Well, I had as much as I could take. I gave up. In several prior articles (e.g., Damn It Scotty, I Need More Power!, Curiouser and Curiouser, and Rocket Science and CPU Coolers) I have discussed sound problems I've had with the latest incarnation of my desktop system. For years I've used a SoundBlaster Live! X-Gamer sound card from Creative Labs, and I've always been able to work around whatever glitches have arisen. Ok, that's not quite true; I had so many problems with an ABit KT7A-RAID motherboard that I switched motherboards. For the most part, though, I've been happy with The SB Live! card until recently.
Unfortunately, as is so often the case, Creative Labs blamed everything and everyone except their own drivers. Their web-based technical support continued to work with me to solve the problem, but when they finally posted an incredibly huge and onerous list of potential solutions, most of which had already been tried, I realized it was time to cut my losses. Because the conversation transcript is itself quite interesting (and revealing) in itself, I'm making it available here for any who are interested. The bottom line is pretty simple: the problem is obviously in their drivers, but they simply will not hear that, despite it being the bloody obvious cause of the trouble.
Because I just don't have time for this crap, I gave up. I decided to try updating my sound card, rather than continuing to fight with Creative Labs support. It's not like they were ever going to acknowledge problems in their drivers anyway. That would require them to admit that their drivers were flawed, and that's something that companies simply do not do in the industry at present. I think Microsoft started this trend; i.e., they showed everyone just how possible it was to foist responsibility for their own dreck onto everyone else. But that's an old rant of mine, so I'll say nothing further along those lines.
Having made the decision to try an upgrade, I checked around and discovered (sadly) that the Creative Labs line are still the best sound cards available for the PC. It sure would be nice to have some substantive alternatives, but I guess that is simply not to be. Don't get me wrong; I realize that there are a number of other solutions out there. It is simply the case, though, that the Audigy line in general, and the Audigy 2 in specific, are the most capable products at present, and that's exactly what I typically try to purchase.
In this case, I have to say that I'm glad I did. As the title for this section suggests, the Audigy 2 card rocks. What's more, it rocks hard. Seriously, it's fabulous. The audio quality is noticeably better than any other sound card I've heard to date. It easily accelerates 63 separate channels of audio in the games I play with extremely low CPU utilization (less than a handful of percent if the benchmarks can be trusted). It comes with a host of features that I've wanted for some time such as FireWire, an optical input for my keyboard, and especially a headphone jack (I got the platinum edition card with the drive-bay electronics), so I don't bug my wife late at night.
The best part about the card, though, is that I've been reaping unexpected bonuses since purchasing it. To be more specific, a virtual plethora of undiagnosed, niggling problems have vanished from my system. A couple of weeks ago, Unreal Tournament started locking hard after a few minutes of play. It was 100% repeatable, though I was never able to figure out why. That problem vanished the day I put in my new Audigy 2 card. The stuttering problems I was having with the SB Live! are now gone completely. The Lord of the Rings game demo, that would previously crash repeatedly and play awful static over the audio, is now perfectly playable. I can now select EAX extensions and use Creative Labs specific audio features of every game I own without crashing or weird sound issues. The awful frame rate chugging and terrible static while trying to play the single-player aspect of Battlefield 1942 are all gone. The regular crashing of a couple of programs at startup (viz., the Object Desktop Control Center by Stardock Software) has stopped. Those are just the first half dozen problems I can think of that have gone away. Believe me, there were plenty of others as well.
In short, a veritable host of problems have disappeared with an Audigy 2 card in place as opposed to an SB Live! card. Gee, that's funny, isn't it? Creative Labs suggested the problem was due to CPU over-utilization, my BIOS, my configuration files, the interrupt assignments on my computer, the fact that my computer was using ACPI power management, and pretty much everything except the fact that their drivers for the SB Live! card suck. I really hate to have given them more business in buying the Audigy 2, but it's nice, at least, to discover that my suspicions about the source of my troubles were correct.
I'm glad my audio troubles seem to be over, but I remain bothered by this whole situation. The SB Live! card seems like something of an industry standard from what I have read. I have always stuck with Creative Labs in the past for that very reason. I first bought an original SoundBlaster all those years ago because a friend showed me how awesome it made playing Wolfenstein 3D by Id Software. I eventually progressed from that card to a SoundBlaster 16, a SoundBlaster AWE32, a SoundBlaster SB Live!, and now an Audigy 2. What I can't help but wonder is this: how many of the ridiculous problems I've had over the years were from my choice of sound card?
And what can I do about it going forward? I've investigated all the other brands to the best of my abilities. Some of them seem like they have some nicer features, but tests published on various sites (e.g., Anandtech, Tom's Hardware, etc.) show them to be notably inferior to the products from Creative Labs. It just doesn't seem to me like there are any genuine alternatives. At least the video-card market now has two major players (viz., NVIDIA and ATI); the sound-card market seems like a near-monopoly by comparison. Can any of you recommend a different brand that stands up to the Audigy 2?
Regardless of the state of the market, I can give my unqualified recommendation to the Audigy 2 card. I have to say that the technical support I received from Creative Labs is a far cry short of what it used to be. They essentially failed badly, I think, in dealing with an obvious problem with their drivers. So far, however, the Audigy 2 doesn't seem to have any issues. Maybe that will be different once the "honeymoon" period with the card expires. I guess only time will tell. For now, I'm loving the card.
12/13/2002