Digital J-Stick Ports on Soundcards?

I've been very happy with my TB Montego, and it's digital joystick port. I need to outfit a new PC. I'll keep the Montego in my current PC, but it's a year old. I'm wondering if I should get another Montego, or Montego 2. I'm unfamiliar with Soundblaster products, should I be looking there? Do they have digital game ports? Sound quality is important. I don't think that's an issue with good quality equipment. The joystick interface, however, is critical. Thanks Larry

Don't know about the Creative stuff, but the MX300 is, IMO, a very good card and I know that the digital port it has is AOK. Jerry Morelock

Thanks Jerry: I'm concerned about Diamond's MX300 drivers. The "Best sound card?" thread that is currently running has stories of people who have had their driver loads fail 2/3 of the way through. Larry

To be honest, I pre-ordered the MX300 when it first came out and have been extremely happy with it.. And N3 or N2000 is going to suport A3d :o) Matt

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> I've been very happy with my TB Montego, and it's digital > joystick port. > I need to outfit a new PC. I'll keep the Montego in my > current PC, but it's a year old. I'm wondering if I should > get another Montego, or Montego 2. > I'm unfamiliar with Soundblaster products, should I be > looking there? Do they have digital game ports? > Sound quality is important. I don't think that's an > issue with good quality equipment. The joystick interface, > however, is critical. > Thanks > Larry

None of the Creative sounds cards have digital game port.

> None of the Creative sounds cards have digital game port. This is true, but the gameport is *much* better than the standard one that come on most motherboards, and the SBLive has the lowest CPU overhead of any sound card, I believe. You could always get a PDPI card as well... ;-)

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> > I've been very happy with my TB Montego, and it's digital > > joystick port. > > I need to outfit a new PC. I'll keep the Montego in my > > current PC, but it's a year old. I'm wondering if I should > > get another Montego, or Montego 2. > > I'm unfamiliar with Soundblaster products, should I be > > looking there? Do they have digital game ports? > > Sound quality is important. I don't think that's an > > issue with good quality equipment. The joystick interface, > > however, is critical. > > Thanks > > Larry

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> > None of the Creative sounds cards have digital game port. > This is true, but the gameport is *much* better than the standard one > that come on most motherboards, and the SBLive has the lowest CPU > overhead of any sound card, I believe. > You could always get a PDPI card as well... ;-)

Isn't a digital interface a digital interface? Is the PDPI better than the digital ports on my Montego? I looked at their page, the PDPI seems to still be an ISA device. I heard, I have no way of knowing, that there is a performance hit by having ISA devices in the system. I'm going to have a lot of PCI equipment, including a serial MUX. So having a joystick interface on a sound card is important. Thanks Larry

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> > > None of the Creative sounds cards have digital game port. > > This is true, but the gameport is *much* better than the standard one > > that come on most motherboards, and the SBLive has the lowest CPU > > overhead of any sound card, I believe. > > You could always get a PDPI card as well... ;-) > Isn't a digital interface a digital interface? Is the PDPI > better than the digital ports on my Montego? > I looked at their page, the PDPI seems to still be an ISA > device. I heard, I have no way of knowing, that there is a > performance hit by having ISA devices in the system. > I'm going to have a lot of PCI equipment, including a serial > MUX. So having a joystick interface on a sound card is important.

I don't know whether the PDPI is better than the Montego - speed-wise they're probably the same (both instant by comparison with analogue) - the PDPI does have some fancy smoothing circuitry which makes the signal ultra-stable, apparently (and it is indeed extremely smooth and solid). Again, I don't know how that compares with the Montego. Having said that, the analogue joystick port on the SBLive is also pretty smooth - I can set the steering to fully linear without jitter, which I certainly couldn't with the old gameport. I guess it comes down to whether the CPU overhead reduction due to using a digital gameport is more important than the CPU overhead reduction due to using a SBLive card! ;-)

> > None of the Creative sounds cards have digital game port. > This is true, but the gameport is *much* better than the standard one > that come on most motherboards, and the SBLive has the lowest CPU > overhead of any sound card, I believe. Lowest CPU usage indead but not in the game port as you still need to poll the game port for joystick inputs which can eat up to 10~20% CPU usage in some extreme cases. I don't see how, being a PCI game port, it can be much better than ISA game port because game port timing cycle is pretty slow(that's why you need a lot of CPU cycle to poll it) and PCI won't accelerate it a bit. Isn't that cost you more than the cost of a MX300 ($50 at most places). Foxbat