Any advantage, for gaming purposes, to upgrading my old Creative Audigy2 ZS?

[Quick1]

I’m running a 2.1 setup and only use my PC for surfing and gaming.


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[BrightCandle]

No you don't need to upgrade. Vista all but killed EAX and all the sound processing is done within the DirectSound framework now. What you will want to do is enabled CMSS, tell windows you have a 5.1 setup and then tell your sound drivers you have 2.1 and you'll get virtual surround sound in all the modern games.

For old games with EAX you could mess about to get the special effects, but whether you ever bother depends on if you play a game that uses it regularly. IMO its just not worth the effort on the old creative cards.

There isn't a lot of difference from your Audigy to a modern card other than Dolby and DTS processing and that can be dealt with in software normally. The whole soundcard business imploded when Vista was released and the only thing they differ by now is the signal to noise ratio and the 7.1 to 2 channel simulation quality. I dont know what the driver situation is with the Audigy but if its got them your good to go.

 

[Quick1]

Thanks for the advice and update! I don't follow PC hardware like I used to. Back in the day, I used to upgrade everything, every other year. Now, I just do it when there's a particular PC game I want to play. In this case, of course the upgrade is for D3. It’s been over five years since I upgraded and hopefully this one will last for a while. I did cheap out on the vid card, but hey, it’s D3 and will run fine on this rig.


Old setup

AMD OPT 165@2.83 +.025V (Zalman CNPS7000B-CU)_(2) OCZ DDR400 1GB
EPox EP-9NPA+ SLi (04/06 bios)_XFX Geforce 7800GT 489/1180 (AC NV Silencer)
Seagate 320GB 7200 16MB SATA II / W/D 250GB 7200 16MB SATA II
Audigy2 ZS / Razer Diamondback / Samsung SH-S183L DVD Writer_LITE-ON CD
PC_P&C 610 EPS12V p/s / Klipsch ProMedia 2.1 / Sony 21" CRT
WinXP Pro SP2

 

[bononos]

The good news is that we don't have to upgrade to a Creative card for EAX6.0.
Its ridiculous that an X-fi with without a dsp is selling for more than what I paid for an AZS2. And then iirc Creative dropped the xtrememusic model so that gamers would have to fork out more for an equivalent model in the new series.

 

[Quick1]

I was also shocked by how much the sound cards cost now! Some of them are almost as much as a med to high level vid card.

 

[Quick1]

Is this the correct procedure for enabling CMSS?


"How to enable CMSS for Sound Blaster Audigy 2/4 series?
Keywords / Key Phrases: cmss, creative multispeaker surround, enable cmss
1.Click Start, (All) Programs, Creative, Creative MediaSource, and click on the Creative MediaSource Player or the Creative MediaSource Organizer.
2.Click on the EAX button to enable EAX. The button should now be highlighted in green.
3.Next, click on the little buttons next to the EAX button, which will bring up the Creative EAX Console.
4.In the EAX Console, check the CMSS 3D tab, then check the box next to Enable CMSS 3D.
5.Select ether CMSS or CMSS 2 and close the EAX Console.
Note: CMSS 2 feature is not available on the I/O module of the Platinum series.

The CMSS option could also be launch from the Creative EAX Console. The path is as follow: Start > Programs > Creative > Audigy 2/4Series > EAX Console.

If you have a Sound Blaster Audigy 2/4 Platinum series, please press on the "CMSS" button which is available on the remote control. For customer using our Platinum Pro version, CMSS option is also available on the I/O module. Either way will enable CMSS feature only."