Can you run 2 sound cards in Vista

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masterosok

Gawd
Joined
Apr 1, 2008
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969
It it possible either with Vista itself or with a 3rd party application to run two seperate sound cards without conficts?
 
Yup, I do currently do that and have my speakers plugged into one and my "surround sound" headphones plugged into the other. Switching between the two is as easy as hitting properties on the sound icon in the tray and setting the default device.

The coolest thing is that you can run two simultaneous audio outputs...I used to have a 32" tv hooked up to my rig and my gf would watch a movie or TV through media center while I played a game on my monitor + headphones.
 
Vista has excellent support for multiple sound cards. You can even control the volume of the applications independently.
 
This is one of the principles the new sound stack in Vista was designed around - having well-defined endpoints rather than vaguer concepts which can make it hard to get sound out from where you want.
 
Thanks for the info guys.. currenty have both my x-fi gamer and my razor barracuda ac-1 install and working perfectly.
 
Sweet! This is what I was wondering =)! I was going to find a cheap-o sound card that has optical input then output the Xbox 360 to the surround sound speakers.
 
I think my PM box is being weird, and I'm not sure if this PM got sent but here is the text regarding how to do multiple simultaneous outputs:

Oh yeah, sorry i didn't say this earlier. It isn't the most elegant thing, but if you open up say media center with the default audio device as one card THEN switch the default audio and open up your second program (say a game) the previously opened program will not switch to the new default device and will stay there as long as the program remains open (so you can keep itunes, winamp, MCE, etc. open on one sound card)

I think you probably get the jist of it but like I said, it isn't really elegant but it worked well enough for my purposes so I never bothered to see if there was a way to set an affinity for an audio device for certain programs - something which may or may not exist.

Anyway, let me know if you have any more questions about this
Click to expand...

Might help others to boot
 
masterosok said:
Thanks for the info guys.. currenty have both my x-fi gamer and my razor barracuda ac-1 install and working perfectly.
Click to expand...

Out of curiosity, what are you trying to do? I have my Z5500's hooked up to my Razor Barracuda through the optical, and then I have headphones plugged into the card through that dongle. Sound goes through both.
 
i use a usb heatset and sound card in vista headset is for messenger and windows uses
 
rgratto2 said:
Out of curiosity, what are you trying to do? I have my Z5500's hooked up to my Razor Barracuda through the optical, and then I have headphones plugged into the card through that dongle. Sound goes through both.
Click to expand...

Well the Barracuda Supports DDL but the X-fi doesn't (with standard drivers), thats one thing. One is going to be used for XBOX sounds via headphones...Plus I just really wanted to see if it would work.
 
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