Which sound card is the best for ofp and xp

[Airwolf 50]

My sound blaster live! 5.1 is getting really anoying... theres no way to fix this crackeling issue with XP, so i need a new sound card, can someone here tell me a good surround sound card that works in XP and doesnt crackel in ofp.

[Placebo 28]

Moving to TS

[Kep Kelagin 1]

So, whats the best soundcard then? I got the Soundblaster as well, and the crackling sounds is a bit of a pain in the ass , so any suggestions to a good soundcard?

[SGT KAMAI USMC 0]

SB Audigy

[mads bahrt 0]

I'm tired and disapointed of Creative myself, so next time i buy a soundcard it will be Terratec or Hercules. If I should buy one today, it would either be Hercules Game Theater XP 6.1 or a variant of Terratec's DMX 6fire.

[Kep Kelagin 1]

So the Sb Audigy won't have any crackling noise ? I'm disapointed that nothing will be/has been done yet to solve this problem yet i bought this card a year ago ( the Creative SoundBlaster 5.1 Live ) , and can't believe that nothing CAN be done to fix the sounds of the vehicles and stuff.... I also had the loud footstep bug, but that doesnt seem to appear anymore for some reason..but the vehicles messed up sound ( only when inside the vehicle ) is annoying...

[munger 25]

I have an Nvidia Nforce mobo with built in sound chip and the sound I get out of it beats anything I've heard from even a modern standalone card like an Audigy. I have a Creative 5.1 surround speaker setup and in OFP I get genuine 5.1 surround - even the centre channel works, which is pretty much unheard of (most games only output 4.1).

So if you're in the market for a new mobo as well, you might want to check it out. It's a Microstar (MSI) K7N420 Pro.

[Hormones 0]

Airwolf..

I had the crackling problem once I upgraded to XP with my 5.1 Live. I ended up replacing it with the Audigy and things sound better, EAX has become so much better in tracking and hunting players.

[eyes 0]

don't buy an audigy - at least till they write some decent drivers. I have an audigy and get quite a bit of crackle in games in XP.

[ArakAtak 0]

I have heard the Philips Acoustic edge cards are very good - I'm thinking of getting one to replace my SBLive. I hate that damn card - always getting screwy EAX positioning and I can't believe the basic drivers (for win98) havn'e been updated for about 2 years.

Anyway - here's a link to some reviews:

OnePC Philips review

This one is pretty wordy but also give some great technical explanations of what EAX1, EAX2 and all that confusing stuff is:

3D soundsurge review

[Mister Frag 0]

I have an Acoustic Edge sitting in a box somewhere. The hardware is excellent, and the Windows 98/ME drivers were OK, but the Windows 2000 drivers (and XP) were worse than Creative's current drivers when I tried them. I also tried several versions of their beta WDM drivers, with no relief in sight.

Eventually I put the old Sound Blaster Live! which it replaced back into my system, and used the Microsoft drivers that came with XP. They lacked features, but at least they were stable. Eventually, I installed new Creative drivers found on Compaq's FTP site, and all has been well since -- I get full hardware acceleration and EAX support, no hisses/pops, and no loud footsteps.