PCA Forums

I'll be getting one of the soundbalster sound cards this weekend. What software do I really need to install? It's been probably 6 years since I had a soundblaster product but I imagine the useless bloates software has gotten worse.

Thanks

dan

I think that FP would agree with me when I say to just get a C-Media sound card of some kind.. Sound quality is equal (if not superior) and cheaper as well as less likely to cause problems.

eGo

I use a sound card with the Cmedia CMI8738 chipset, works great, no bloat on it, and was better then any Sound Blaster I have seen. Best $12 I ever spent

Ditto. CMedia rocks. If you're mainly gaming and casual music listening disable any backgound apps that are added to your startup. You don't need them unless you like to play with environmental audio.

which sound blaster card are you getting ? SB Live, Audigy, X-Fi.

CMedia? You guys crack me up. At the very least, get something based off the VIA ENVY 24HT chipset. Anyways, I would only install the Soundblaster drivers, AudioHQ app, and the speaker settings app - there's really nothing else you need.

dont use the cd - go to there main website and download the driver and EAX web version of the software no bloat no fancy GUI.

Audigy. and thanks for the tips/help.

I dont like/never had any luck with cmedia. I have a turtle beach santa cruz which is on its last legs....it has a lot of anoying issues. The 2 main ones are mic jacked is fookered and it likes to switch left/right channels at random which sucks when your gaming. tried different drivers, nothing helped so I thought a new card is in order.

Even with the basics Creative installs way too much bloated code.

Nothing wrong with C-Media. Rock solid chipset. So is AC97.

If you're doing studio quality sound work, that's a different story, but for the average user/gamer it's absurd to spend $50+ on a sound card.

i just got an audigy 2 zs platinum for specific reasons(79.99 after rebates @ zipzoomfly.) haven't set it up yet but i know with the extigy i had for the longest time, in order to run the update i got from the creative site, it required me to have certain things installed from the original cd.

the only thing i ever installed were the drivers and the creative sound mixer. without that mixer running and the "enable bass redirection" box checked, it was a real pain to get the sub on a 5.1 system to really kick in.

c-media is really good too. i have one onboard on another box and it is better than the average onboard sound.