Using my old p.c.'s soundcard in my new rig

mrsim

mrsim

mrsim

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hello everyone,
wanted some advice about using my old p.c.'s sound card in my very new rig which has Z170A krait gaming (ms7984) intel skylake motherboard
the sound card is pretty old but i was wondering if i could test it to see if it makes my system compatible with traktor pro DJ studio which seems to be having issues connecting with the built in soundcard on the motherboard so was looking for an alternative method and thought maybe i could use my old sound card to do this,below is a link to the PDF spec sheet for the card

any help would be greatly appreciated

http://www.creative.com/oem/resources/SoundCards/SB046x.pdf
 
Creative have released Win 10 drivers for it. It's still a decent card - there has been little progress in the past 11 years soundcard wise. If you play games, an X-Fi is just as capable (if not more so) than a Soundblaster Z.

You'd be paying £50ish for a card to match your old one, both in terms of sound quality and capabilities.

Give it a try. If it doesn't behave you can always change to something else.
 
Uriel said:
Creative have released Win 10 drivers for it. It's still a decent card - there has been little progress in the past 11 years soundcard wise.
Click to expand...
Shame that they haven't release a Win10 driver for my Soundblaster Arena Headset. It works with the native driver with windows, but there's no control panel or software for setting the Virtual 3D...
 
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thanks for the replys guys...will insert it and give it a go...maybe it will help me to connect to this program better than the built in soundcard which seems to also not play my logitech Z680 5.1 surround half as loud as my old dell XPS 1st gen used to
 
I love creative cards.
I have gone over to Asus after falling for the usual pap about them being better, but in truth, my next card will almost definitely be another creative.

The sound quality is definitely better the newer models that we look at and so I would disagree that he XFI is a better can than the Z.

When I upped from the SBLive to Audigy, there was a small but noticeable difference.
From tyhe Audigyto the A2ZS, not so much difference, if any.
Then from the Audigy A2ZS to the XFI Fatality was again a tiny but noticeable difference and again from the XFI Fatality to the Recon3D.
In all these cards, I have gone with the ones that come with the 5.25" drive bay.
My current main card, is the Asus Strix pile of poo that I bought to replace the incredibly naff quality Asus DX2 that has a Floppy type power connector thats broken.

But anyway Im waffling.

If there was ever a card that I have wanted to work in a newer PC and it has failed to do so, then it will be my good old Turtle Beach Santa Cruz as I have a Yamaha DX50XG Daughter board on that and I miss the high quality Midi File playback, and as I have been writing Music and using Midi for many man years now, and I like the GM and XG formats, this has let me playback much of my music on the PC in a similar quality as I candy with my Atari, and this has simply not been possible since losing the ability to play back high quality midfiles on the PC.
 
FatRakoon said:
I love creative cards.
I have gone over to Asus after falling for the usual pap about them being better, but in truth, my next card will almost definitely be another creative.

The sound quality is definitely better the newer models that we look at and so I would disagree that he XFI is a better can than the Z.

When I upped from the SBLive to Audigy, there was a small but noticeable difference.
From tyhe Audigyto the A2ZS, not so much difference, if any.
Then from the Audigy A2ZS to the XFI Fatality was again a tiny but noticeable difference and again from the XFI Fatality to the Recon3D.
In all these cards, I have gone with the ones that come with the 5.25" drive bay.
My current main card, is the Asus Strix pile of poo that I bought to replace the incredibly naff quality Asus DX2 that has a Floppy type power connector thats broken.

But anyway Im waffling.

If there was ever a card that I have wanted to work in a newer PC and it has failed to do so, then it will be my good old Turtle Beach Santa Cruz as I have a Yamaha DX50XG Daughter board on that and I miss the high quality Midi File playback, and as I have been writing Music and using Midi for many man years now, and I like the GM and XG formats, this has let me playback much of my music on the PC in a similar quality as I candy with my Atari, and this has simply not been possible since losing the ability to play back high quality midfiles on the PC.
Click to expand...

If you're that picky (I am too) you want an external DAC and not an internal soundcard. If 2.0/2.1 is your thing look no further than an audioquest dragonfly. It'll smoke any internal soundcard on the market for about the same price.
 
I have seen these dragonfly things... USB jobs.

I really dont know why, but I have been put off by USB audio.

Again, I dont know why because I have a couple of USB audio devices and they are just fine... In fact I thought FireWire would be good until I was overly unimpressed with the junk I had the misfortune of wastinbg my money on with the Maudio shhhh....ugar I bought some time ago.

But I will have a proper look if you recon they are THAT good.

...

Ok, right, well, I have had a peek and so far its a hmmm... maybe?

I need 2 things that I find are fairly important to me. I think mostly because I am just used to it, but:-

1 - I need to switch between headphone and speakers A.S.A.P

With the Creative Live drives, I just plop the speakers into it or I press the button to select the output.
I am using the Strix currently and that does the same... Although it does not seem to work 100% due to the sound sometimes not playing and even some games crashing when I try switching over.

And

2 - I do like to have a volume control.

Now, of course this is to 99% of you a stupid thing to say but my speaker setup is altec lansing 995 and they have no volume control ( or headphone input either ) and so I need to use a seperate Volume control.
My keyboard, currently a Logitech G510s has a volume control, but as anyone who has made the mistake of thinking that Windows 10 is any cop, and has one of these keyboards will tell you, when you try using that volume control, you ask for trouble. Sure, there are fixes around, but come on!

Anyway, for the Volume control, the Strix also provides that too!

So, as much as I despise the thing, I feel trapped into using it for a while.

If I was to get that dragonfly thingy, I may or may not be solving my issues.
 
The Dragonfly is meant for providing good quality audio from laptops, for use with high quality headphones.

As you prefer Creative, why not get the ZxR? It's a bargain at £150 and provides everything you need, including an on-desk volume control.
 
Ok, well, my carer ( yes I have a carer so what? ) took me out yesterday and so I took the opportunity to see what was around, and I saw the SoundBlaster OMNI and so I grabbed that to have a play.

Its a USB job and only 65 quid so I thought I would give it a shot.

Wish I didnt to be honest, but there you go.

I have ordered a DragonFly from that place that sounds like a river. so that will be a more serious option.

This omni is not really liking me much at all... The control panel will not come up, from whatever reason, but it says that its not plugged in or its not compatible or whatever and I dont know WTF is going on?

I did try installing it in one USB port and I had to move it to another port which in itself is nothing new, but I have had to move it a few times now its only day 2

Im also Win10 so that may be why the control panel wont work, but also I have not found out any way to change between headphones and speakers, so yes, its certainly NOT installed properly and a resinstall does not help in any way, so overall, I am not happy with it... Not yet.

One bonus however... It works with my hackintosh so thats fine LOL
 
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