It sounds appalling and Ive just tried some games with it and I get really bad stuttering.


People rate them because?

Quote from: sdpIt sounds appalling and Ive just tried some games with it and I get really bad stuttering.


People rate them because?

have you done the usual tricks, new drivers etc?

People rate them because there is very little competition in the sound card market. I dont think much of mine either

i only use my sound card for MP3/DVD and every card i have ever owned has been an onboard one - including the one in my Mac mini - i have to say, i would never go for an expensive sound card, as i cant imagine i would reap the benefit... that said, is the audigy THAT bad?

ive taken to using the onboard sound these days.  A lot of the onboard stuff isnt too shabby, and if you getthe right ones they dont rob processing cycles.  

On board is adequate providing you dont want to do anything fancy. Perfectly good for games, video or music.

I suggest either somethinh else is raping your machine, a driver issue, or some device conflict - no reason why an audigy functioning correctly with appropriate speakers (problem with those too perhaps?) should be crackling in games.

Ill try a new set of drivers later, but its weird how th ac97 seems to perform so much better  :?

Quote from: sdpIll try a new set of drivers later, but its weird how th ac97 seems to perform so much better  :?

i dont think its that weird, as its onboard isnt it [the ac97]? a generic piece of kit, whereas the audigy, like graphics cards requires specific drivers and will have its own requirements of the system....

It has to be the setup of the sound card, it may not be top notch, but stuttering etc. surely isnt normal, for any card.

Stuttering is not normal, while the Audigy cards are not amazing it should be an improvement over onboard sound. What settings and sample rate are you using? I seem to recall there being a buffer with these cards, but my memory is a little hazy...

the problem with creative isnt the hardware it is the software, they are useless at drivers, it is a case of trial and error till you find a stable set of drivers that work as they should

The best i could find for my audigy 2 zs plat pro were some new betas a year back, they are 99% stable the only problem being if my pc is under heavy load and i try to use the external units volume control the pc will bluescreen randomly.

Again that is down the the software that manages the external unit not being able to handle waiting for processing information from the busy cpu.

Heavy cpu usage does seem to be where creative cant handle errors

Odd I thought they were useless with software rather than drivers.  The number of times I have to patch the software to repair the sound mixer is rediculous.

You havent put it in PCI slot 1 have you? If so move it.....


Dave.

That wil only be relevant to certain motherboards surely?

The PCI routing on each motherboard will vary.