Problems with Diamond MX300...

[frombauer]

Just picked up this sound card. Friends told me to forget the Live!, because A3D was soooo much better. Well, now with A3D enabled my Quake3 scores drop 35%. Damnit! I don't care much about nunbers, but the game sure feels A LOT slower. And I don't know if it is a coincidence, my system is much more unstable now, and sometimes when I play mp3's the computer crawls, even the mouse jumps around. I'm using all the latest drivers, includind the A3D ones. Now I think I should have bought the SB Live... any comments? Thanks!

 

[PliotronX]

Massive drops in performance aren't uncommon. Even on highend machines. But the problems in Windows are uncommon to most systems. What's your machine's specs?

 

[frombauer]

P2-400
128Mb
Asus P2B
Asus V6800
20.5Gb WD HD
MX300

Maybe it's my P2... I don't know.

 

[Shudder]

I noticed the same problem.

However, I think I fixed it somewhat. Enter your A3d settings and make sure the Reverb engine (aka EAX 1.0 emulation) is turned off. Some games sound like crap and it definitely makes the game jerky.

With just a3d on I didn't notice that much of a speed difference, so I'm guessing you have EAX emu turned on.

 

[SUOrangeman]

Try the 2048 Aureal reference drivers and then come back with the results. http://support.aureal.com should have them.

-SUO

 

[Ulysses]

The MX300's use of the Aureal A3D chip indeed provides superior 3D sound effects to EAX, but the MX300 is a greater CPU hog - and on a P2 400 - really !!

I don't play games much, but right now I'm playing some MP3's in the background and have several programs running and six windows open ( I use dual monitors, which makes that a little easier ), and the music does slooooow things down a bit. But the card is trouble free in all respects, and I kind of like that. In fact, my whole system is very stable, althoug o'clocked from 100 to 124, so I hesitate to change anything. The only real slow down is if I''m downloading MP3's in the background while playing music and with maybe an AT forum and Word in the foreground.

If you are going to get a new sound card, try to check for relativee CPU utilization. And maybe first put your dough into a faster P3 Coppermine or something - your CPU's probably a more serious limitation.

 

[SUOrangeman]

As a point of reference:

http://downloads.aureal.com/pub/Public/Drivers/Vortex/2048/
Reference Vortex2 2048 drivers were released on 17 Feb 2000.

http://www.s3.com/default.asp?menu=support&sub_menu=Audio&item=drivers&product=Monster_Sound_MX300The Diamond 1.02 drivers were released on 11 Feb 1999. Yikes!

-SUO