Kyro II

[SMUAlien]

Well almost went and got me a Kyro 2 today. Friend of mine called and said it was on sale at best buy for $130, was gonna go do that. I show up there and it's $149, which is more than what I'll pay. I'll wait till I'm in PHX next weekend, my girlfriends brother is going to get it for me using his discount. I can't wait.
Hey kh I noticed that you have the acoustic edge soundcard. I was thinking of getting that one or the Santa Cruz. I don't want any issues like the Live! has with the KT133A. Do you like your acoustic edge?
Can't wait to get my Kyro 2... SWEET!

 

[SMUAlien]

What is that website with Kyro Tweaks and Drivers and discussion board? I'd like to bookmark it before I get this card. Also hows the performance running Tribes 2?
Thanky

 

[kh]

first off here is a linkfor a good site. Go to there message board for information. Also I had the Game theater XP and a Santa Cruz, both use the same audio chip and both caused sound hiccups when playing Counter-Strike (pretty much the only game I play, although Unreal Tournament is not bad also.) I've also had a Creative labs SB 5.1 Xgamer but it had too many problems. The acoustic edge is a very nice card and tehir updated drivers actually increase functionality. Before it did not do Dolby AC-3 through its SPDIF out, but with updated drivers it can now do so(although I have yet to try it.) It's a really nice soundcard and came with a $20 rebate at best buy.

 

[SMUAlien]

How are the drivers for both the Kyro and the Acoustic Edge? I heard the drivers for the Edge are kinda flaky and actually cause your computer to be alittle slower when using this card. www.3dsoundsurge.com has a review and it looks like a kind of slow card. what do you think?
Thanks

 

[r0d3nt]

Hi!
I bought a Hercules Kyro2 ~2 weeks ago and at first it seemed to play like crap in CS.
But after entering some tweaks in the register(they do not affect image quality), performance is awesome!
Im now running at 800x600 2x FSAA(I only have a 17" monitor and 800 is the lowest res i get 100 hz in.Its also much easier from far away in 8x6)
Ofcourse it does slow down a little with smoke but ´not more than with every other card out there.
Talk to me on icq 24636074 if you need help with CS&Kyro!

You rodent.

 

[UKtaxman]

2 of the best sites I've found are HERE and HERE¬!

 

[Chryseares]

Hey, Alien (brutha!)

I have a Santa Cruz and I really like it. No problems whatsoever in any of the games I play. I bought it (instead of an SBLive) before I got my current KT7A-RAID mobo... lucky thing I did, considering the SBLive/VIA chipset problems. You get support for EAX 1.0 & 2.0, Aureal 1.0 and the Sensaura API's. A plethora of connections on the back allow for 2 and 4-speaker surround systems, and the VersaJack allows multiple connections from headphones to digital audio out signals.

For its price (<$90) it's a steal. I digress, however, since this is a Video forum...

~jd

 

[SMUAlien]

hey thanks for all the comments and suggestions. it's kind of cool that the first thread that I've ever posted to this board grew to 30 something comments. Cool beans. I'm looking forward to my Kyro purchase next week. Thanks
my ICQ # is 29477370
thanks

 

[AppleTalking]

I own a Kyro II (Hercules 3D Prophet 4500) and a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card. I have been very happy with both products so far. If you want to see all my system specs, click on the rig link in my sig. Anyway, here's my impressions of these two products:

Kyro II: Great overall card for the money. Won't give you top-notch performance, but won't hurt your wallet either. Excellent 2D quality (60Hz. refresh rate never looked so good), good DVD playback, and excellent performance. UT plays at 70fps at 1024x768 with 2X FSAA turned on!! Good driver support from Hercules and PowerVR, constantly fixing bugs as soon as they are found. It does have problems with some games as previously mentioned, but this is a new card and given Hercules' track record I know these problems will be fixed with time. Overall, you won't get the performance of a GF2 Pro or Ultra card, but you won't pay for it either.

Santa Cruz: Excellent sound card! Take my advice and buy this card over the Philips Acoustic Edge. Both cards cost about the same, but the Santa Cruz card is much better. Great sound in all my games, MP3s, and DVDs. I currently have it hooked up to a set of Boston Acoustics Digital BA790 speakers using the Versa Jack for digital output and it sounds great! Definitely worth the $75 + shipping I paid for it at outpost.com. It even has support for up to 6 speakers, which means I can hook up my old set of Altec Lansing speakers once I find the time to dig them out of the closet. The Philips card has incredibly buggy drivers, especially under Win2K and IMO it doesn't sound quite as clear as the Santa Cruz. It also tends to take up more CPU time. Overall, a great sound card if you're willing to spend the money.

There you go! Hope this helps!
Nick

 

[Garet Jax]

SMUAlien,

Instead of using outpost, you can buy the Santa Cruz from Mwave for $70 + shipping. I bought mine with a couple of other things so I don't know what shipping was.

 

[SMUAlien]

Wow, you guys really rock. I was going to wait until a week from today to get this stuff because my girlfriends brother can get me a discount. He said that Kyro 2 would be $124 with his discount, and the Santa Cruz would be $61 and the Phillips would be $71. This is for all retail stuff, not OEM. I'm going to get the Santa Cruz. I'm all about stable drivers.
It's going to be a tough week waiting to get this stuff, and when I get it I have to wait another 3 days to install it. Oh well.
Thanks for your help, I really appreciate it.

 

[L8CS]

I've been very happy with my Kyro2, which I've had since it's release date in May. I upgraded from a Voodoo3 3000 and can honestly say the graphics and 2d are equal to or better. Even though the 3DMark benchmarks are low in comparison to Nvida, I can't tell the difference.
I play mostly flight sims like MS Combat Simulator 1 and 2, Microprose B-17 and Soldier of Fortune.

 

[Chryseares]

Alien:

You won't be disappointed with the Santa Cruz. It has what amounts to an &quot;MP3 accelerator&quot; on board, a DSP so to speak. My mp3's sound great and the Santa Cruz doesn't use quite as many clock cycles as your old MX300 currently does.

~jd