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is upgrading now really worth it?

T

TaK

Gawd
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Sep 18, 2002
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right now, my system's got a SB Live! Value sound card that i picked up new a few years back. once in a while i get sound problems: crackling, distortion, you know the deal. i cant even get No One Lives Forever 2 to work properly, only SOME of the sounds work, and that doent include very many of them

i'm thinking about picking up either a TB Catalina or an Audigy 2 ZS OEM.

which one would be the better option? and ever more importantly, is it even worth it? will the sound be any better? will may games run any faster with the new digital sound processors?
 
That old SB live is a POS card. Upgrading would be a good idea. I've not checked it out, but apparently, there is a new Live! 7.1 that is supposed to be much better. At least, that's what the ruskies over at Digitlife.com have to say. They tend to know their way around soundcards too.

http://www.digit-life.com/articles2/digests/sound2k4.html said:
Two low-end products: PCI SoundBlaster Audigy2 Value and PCI SoundBlaster Live! 24-bit.
Audigy2 Value wasn't worthy of close attention, being an Audigy2 modification without IEEE1394. But the latter card named simply "Live! 24-bit" could be considered unexpected and even sensational, as our tests demonstrated. At quite a moderate price ($35 and over for an OEM bundle), the card has DACs similar to those used in the top-end Audigy2/2ZS. And despite the understate specifications, it offered outstanding audio quality for its price, which was also confirmed by tests and auditions. Besides, it supported analog 7.1 channels, the real 24-bit/96kHz mode together with software EAX3.0 in games. This was an absolute leader in terms of price, quality and functionality.
Click to expand...

Does anybody have experience with it?
 
The Live 7.1 doesn't have any DAC's from my understanding. It uses a lot more CPU time... so between those 2 choices, get the Audigy 2 ZS. Or the Audigy 4 Pro, if you've got the cash.

As for SB Live's... I have been using them for years, never had any problems.
 
It definitely has DACs... outputting raw digital to your speakers would not be pretty.

You are probably thinking of DSPs, digital signal processors, which it would have, but probably not the most technologically advanced, so it might not be capable of EAX4, etc.
 
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