 as in Half-Life will show a difference as A3D2.0 is doing a heck of a lot more processing). - Eric

Eric, Thank you for clarifying what "real world" results and usage would be. I would not have guessed that based on the results. Every time I think I've learned something it becomes clear that I've actually lost ground:) It is extremely difficult to dig through benchmarks vs real world when most software companies won't tell you what it all means and about the only real world bench mark used is Quake. It also seems hard for the software developers to decide which APIs to support and which will be optimal for their engine/cpu load/video function mix. By the way, I wrote tech support for STB per your suggestion asking that they fix their drivers to better support the OpenGL calls used by GPL and never got the courtesy of a reply. Now that 3dfx owns STB I'm sure that a Riva chipset will get their full attention :) Jeff

Richard Busch wrote Please stop writing Usenet message in HTML, especially with a 19kb image attached to it each time. It's a pain to download each time, and this is the last post I will read from you. You should question yourself why your post are in average 500% bigger than all the others (2kb from 20kb). HTML is a language for the World Wide Web, not the USENET. -= Fran?ois Mnard <ymenard/Nas-Frank> -= NROS Nascar sanctioned Guide http://www.nros.com/ -= SimRacing Online http://www.simracing.com/ -= Official mentally retarded guy of r.a.s. -= May the Downforce be with you... "People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realise how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world."

Hmmm - all the people over at diamond are raving about the review and Diamond's webpage even linked to it. Guess its all in what you ALREADY own. I never understood why people who already own a card are reading reviews on it unless they are trying to justify a purchase they weren't sure of in the first place. For the record - I have been using Diamond ever since the Stealth 64VRAM 4 years ago. I have had nothing but GREAT tech support and frequent driver updates for that card, my monster my monster 2 my mx200 and now my mx300 (which just had new drivers released a week ago) Diamond's tech support problems were a fact about 5 years ago but they have cleaned up their act and are one of the best hardware companies out there. As for the Live card, I've always had great luck with Creative cards until I stuck this lemon in my computer. Not only did my machine lock up at random intervals for 3 weeks until I removed the card: the game port on that card sucked so bad that my Gravis Xterminator wouldn't calibrate AT ALL. My Thrustmaster NASCAR Pro Wheel wouldn't calibrate the pedals correctly so I couldn't get full brakes or gas. Creative saw fit to dump 75mb worth of shitty software on my hard drive including some atrocious task-bar on my desktop. Then it offered no UNinstall options when it came time to remove the card so I had to manually remove software and over 120 registry entries using regedit. At least once I got the Live OUT and the MX300 put in, my machine hasn't locked up since and all my joypads,sticks and wheels are calibrating and running perfectly. And yesterday I found that the SPDIF I/O (which was the only thing this card had going for it) is a FAKE. That's right - all the signals are being processed in the card through ANALOG then getting converted to digital when they go out of the SPDIF I/O. So if you use the SPDIF of your CDROM to dump digital CD audio into the card - it gets converted to old-fashion analog then converted back out to digital but I guarantee it won't be as pure as the input. Creative Labs peaked when they released the AWE64. Now they are just trying to stay in the 3D Sound market with these feeble attempts at competition. They've taken a pure 3D sound routine like A3D and bastardized it by creating EAX which is nothing more than a bunch of preset reverbs that programmers can assign to various rooms and environments. It doesn't allow for reflections or occlusions or any objects which may happen to be IN that room. Nope - I can't think of one redeeming thing to say about the LIVE! other than I did like that THUNDER sound effect the put in my Windows Startup.

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>Nice review of the sblive V's mx300 sinjin. Take a gander over at the sblive >newsgroup and they are bashing you over there over a un-technical biased >review. Havent read it myself. Though i like your game walkthroughs. >The mx300 is an infant at the moment and with the end result coming from >diamond (reknowed for its non support) Maybe when all the shit has been >ironed out the card would be trouble free and used to its full potential. At >the moment i'm happy for a fully working live that sounds great and is >trouble free. >no offence

Nice review of the sblive V's mx300 sinjin. Take a gander over at the sblive newsgroup and they are bashing you over there over a un-technical biased review. Havent read it myself. Though i like your game walkthroughs. The mx300 is an infant at the moment and with the end result coming from diamond (reknowed for its non support) Maybe when all the shit has been ironed out the card would be trouble free and used to its full potential. At the moment i'm happy for a fully working live that sounds great and is trouble free. no offence -- all opinions expressed while drunk, stoned and flying through clouds.

hmm do you work for Diamond hehe? For the record I have a Live, and its a very good card. But I do think the Diamond MX300 is slightly a better card. Just look at Half-Life using the MX300 and Live, MX300 just sounds so much better. Though you can't go wrong with the SB Live either, hey these 2 cards are far superior then good ol SB16 and those shitty opti sound cards. Arthur Stealth Racing http://www.***sys.com/stealthracing.html >Hmmm - all the people over at diamond are raving about the review and Diamond's >webpage even linked to it. Guess its all in what you ALREADY own. I never >understood why people who already own a card are reading reviews on it unless >they are trying to justify a purchase they weren't sure of in the first place. >For the record - I have been using Diamond ever since the Stealth 64VRAM 4 years >ago. I have had nothing but GREAT tech support and frequent driver updates for

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>that card, >my monster >my monster 2 >my mx200 >and now my mx300 (which just had new drivers released a week ago) >Diamond's tech support problems were a fact about 5 years ago but they have >cleaned up their act and are one of the best hardware companies out there. >As for the Live card, I've always had great luck with Creative cards until

I >stuck this lemon in my computer. Not only did my machine lock up at random >intervals for 3 weeks until I removed the card: >the game port on that card sucked so bad that my Gravis Xterminator wouldn't >calibrate AT ALL. >My Thrustmaster NASCAR Pro Wheel wouldn't calibrate the pedals correctly so I >couldn't get full brakes or gas. >Creative saw fit to dump 75mb worth of shitty software on my hard drive >including some atrocious task-bar on my desktop. Then it offered no UNinstall >options when it came time to remove the card so I had to manually remove >software and over 120 registry entries using regedit. >At least once I got the Live OUT and the MX300 put in, my machine hasn't locked >up since and all my joypads,sticks and wheels are calibrating and running >perfectly. >And yesterday I found that the SPDIF I/O (which was the only thing this card had >going for it) is a FAKE. That's right - all the signals are being processed in >the card through ANALOG then getting converted to digital when they go out of >the SPDIF I/O. So if you use the SPDIF of your CDROM to dump digital CD audio >into the card - it gets converted to old-fashion analog then converted back out >to digital but I guarantee it won't be as pure as the input. >Creative Labs peaked when they released the AWE64. Now they are just trying to >stay in the 3D Sound market with these feeble attempts at competition. They've >taken a pure 3D sound routine like A3D and bastardized it by creating EAX which >is nothing more than a bunch of preset reverbs that programmers can assign to >various rooms and environments. It doesn't allow for reflections or occlusions >or any objects which may happen to be IN that room. >Nope - I can't think of one redeeming thing to say about the LIVE! other than I >did like that THUNDER sound effect the put in my Windows Startup. >>Nice review of the sblive V's mx300 sinjin. Take a gander over at the sblive >>newsgroup and they are bashing you over there over a un-technical biased >>review. Havent read it myself. Though i like your game walkthroughs. >>The mx300 is an infant at the moment and with the end result coming from >>diamond (reknowed for its non support) Maybe when all the shit has been >>ironed out the card would be trouble free and used to its full potential. At >>the moment i'm happy for a fully working live that sounds great and is >>trouble free. >>no offence

Wouldn't it be great if instead of the usual Quake-this and Forsaken-that, a "GPL-Ring-19AI-Start-800x600" benchmark would be used just once? Brian >... It is extremely difficult to dig through benchmarks vs real >world when most software companies won't tell you what it all means >and about the only real world bench mark used is Quake. ... >Jeff

>I never >understood why people who already own a card are reading reviews on it unless >they are trying to justify a purchase they weren't sure of in the first place. Because I'm interested in other peoples opinions, or facts I don't know about. Reviews tend to try features I'll never get around to by myself. I bought, play (albeit not much recently!), and love GPL, but I'll still read every review of it I see. Same goes for other games and hardware. I'm also interested in the competition. I own a SB-Live! which I'm extremely happy with, but knowing how it compares to other newer cards keeps me up to date. Stuart -- Stuart Booth Somewhere in Buckinghamshire, England, UK Note: My email address is in disguise! Remove trailing Z

>I never >understood why people who already own a card are reading reviews >on it unless they are trying to justify a purchase they weren't >sure of in the first place. Because it's fallen on us - the consumer - to keep the reviewers honest. Otherwise the FUD (fear, uncertainty, and doubt) created by these rogues would certainly get out of hand, and manufacturers would be able to get away with actually paying reviewers to laud their products while heavily critisizing others. It's not the actual presence of impropriety, but the mere possibility of it's existance that drives us. -- ========================================================= John Simmons - Redneck Techno-Biker (Zerex12) http://www.members.home.net/jms1/index.html John Simmons - Barbarian Diecast Collector http://members.home.net/jsimm/diecast_index.html IGPS Director http://members.home.net/jms1/igps.html If you want to send me email, go to either of the URL's shown above & click "Send Me Mail" in the contents frame. =========================================================

I own a SBLive value card and I must say that it is the best purchase I`ve ever made. In my opinion, buying diamond is a mistake.I have a S220 which from now on has officialy(!) no new drivers coming out,ever!(check www.Byorn3d.com).Ok,it`s an "old" card.But what about viper550 tnt.When a new card comes out you would aspect new drivers coming out very often to correct the inevitable problems.Nvidia does a good job in producing new drivers, immediately Creative releases their new drivers based on the reference drivers,making them even better.And all the newsgroops fills up of diamond owners wyning for support,asking if they can use the Creative drivers(they can`t!) and cursing diamond.Their latest viper550 drivers(550239 exe,ftp.diamondmm.com) have the oct.26 1998 label on them. So, I think that the first thing is the support,although the Live performances are just unbelivable!