AC 97 audio is crap

[Henry Rollins II]

I have no problem with the sound quality of the AC 97 audio on my K7D. However I do have a problem with the fact that the sound sometimes gets corrupted or lost.

I need a suggestion for a sound card that will work on the K7D without hassle.

 

[lonewolf1983]

from what ive seen your best bet for compatability is the Turtle beach line of cards, Jon is very happy with his

 

[cmcquistion]

I have a Soundblaster Live in one of my K7D's and an Audigy in another K7D. I haven't had a single problem with either of them. Both are running in a 33 MHz PCI slot.

I don't know if I've just been lucky or if the K7D is just better than some other MP and MPX boards about this.

 

[Spec_Ops2087]

I got an Audigy on my K7D master....I did have the BAD_POOL_CALLER BS but I dled the compaq drivers and that fixed that...now everything is great BESIDES MP3s....I know how to stop it but by doing that I turn off hardware acceleration and that is somthing I don't wanna do...I can live with skipping in MP3...



Spec

 

[himura-dono]

I got an Audigy on my K7D master....I did have the BAD_POOL_CALLER BS but I dled the compaq drivers and that fixed that...now everything is great BESIDES MP3s....I know how to stop it but by doing that I turn off hardware acceleration and that is somthing I don't wanna do...I can live with skipping in MP3...



Spec

what was the point in shelling out for the audigy then?

 

[Henry Rollins II]

Turtle Beach? Do they even exist anymore? I remember that they had relly good reputation once, but that was back in the ISA days.

 

[attack]

Turtle beach santa cruz soundacrd is supposed to rival even the audigy when it comes to mp3's...audigy is much better in games though. In got a TBSC and I love it, i've never had any problems with my sound blaster either though....except a port blew probably cuz of 180 fsb with 1/4 divider.

 

[Spec_Ops2087]

Turtle beach santa cruz soundacrd is supposed to rival even the audigy when it comes to mp3's...audigy is much better in games though. In got a TBSC and I love it, i've never had any problems with my sound blaster either though....except a port blew probably cuz of 180 fsb with 1/4 divider.

yeah games is where it counts....nothing touchs the audigy there...plus there are CDs...they never skip



Spec

 

[Henry Rollins II]

Wait a minute here: Is the mp3 sound quality depending on the sound card? I thought the mp3 decoding was 100% software based.

What I read around here about audigy compability problems seem most about getting them to work in the 64bit slots. I can spare one 32 bit slot as soon as I get rid of my PCI vga card. Then there would be no problem? Can anybody confirm or deny that

 

[cmcquistion]

The Audigy is supposed to be a 66 MHz PCI card, so you can use it in that slot. I would, but my video card water block is blocking one 66 MHz slot, and my RAID card is in the other.

The Audigy really does shine, when it comes to gaming. That's why I got it. EAX 2 is SO much better than EAX. The surround sounds really works seamlessly.

 

[rhogg]

Santa cruz

Turtle Beach is alive and well. The Santa Cruz is relatively inexpensive. I've paired the this card with some Monsoon speakers and the music sound is exceptional.

You can get the card directly from the manufacturer - its rare with retailers.

 

[Audioaficionado]

Re: Santa cruz

Turtle Beach is alive and well. The Santa Cruz is relatively inexpensive. I've paired the this card with some Monsoon speakers and the music sound is exceptional.

You can get the card directly from the manufacturer - its rare with retailers.

Circuit City has 'em for ~U$80.

The $64k, er... 64bit question is which cards will reliably work in those long slots.

 

[SickBoy]

I just got the Creative 5300 speakers a while back so I think I've committed myself to a Creative card of some sort. I run a Live Value in my server box and it's never given me any issues albeit it's been in a single CPU box its entire life.

With the prices dropping on the Audigy cards I think I'm finally going to make an investment in the Platinum sometime soon. A friend of mine at work is running one in his K7D with no issues whatsoever under Win2K.

sb

 

[Audioaficionado]

Which slot is he running it in?

 

[donny_paycheck]

I love my Audigy because I game a lot but it does have problems with SMP systems. The processor affinity filter will solve almost everything but it's not completely seamless.

I'd say that unless you do a LOT of gaming, get a Turtle Beach.

 

[kevmarks]

Anybody know if thiswill work on an A7M266-D? Is it worth upgading from my cmedia?

 

[cmcquistion]

I didn't know they even had an Audigy 2.

I don't see any reason why it wouldn't work. The SBLive and Audigy work for me. I'm sure the Audigy 2 is even better.

It might be overkill, though. The only real difference I see between it and the regular Audigy is that the Audigy 2 supports recording and playback at 24 bit, whereas the Audigy only does playback at 24 bit, but records at 16 bit.



Do you have any problems with the audio on your motherboard? If it works for you, then don't bother upgrading. If all you play a lot of 3D games, you'll love the Audigy. If you just want a soundcard for listening to music, you may be better off with a Turtle Beach soundcard.

 

[Henry Rollins II]

Why does every soundcard have 5, 6, 7 or 8 channels? I´m not intrested in anything but simple two-channel stereo. In that respect, is there really any difference between the Audigy and a plain 2-channel Soundblaster 128?

 

[donny_paycheck]

Why does every soundcard have 5, 6, 7 or 8 channels? I´m not intrested in anything but simple two-channel stereo. In that respect, is there really any difference between the Audigy and a plain 2-channel Soundblaster 128?

For two channel stereo there's no discernable difference. I'd get the most generic sound card you can find for cheap. There's a difference in the sampling rates AFAIK but it's not going to be very apparent with just 2 channel stereo sound. Save some money and bother and go with the cheapest you can get. Personally I'd use the AC97 audio for this but there are cheapo PCI sound cards as well.

 

[cmcquistion]

It all depends on what you do with your computer and what you want.

If all you do is listen to MP3's and CD's on two speakers, then you'll get no discernable improvement with a 24-bit/multichannel soundcard. These cards also feature high sample rates, which you won't get any benefit from, unless you listen to music recording at high sampling rates. FYI, CD's are recorded at 2 channel, 16-bit, 44.1 kHz. Any cheap soundcard, SB 128, AC97, etc, can reproduce this.

If you have surround sound speakers and watch DVD's or play games with multichannel sound, then you will, of course benefit from having multichannel sound and support for 24 bit audio.