I use Linux most of the time. I boot to windows 2000 to play games. Recently I installed Soldier of Fortune 1 in an attempt to replay it because it rocked. The sound is all screwy. I have DirectX 9.0c and I installed the latest drivers for my onboard sound directly from intel. I have a D865PERL motherboard with onboard sound, apparently called SoundMax or something. The "drivers" supplied by intel are completely stupid and don't really appear to contain any real drivers. Here is the d/l page: http://downloadcenter.intel.com/Detail_Desc.aspx?agr=N&ProductID=949&DwnldID=6816&strOSs=19&OSFullName=Windows*%202000&lang=eng

Anyway, if I use dxdiag to test my directsound, it fails after the first test, so I suspect something is wrong with the drivers I have or something is wrong with the onboard sound. I have decided to just get a reasonably-priced PCI sound card and to disable the onboard sound.

I'm not really looking for anything fancy, but I'd like something that performs well in games. I only have 2 stereo speakers hooked up, so I don't need surround sound or anything. Way back when I used to build computers myself, you could choose between essentially two types of sound cards: those with onboard sound processors and those that use the CPU for processing. I'd much rather have the former, is that even possible nowadays?

I stopped at walmart and they had a CL Sound Blaster Audigy SE for $29.99, but on the minimum system requirements, it had some insanely high processor requirement and wanted 600 MB of free space on the HD (w t f ???).

Can anyone recommend a reasonably-priced sound card that will meet my needs?

Thanks,
Brian

SoundBlaster wants a lot of harddrive space because it'll install multiple software packages and control panel crap. Personally, I've run into too many **** cards/drivers from Creative, so I would suggest finding some other 3rd party card.

I'd just get the Audigy. If you download the drivers from Creative instead of loading the ones from the CD you won't get all the crap software that comes with it and it will use about 30mb.

If you do go Creative don't get the X-Fi, it's not supported at all under Linux.

Cards with a VIA Envy24 chipset (and the numerous derivatives) are well supported under both Linux and Windows. The gaming performance isn't amazing, but it won't be any worse than the onboard chipset you have now.

The Chaintech AV-710 fits the bill: http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16829120103

Thanks, I think I'll order that one, unless someone posts some differing opinions in the next day or so.

basic, reliable, cheap... the matrox g450 of soundcards, the ensoniq audioPCI!

creative is very very suck company

No, the AV-710 is the best card for the price. It has 7 channels, but 2 of them are of rather high quality due to the DACs they use. It's either the front stereo or rear stereo outputs that has them, I'm not sure. Google around for how to enable high quality output on the AV-710. I think people suggest using the drivers from Via rather than Chaintech but I can't remember. Malus might know.

channels are suck

ebay overflows with seven dollar audiopci cards, why not buy twenty?

i make most reliable awesome machine from these parts:

Pentium 3 733MHz Socket 370
Tyan S1854
Matrox G450 16MB
Ensoniq AudioPCI
3COM 3C905C
Antec 350 Watt PSU

most excellent, most cheap and plentiful on the ebays!

it's a good thing you've got that 350w power supply to run that rig

And yet its better then my dads rig.

very nice to vnc connect to home supercomputer for real time ray tracing!

i also collect thinkpad 600, very nice

Yeah, as far as I know, most people use the VIA drivers instead of the Chaintech ones in Windows. Those should have that option in them if I remember correctly.

Some people flash the card with a Prodigy firmware and use the nicer Prodigy drivers, but it probably isn't worth the effort.

SoF is good family fun, On a more on topic note, i say just buy some pos 30$ thing at you local electronics store and then shop around for a better one.

Why would he buy two? :downs: