? : SB Audigy or Game Theater XP ?

Can anyone give me feedback on the Creative Labs Sound Blaster Audigy vs the Hercules Game Theater XP 6.1 ?

-better sound ?
-better value ?

Both are currently running @ around $100 (USD) but I know the SB might have some problems with VIA chipsets....which led me to the Game Theater XP.

Not just for Gp4 but for other games and normal music use also?

Going to build a new system in 2wks so I'm in need of opinions

Thank you,

Ren

I have two SB Lve cards and they produce horrible crackly noises, and have done with all the OS i have tried and all the drivers i have used. Im not the only one with this problem to.

Go for the game Theater XP one




Racing Is Life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting
Jesus may be able to heal the sick and bring the dead back to life, but he can't do shît for low fps

I and many others on the other hand have had no problems. The Audigy is also highly rated by every UK mag.

great a tie

see the OEM versions of the Audigy go for like $60 (USD) and the Game Theater XP, as stated in my first post, are $100 (USD).

everyone has rated both of those cards to be great-excellent

i wish one of those on-line sites would do a side by side comparision to settle the arguement

currently i'm leaning towards the Game Theater, only because of the many options it provides

i had a Live! 5.1 but could never get that card to work fine on my machine, so i went back to the orginal Live! card

also my next motherboard will be based on the VIA KT333 chipset...so I also want to aviod problems with compatibility

-ren

PS please feel free to add more feedback....i still have 2 wks

I'm now running a SB Audigy (finally I got the drivers cd...) and I haven't experienced any problems with win98se, nor with my former SB Live! 5.1. They sound great in GP4. I'm running a VIA 133A mobo (with the infamous 686b southbridge), no problem at all.
Also, I'm using a SB PCI 128 on the same system.

The cards must not be compatible with some motherboards. I have looked around and it doesnt have a list tho :@

I get it even when format C: and fresh install the OS.




Racing Is Life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting
Jesus may be able to heal the sick and bring the dead back to life, but he can't do shît for low fps

All I can say is that I have a SBLive 5.1 and it always performed great under Win98, WinMe, WinXP.
I never had problems with VIA chipsets (KT133 and KT333 now) either.

Theres some serious compatiblity problems with those cards. If you cantact them and tell them they reply saying that they have never heard of the problem - which is all bullshit cos i know at least 4 people who have contacted them and im 100% sure theres more




Racing Is Life. Anything that happens before or after is just waiting
Jesus may be able to heal the sick and bring the dead back to life, but he can't do shît for low fps

I recommend the Audigy cards because they have firewire, digital out, game port I/O add-on and also the most important thing is EAX HD (even more advanced then EAX and EAX 2)........ The Audigy has a very powerful sound processor and it is very loud lol, the volume is about 25-30% louder then the SB Live when its set to the same volume level lol !!!!

Yes the Audigy does have compatibility problems with some motherboards, like for instance it dosn't work properly on the Asus CUSL-2 Motherboard, but the Audigy is still one great card....................

It comes with quite a lot of software too, even for the standard version.

I'm leaning towards the Asus Av7333 with or without RAID.

A for soundcard, now I really like all the Game Theater XP input/output I might just cough up another $40 and get the platinum version of the Audigy....$150 (USD). Really do like the 4 USB connections but I think they are 1.0 connections and not 2.0.

I know its a very powerful card the Audigy but man all the compatibily problems really scare me.

When I had problems with the SB Live 5.1 on my mobo (old Asus P3v4x) the Creative support told me that my powersupply wasn't powerful enough. I was like yeah right since I had a 400watt PS. I gave up on it and its currently collecting dust...but its cool since I got it for free.

Anyone know about the sound quality of the Game Theater XP?

-Ren

Personally i think its best not to go for an Asus Mobo because I use to have one, it was great all except for compatilbility problems with the Audigy, Asus boards are not over clocker friendly (you can't even change the RAM timing settings without disastrous consequences lol, etc) and it developed bootup problems!!!!!! Now I use MSI mobo's instead, they are quick and come with onboard LAN too lol.................

I supose the sound quality difference between the 2 cards wouldn't be noticable to the human ear........ But you do need decent speakers to get the best sound quality, I only got the Creative 5300 5.1 digital speakers, the bass is a bit weak but appart from that its great, except for too many leads and wires!!!!!!!!!!!

The Audigy was the 1st Creative Labs soundcard I actually experienced problems with, the others all worked 100% fine......... The Audigy is either going to work 100% or its not going to work properly at all...... However I would recommend the Audigy...... But then again i never tried any other sound cards so i don't know what the other cards are like........