@Fused7: Yeah, they should work on their damn Audigy drivers for XP that have been fudged since oooohhhhh, 2001. Anybody else remember that beautiful high-pitch squeal of death that nothing but rebooting stops?? I sure as hell do.

araddatz

People actually use sound cards other than the one built into their PC??

Xavoc

Took them long enough.

jabber

maybe eventhe auzentech x-fi drivers have been fixed... FOR XP!

great card but such poor drivers :(

Fused7

Uncle Jesse o.o

Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!

Jon!

Audigy. As in "Awww, da G-D Stamos again?"

scarbrtj

I can finally listen to my Jesse and the Rippers CD's on my Vista box in true sound, and also play my Full House DVD's in hi-fidelity audio!

Git Em SteveDave is a poor substitute for LindsayJoy

Oh Uncle Jesse! Always there for me!

Carmen Sucks

never heard of these...

ZetaCrossfire

That's just how I like my Stamos, leather clad and fully quaffed mullet. Oh, and good for you guys with X-FI whats-it-ma-jig.

CaptEO2000

Too late, I went out & bought a card from HT Omega, Striker 7.1 Model. Sounds great, kicks mucho ass.

FubarGuy

I think creative is going to be in trouble soon. Most motherboards now come with 5.1 or 7.1 surround capability. What exactly is the benefit of these cards now except the dubious benefit of unloading the audio processing from the processor?

Xenocide

are these official drivers any better than the previously unofficial drivers?

elislider

You lost me at "Creative". Creative is a dead company... they just don't know it yet.

axiomatic

Now how about the drivers for Linux...

Jerry

Creative had to sell off their corporate headquarters and move to a smaller building. They are hurting, this driver fiasco only hurt them. I wouldn't shed a tear if they closed their doors today. Their stuff is overpriced and honestly in todays world, not impressive at all. The new Asus cards are better. My Dell 7.1 Realtek audio built in and sounds much better than my Audigy in my other comp.

BrianEsser

I though the issue was the Audigy card drivers, no? I see they posted some Vista drivers for those cards recently too. Are these fully functional drivers now?

Zlevee

I don't like these drivers...
You put your X-fi volume to 2-5 and your speakers at nearly minimum and it blast super loud.

GoodBytes

@Xenocide:
not too mention many video cards are starting to offer high end audio decoders on them as well.

mikeg916

I know my x-fi performs much better than my on-board sound under xp at least. Much less skipping and popping in audio when the computer gets busy.

1roll20s

This is standard operating procedure for Creative. They decided way back that they wouldn't support the SB Live! under XP (even though there were no technical limitations), which forced me into an Audigy back then. Then, as araddatz noted above, they decided to sit our their asses with support for the Audigy, which still has sub-par drivers under XP. And now the Vista driver fiasco, again completely not based upon any technical limitations.

Now that there are better integrated audio chipsets and better alternatives for dedicated sound cards, I'm definitely not going with Creative for my next sound upgrade.

AtomicPlayboy

I recently switched to Vista Ultimate last week and downloaded creative's Audigy 2 vista drivers. They seem to work ok, but in some games I do hear popping/crackling sounds... and some system sounds, like from Outlook come out in squeals. One thing that really bothers me the most is that the bundled software that came with my sound card does not work under vista. For example, the EQ is no longer functional.... no EAX for music... diagnosis.... speaker calibration.... all of that is gone... and I don't think they have any plans on creating vista-updated versions.

Well, I think it might be better to begin the transistion to onboard audio in future computers... mostly because with DUAL GRAPHICS cards being installed, there isn't space to fit any other cards....

SBM_from_LA

@Xenocide: There are a few benefits.

Built-in motherboard sound devices rarely carry the game audio in 5.1 through your optical connection. There was the nForce 4 board that did it (they use Dolby Digital Live to change the 5.1 audio signal from a game into a DD signal). But there are next to none that do it today. The X-Fi doesn't either, except the Auzentec X-Fi Prelude, which has the X-Fi chip as well as DDLive capability. There are a number of others.

Most of the high-end sound cards completely eliminate the internal noise of your PC's components, while MB audio tends to carry them. They have gotten a lot better, but the clicks and whines are still there.

The sound quality, as well, will always be better on a dedicated sound card. While MB chips are good, they still don't reach the caliber of dedicated sound cards.

People nowadays don't give a shit about the above, so integrated audio is perfectly fine. I use it.

diabolusunknownTheSecond

Why is there a picture of an audigy card, an xi=fi picture can't be that hard to find.

bnutz

I used to really lean toward a Creative sound card in my machines, but if they can't keep up when they are the big gorilla, who's cards should I be looking to as an alternative?

Are built-ins all that bad in modern machines?

strider_mt2k

Stamos.... that is funny. gettin gmy new drivers now. thanks giz

Sticky230

good drivers.... although year and a half late. its good to see the console on vista now.

Sticky230

Tempting, but I finally have my drivers working fine now, I don't think I wanna break em.

As far as Creative being "a dead company", do you know how long that's been said? I kind of think of them as herpes, you just can't get rid of them.

bitgod

@strider_mt2k: I can't personally vouch for ASUS, but definitely plan on buying one of these cards (or maybe the higher-end D2) for my next audio upgrade: [www.extremetech.com]

Integrated (on-board) audio has definitely improved a lot over the last few years, but it still carries a performance hit, which makes many gamers opt for stand-alone cards.

AtomicPlayboy