SB Live OR Diamond MX300???

I'm going to buy a good sound card.... BUT.. I don't know what to get.. I've heard good things about the SB Live.. and was about to buy one when.. a friend said that the MX300 is better. cos it supports 2 diff formats .. instead ofthe SB Live's one... EAx and somthing else (???) I play a number of games (GP2, GPL mainly, N99 etc...) aswell as other games... I need to be able to play them all.. aswell as good quality.. I also use headphones.. for good quality..... Can someone tell of any experiences or which is the one to get.... Plz email too.. :-) thanx in advance.. James Pickard, Melbourne, AUSTRALIA

If you are into music and want the best MIDI functions then SB Live (Full version) is superior. You can add a hardware wavetable card (Such as the Roland) to the MX300 to inorive its MIDI quality. If you want the best 3D sound effects then the MX300, or any other card that uses the Vortex2 Chips and A3D 2, then the MX300 ***s the SB Live using EAX. With the original drivers A3D 2 on the MX300 was a CPU hog, Not anywhere near as bad as the A3D 1 and Vortex 1 chips but still inferior to SB Live and EAX. Wiht the latest drivers there is very little difference in the CPU usage. The MX300 does EAX as well as the SB Live. The SB Live will NEVER (due to hardware restrictions) do A3D 2. Therefore in terms of compatability the MX300 is superior as well. The MX300 also has an excellent graphic equalizer which allows you to setup defaults for particular games. The MX300 also decodes AC3 Dolby and with the addition of the extender card willl give full 5.1 speaker output. On a feature for feature basis the MX300 ***s the SB Live. In terms of 3D sound quality...just play Halflife, Powerslide or Motorhead on both cards and the difference is like chalk n cheese. MX300 wins hands down. (Now I will sit back and wait for all those who wasted their money on SB Lives to find some excuse to flame me and question my parentage.)

Quoted text (22 lines)

> I'm going to buy a good sound card.... > BUT.. I don't know what to get.. I've heard good things about the SB > Live.. and was about to buy one when.. a friend said that the MX300 > is better. cos it supports 2 diff formats .. instead ofthe SB Live's > one... EAx and somthing else (???) > I play a number of games (GP2, GPL mainly, N99 etc...) aswell as other > games... > I need to be able to play them all.. aswell as good quality.. I also > use headphones.. for good quality..... > Can someone tell of any experiences or which is the one to get.... > Plz email too.. :-) > thanx in advance.. > James Pickard, > Melbourne, > AUSTRALIA

Mark... Thank you very much for your reply.. You have just made my mind up for me.. The Diamond with the latest drivers seems the absolute way to go... Once again thanx.. and I will tell you how it goes :-) James

Quoted text (55 lines)

> If you are into music and want the best MIDI functions then SB Live (Full > version) is superior. You can add a hardware wavetable card (Such as the > Roland) to the MX300 to inorive its MIDI quality. > If you want the best 3D sound effects then the MX300, or any other card that > uses the Vortex2 Chips and A3D 2, then the MX300 ***s the SB Live using > EAX. > With the original drivers A3D 2 on the MX300 was a CPU hog, Not anywhere > near as bad as the A3D 1 and Vortex 1 chips but still inferior to SB Live > and EAX. Wiht the latest drivers there is very little difference in the CPU > usage. > The MX300 does EAX as well as the SB Live. The SB Live will NEVER (due to > hardware restrictions) do A3D 2. Therefore in terms of compatability the > MX300 is superior as well. > The MX300 also has an excellent graphic equalizer which allows you to setup > defaults for particular games. > The MX300 also decodes AC3 Dolby and with the addition of the extender card > willl give full 5.1 speaker output. > On a feature for feature basis the MX300 ***s the SB Live. In terms of 3D > sound quality...just play Halflife, Powerslide or Motorhead on both cards > and the difference is like chalk n cheese. MX300 wins hands down. > (Now I will sit back and wait for all those who wasted their money on SB > Lives to find some excuse to flame me and question my parentage.) > > I'm going to buy a good sound card.... > > BUT.. I don't know what to get.. I've heard good things about the SB > > Live.. and was about to buy one when.. a friend said that the MX300 > > is better. cos it supports 2 diff formats .. instead ofthe SB Live's > > one... EAx and somthing else (???) > > I play a number of games (GP2, GPL mainly, N99 etc...) aswell as other > > games... > > I need to be able to play them all.. aswell as good quality.. I also > > use headphones.. for good quality..... > > Can someone tell of any experiences or which is the one to get.... > > Plz email too.. :-) > > thanx in advance.. > > James Pickard, > > Melbourne, > > AUSTRALIA

Hehe... FLAME_THROWER ON!!! Just kidding... all I know is that the SB Live is a HUGE improvement over my old ISA SB16. It really kicks ass. I haven't been fortunate enough to try anything that is more modern back to back, but I like my Live. Cheers! --Dave >(Now I will sit back and wait for all those who wasted their money on SB >Lives to find some excuse to flame me and question my parentage.)

FYI, I like the SBL value in terms of the improvement to GPL frame rate, as I only have a K6 233. BUT you should know that I haven't been able to play GP2 since I installed the SBL! GP2 doesn't see the new sound card. I think it's the IRQ address assigned to the SBL, but I haven't been able to figure out how to change this. I don't know if this problem is with all PCI cards, or only the SBL. Good luck.

I have the SBL Value and I can run GP2 with no problems. I told the game it was a SB16 and it ran first time. -don

SNIP - All good points I kinda know how you feel, all I can say is that I bought a MX300 over a Live for much the same reasons, and the results have been fantastic. You can now pick up a MX300 OEM for under $150 Australian by mail order now (gold plated contacts and all), thats almost like stealing. Chris to reply, remove ozmail, insert onaustralia

Many older games want to use DMA. PCI Souncards have legacy DOS drivers that try to intercept the DMA requests and convert the information to the relevant PCI instructions. Due to the need for speed (good name for a game I reckon) many DOS games take shortcuts and unfortunately the legacy driver simply don't work or produce horible sound effects. Some egacy drivers are better than others. THe original MX300 drivers were ***but the latest ones seem to work okay with most games. The PCI64D also has quite good legacy dos drivers.

Quoted text (7 lines)

> FYI, I like the SBL value in terms of the improvement to GPL frame rate, as I > only have a K6 233. BUT you should know that I haven't been able to play GP2 > since I installed the SBL! GP2 doesn't see the new sound card. I think it's > the IRQ address assigned to the SBL, but I haven't been able to figure out how > to change this. I don't know if this problem is with all PCI cards, or only > the SBL. > Good luck.