Sound card.. cheap.. help!

[quakguy]

I was thinking of upgrading my soundblaster awe32 isa to some newer PCI type card.

So I went into research mode and came across EAX, EAX 2.0, A3D, A3D 2.0, Directsound3d, etc etc.

There's also so many different types of cards now. (Soundblaster Live's, Hercules game theater xp, acoustic edge, etc)

I've looked around at some local stores and the only cards available would be the soundblasters and occasional hercules cards or older guillemot cards.

I cannot afford the game theatre(over $200 CDN here), there is no sigh of philips acoustic edge in any store, so it basically boils down to a Soundblaster Live value or something based on the CMI(C-Media) 8738 chipset (same chip used in the Guillemot/Hercules Muse sound cards) or some A3D card.

There seems to be alot of negativity towards the SBLive cards on practically every board Which makes the decision harder.

Aureal is no longer in the sound card business so I am to assume new drivers for these cards are non-existant? (would be like buying a 3dfx card right now and hoping it works in 6 months to a year with all the latest games)

So now I'm trying to decide between a SBLive Value($73 CDN) or this CMI 8738 sound card(around $30 or less which is really tempting).

http://www.cmedia.com.tw/doc8738.htm

here is the tech specs for the chipset which sounds good... but then again all tech specs on manufacturer sites make their product sound good

This is the same chipset used in the Muse soundcards(hercules or guillemot) and it's even on some motherboards that don't just use software based codec(Iwill KK266, Asus A7M266, and a few others).

Does anyone have any experience with sound card or onboard sound based on the 8738 chipset? how does it compare to the live?

how many games actually support EAX, EAX 2.0, A3D, Directsound3D, etc or which of these is the most widely used? do they really enhance games over regular sound?

is it worth upgrading to a PCI soundcard over an ISA one? am I really losing many cpu cycles? are *any* current PCI sound cards just better than a 4+ year old ISA soundcard? or is my SB Awe32 ISA just fine and I'm just grasping for a reason to upgrade something when I can barely afford to?

 

[madthumbs]

Opposed to buying online? You should be able to find the Acoustic Edge from a reputable online reseller at about ~$60, adding an mfg coupon makes it even better. Just check the "Hot Deals" section of this forum. I got mine for ~$65 before the rebate came out.

 

[Javing]

A good soundcard that has worked very well for me is the Aopen 744. I think it has A3D and EAX support (havent been able to find any games that support it well though).

// Erik

 

[flambus]

quakguy,

i'm in the same boat... no $$'s and i have an AWE64 ISA.

would a plan ol' 16bit pci cheapy sound card be better than my AWE64??????

 

[quakguy]

anyone have links to any benchmarks between card types?

mainly looking for game framerates with 3d sound enabled/disabled or using an ISA card vs PCI card(isa taking up more cpu cycles or something like that).

Just how good is 3D sound? or the EAX effects? I'm really curious as to what I'm missing with an old soundcard like mine

 

[PELarson]

Creative Labs Sound Blaster/Ensoniq Audio PCI128 PCI Sound Card very good card at a excellent price($17 at TeamExcess).