Testing the Audigy 263
An Anonymous Coward writes: "The Audigy is Creative's latest Soundcard range, a long overdue upgrade to the aging Live! range and coming in a year where Creative have faced some of their stiffest competition since the Aureal Vortex 2 was released.
3D Spotlight's complete review of the Audigy Player covers pretty much everything you will want to know, from Drivers to API Support, Connectivity & Performance Conclusions." The review doesn't mention how the Audigy works under any open source operating systems, though.
Platform support (Score:2, Interesting)
Noise Clean up (Score:3, Interesting)
SMP (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What's wrong with Live!? (Score:3, Interesting)
5.1 Digital Support? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What's wrong with Live!? (Score:3, Interesting)
Maybe you aren't fallowing that much but companies like C-Media,Philips and more are e.g. changing to 6.1 format, providing 24bit (allthough card can't produce) S/PDIF outputs for $25! The cheapo card I have from C-Media (Zoltrix brand) has real cool specs.
I used AWE64 before, gave up both the card itself and Creative brand when I saw they offically say "it is an old card, not supported" and "upgrade to live(!)"
Creative does what it does in every 2 years. I don't want to guess evilly but if it fallows AWE64 abandoning policy, you will see Live drivers rarely updated than never updated at all, basing them to a generic driver. (Talking about non Open Source systems/drivers of course).
I learned a lesson. If I get real impressed by a Creative product, I remember my AWE64 nightmare on win2k than look for similar/better specs of "so called" no name, Taiwan brands.
Live Drive (Score:2, Interesting)
As far as the difference, a salesman (yes, a salesman!) told me that it just "has more power". I have to say that Ghost Recon sounds just as lifelike as I thought it could get on the Live! system, but I don't think that it lacks anything due to 'not enough power'. I guess we'll see.
probs worked out? (Score:2, Interesting)
These guys [alienware.com] at alienware do linux stuff and they're offering it on some systems (they do high priced systems but they're p1mp-455 n!c3). note that they also do windows systems, so just cos they've got the audigy and they'll put linux on your box doesn't mean that the audigy will work with linux.
I'm pretty annoyed that the breakout box only comes with the super-extra-deluxo-hyper-expensive version of the audigy. The really really really good thing about the audigy is that it'll probably help bring the Live's price down to stupid cheap prices.
I know that Live! had some problems w/ 2000 and XP -- have those been worked out? does the Audigy have the same probs?
Stay away from Creative Products: full of bugs (Score:5, Interesting)
When I first upgraded my system to 2 procs and installed Win2K, I found my system constantly crashing during games (Quake 3). It seems Creative Labs Liveware 3 stuff was not SMP safe. In fact they knew about it, but have they done anything to resolve the issue? The cure in the case of SMP Win2K is to use the drivers that ship with the OS.
I also have a DXR3 DVD decoder. It works great under NT4... but did the lazy bastards every release Win2K drivers? NO! They pretended to, stringing people along for months with late beta drivers that were buggy. I don't know what their excuse is: the card is a repackaged Hollywood Plus card, and Sigma Designs had complete drivers a long time ago.
Creative Labs support of the Live! cards in Linux was initially dreadful. It took a while for them to go down that road at all. Will the Audigy be the same, or have they been more helpful this time?
The Creative Labs news groups used to be a good forum for support. Something that you need a lot of with Creative Labs products. The news server (news.creative.com) seems to have been buggered for months, even though it's still mentioned on their web site.
All Creative Labs offers are cheap components. Literally. IMHO, they're not worth effort.
Re:What's wrong with Live!? (Score:1, Interesting)
There's a point where a technology works just fine for the vast majority of the world. If the computer industry invented the wheel, we'd now be forced to upgrade all our cars to tires that are accurate to 99.9999% of a perfect circle versus the outdated 99.999% technology (that is no longer supported) of last year.
The AUDIGY *DOES* work under Linux (Score:4, Interesting)
Look through the mailing list archive for instructions on how to install the CVS version of the drivers for the Audigy.
Win2K and SMP (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:What's wrong with Live!? (Score:1, Interesting)
DONT ever take the word from an "audiophile" as golden, most are stupid,liars, or just plain posers.
Come on, they think you believe them ehrn they say they can hear the difference in speaker cable. Funny how a scope cant see the difference buttheir ears can... Wow, ears that are better than precision analog test equipment.
fact - if they say that they are an audiophile, they are going to BS you from that word on.
If you like what you have, then stay with it.
Re:Stay away from Creative Products: full of bugs (Score:2, Interesting)
For several months after the Live!'s release, Creative refused to release any sort of specifications on the card--there was *zero* Linux support. There was quite a stink about it, and I recall a petition to get Creative to release specs. I imagine a little bit of trudging on some list archives could give you dates...
Re:What's wrong with Live!? (Score:1, Interesting)
Re:What's wrong with Live!? (Score:3, Interesting)
I couldnt run SBlive in either of my dual win2k/linux boxes, So I picked up a yamaha pci for 15 bux, and it works flawlessly.
I also picked up a Audigy, and no more skips. The only annoying thing now, is its startup logo the I cant seem to disable in windows. Im also camera shopping and I needed a firewire port for that, now I have one. The bass does sound a little weak, but that might just be me.
All in all, if you can pick one up for 50-60 bux, its worth it. (check pricewatch, seems 55 is the lowest)