Need sound card advice. Cheap and compatible.

[Rasix]

Topic says it all. I've had enough with onboard sound (nforce).  It really has problems with a lot of games, with sound cutting out at times requiring game restarts to get it back.  

So, I would like a cheap, compatible, reliable card.  Not too concerned about how bad ass it is as long as it gets the job done and it supported well.

[geldonyetich]

I think the general consensus is "anything not made by Creative" since Creative (despite being the lead pioneers in computer sound technology) has a nasty habit of causing conflicts in their latest cards.

[Kenrick]

Feh... my $50 Soundblaster Augidy LS works just fine for me.

Thought the onboard sound on my P4C800-E Deluxe would be fine more be but I must have blown it.

[Delf]

NOT anything by Phillips, that's for fucking sure.

I've heard good things about Turtle Beach.

[Ozzu]

I've heard basically all positive for the Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1 or any other card based on the Via Envy24 chip. I've read a few reviews and I haven't purchased this card YET, but it's the next thing I'll be doing for sure.

http://www.audiotrak.net/prodigy71.htm

Google it and read a few reviews. I'm going for this over the Audigy 2 because I'm so ready to just leave the entire Creative Labs line behind.

[Numtini]

I had a Turtle Beach and it was fine. I have a realteck built in now and it works great.

[Sky]

I've got about 50 games on my system, using the nforce2 soundstorm chip, and I've never had a single problem. It's also the DVD player for my home theater, so we get booming movie soundtracks, my audio jukebox, and my recording workstation (until I get a digidesign interface).

ASUS A7N8X Deluxe rev 2. Actually it's superior to other solutions, because of the hardware real-time Dolby DIgital 5.1 encoding, which outputs directly to my surround reciever.

[Sable Blaze]

I use an nForce2 mobo with the built-in sound as well. It's been about as troublefree as you could ask. It's a Leadtek mobo, though, and not Soundstorm certified.

It's also slated for "replacement" with an Audigy2 (whenever I get motivated enough to put it in). The Leadtek is a decent solution, but it's not really in the same league as the Audigy.

[eldaec]

I've never had any issues with Creative hardware.

Though be really fricking careful you don't install any Creative software at all other than the driver itself.

[Lanei]

I've heard good things about Turtle Beach.

Turtle Beach was bought by Creative a couple years ago, and promptly killed.

[Sable Blaze]

I'll second the software thing. JUST the drivers. One thing I absolutely detest about Creative is the crapware they try and dupe you into installing with the necessary drivers.

Be very alert during the install and avoid that foolishness.

[Alluvian]

I am now on my second ASUS A7N8X motherboard with onboard sound.  Both of them have been riddled with problems.

The first was Deluxe with 5.1 output, and it didn't have digital encoding that I knew of.  The drivers only functioned with analog output (the speaker wizard was silent in all digital tests).

Thief 3 would lose all sound about 20-40 minutes into a play session requiring a full reboot.  Restarting the game was not enough.  I would lose all sound in all applications until the reboot.

FarCry, Prince of Persia, Hitman 3, and other games would start getting staticy about 20 minutes into a play session.  This would then degenerate slowly or quickly to nothing but pure static coming out of the speakers.  Again this would require a full system reboot.  After exiting the game, anything that tried to use the souncard would produce only static until the reboot.

Now I have a new A7n8x.  I didn't get the deluxe.  Newegg was out of stock, and stupid me misread "6 channel sound" as a card supporting 5.1 output.  I was so wrong.  Anyway, I did get it working in 4 speaker mode at least.  So far my playing has been restricted to Splintercell Pandora Tomorrow, some City of Heroes, and Arx Fatalis (came with my new video card, such an ugly game for a new video card).  All three suffer from the same problem on this onboard sound.  Random static glitches.  I will be doing nothing and the onboard sound will just bleat out a blast of high pitched static.  It lasts less than a second, but it is far louder than every other sound at my volume settings.  It is incredibly unsettling and about as bad on the nerves as nails on a chalkboard.  Seemingly entirely random.  Usually only 1-4 sounds per hour.  Playing mp3's this never happens.

So from personal experience, the Nforce sound sucks incredible amounts of ass.  I am going back to an ancient SBLive 5.1 card because as crappy as it was, it is infinately better than either of these last two MB onboard sound.

[Sky]

I've built at least 6 systems based on the soundstorm chip. Although I'm the only one using the digital (that I know of), they were all tested in my setup before I gave them to the owners. All worked fine.

(Just trying to balance some horror stories here! :) Thief 3 and Far Cry are both perfect sounding imo)

It sucks that so many people have had problems with this excellent solution. It's one of the best I've heard, and my customers are extremely pleased with their systems. Nowhere near the trouble or complaints I got when using Creative hardware.

[Sable Blaze]

I think it's one of those deals where if it works, it works great. When it doesn't, well, it doesn't.

I have several friends who build their own systems and they hate onboard sound with a passion. They have a number of reasons, most of which comes back to some other use outside of gaming.

I like it since it's less money and (in my experience) less trouble. However, if it IS trouble, then can the thing. I don't much care for Creative's software, but their chips do work very well indeed.

I have several Creative boards sitting around. I'll always try onboard first. If I don't like it, well, I'll put in an aftermarket board--eventually.

[Zephyr]

I have had no sound problems with my Asus A7N8X-Deluxe/Nforce2 or my new Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP/Nforce3 chipset on any games yet, including Farcry and CoH.  Have you updated the Nforce drivers?

[Sky]

I don't like onboard sound in general. Actually, I haven't liked any onboard sound previous to the nforce stuff.

[Rasix]

I have had no sound problems with my Asus A7N8X-Deluxe/Nforce2 or my new Gigabyte GA-K8NNXP/Nforce3 chipset on any games yet, including Farcry and CoH.  Have you updated the Nforce drivers?

Yep, I always do.  

The thing is, 95% of the time the card works just great.  It's just those problem games (the ones that seem to have more issues than others) where I ALWAYS get a problem. Whether it's sound cutting out 20 minutes into a game (oddly a lot of the time it's just the voice/speech part of the game) or generating WinXP crashes or in one game not even being able to change ingame volume settings (yah, fucking odd), it's been an annoyance.   And the PC game makers wonder why I buy so many console titles...

One of the other annoyances with onboard sound that I've noticed is that Nvidia always tries to lump all motherboard drivers in with the onboard sound shit.  I don't want to be prompted to install new IDE, memory manager or whatever the hell a GART driver is everytime I update my sound drivers.  AND QUIT INSTALLING THIS NVIDIA MIXER TRASH, I NEVER ASKED FOR IT.

Ok, I feel better now.

[slog]

Audigy 2

http://www.newegg.com/app/ViewProductDesc.asp?description=29-102-158&depa=0

[Alluvian]

Yes, to the question if I had the latest drivers.  First thing I updated when I had problems in Prince of Persia.  Since then I have rabidly updated the moment new drivers came out hoping one of them would fix it.  None of the drivers made an ounce of difference.  I have no problems except in gaming.  And then only certain games.  But 'certain games' has become 80% of the games I play.

My SBLive gave me some troubles in EQ, and that was only with the crappy ambient sounds so I just turned them off.  For some reason my SBLive drivers were stuck and I could not update them either.

It is a no brainer that I am ditching this system though, once I found out I screwed up and it does not support 5.1.  That is my mistake though.  My wife mostly plays SWG and she got my A7N8X-Deluxe with the 5.1.  That was the more problematic one, but it was always fine in SWG, so it works well for that very limited use.

[eta]
I really really wanted onboard sound to work.  It was such a nice idea in theory.  I was pretty frustrated when it all turned to shit.  My attempts at getting anyone at Nvidia or Asus to help amounted to nothing more than form letters telling me to update drivers and try again.  Even though I put in bold letters the driver versions I was using which were the latest at the time.

When I setup this system over the weekend and immediately started having some problems with random skreetches I was less than surprised.  I won't ever trust onboard sound again from my personal experiences.  What kind of idiot would I be to think the third time would be the charm?  I am glad it has worked for others.  I don't trust it.  Hopefully that old SBlive 5.1 still works.

[Hanzii]

I have the same nForce2 problems with sound - am switching to the Audigy ZS Platinum whatnot. Why the fuck doesn't the breakout box fit inside my case? Who was the moron, that decided, I'd like a box the size of a Playstation on top of the pc?

For non-Creative i'd recommend TerraTec.