Can anyone tell me why there is a picture of the Sound blaster Live Platinum Edition here instead of the X-gamer?

Before Windows 95, every card said they were "Sound Blaster compatible" but none truly were. Sound Blaster's ruled the market, especially for games. I think Creative Labs got a little lazy and many companies started producing superior sound cards. Creative Labs actually bought a few of the struggling ones, others went out of business, and now I think only Diamond is any competition for them. A few years ago, Creative Labs finally replaced their aging Awe-64 series and came out with its Live series of cards. The X-gamer is really the same card as is included with the 'Value' package, or with the 'Platinum' package, but it is aimed at hardcore video game players.

This is truly the best sound card a gamer could choose, however there are three major problems:

1) These cards do not play well with others. They cannot share IRQ slots, and there are no warnings on the box, or with the software. You will just happen to get a random crash within 10 minutes of using it. These means that on any motherboard that has multiple slots sharing IRQs, you have to make sure the Sound Blaster goes in a slot that doesn't. Almost all modern motherboards do this, so this is an issue for many. (My current motherboard is an Asus P3B-F).

2) Along similar lines, I have a complaint about the fact that I cannot turn off the DOS compatibility. It takes up an IRQ, and I can't seem to keep it from re-installing itself no matter what I do. I've removed it from the system control panel, the add/remove programs, and I still keep getting new hardware detected messages. And it self installs. It doesn't even offer me the option to ignore it.

3) Also, I have never gotten my AC-3 output to work from a DVD. As a matter of fact, I cannot get it to work even with the speaker test that came with the software. I can get quad just fine, but even going to a digital receiver from a DVD, it doesn't seem to want to play. I do not have Windows 2000, where there is a known problem, and apparently many people have posted messages about having this problem with Windows 98 SE, which I am using. I'd like to think that I'm doing something wrong, but a lot of people have posted messages on the Usenet reporting the same problem.


Well, now on to why this card is really great. The X-gamer works just fine with a 4 speaker receiver, and the EAX adds really cool effects to any game that uses it. Play Halflife for just a little while to see what I mean! Another important feature for game players is how low the CPU usage is for the card. Computer Gaming Review did a comparison between this card and Diamond's premiere A3D card, and they found that while most cards were around 5-8% of CPU usage playing complicated sounds, the Sound Blaster Live was consistently only around 3%. This doesn't seem like a lot, but to most gamers, getting an extra 5% out of a graphics card is reason enough to throw a party.

The card has everything you need on the back. There is a front output, a rear output, a microphone in, a line in, a joystick port, and a digital out. On the card's internal portion there are two input jacks for CD music, which is very helpful if you have a burner or DVD drive alongside your regular CD player. Not that I recommend putting CD play mileage on anything other than a standard CD-rom drive, but with my old card, I commonly wanted to play CD music from my burner temporarily to test a song quickly, and I hated to have to switch drives for just 10 seconds of testing. There is also a SPDIF-in for your DVD player, and a TAD for modems with telephone answering features.

Also, unlike the early Live Value edition, A3D is handled just fine, although I don't know if this is 100% compatible, or if it is just translating what best it can. But EAX seems to be the new standard, and the Sound Blaster Live is the new computer game standard, by far. The general quality of the card is also very well respected in the music industry. Sound Blasters are known for their low noise levels at high volume. Apparently there is a patented chip made by Creative Labs called the EMU10K1 Digital Signal Processor (DSP) which is what all the praise the cards get owe it to.

To describe for just a moment what EAX is, it allows the sound to appear to be in different environments. I.E. while playing a song, I can select different environments like a cathedral, underwater, a tile bathroom, etc., and the music really does sound like it's being played there. For games like Halflife, while running and shooting I could suddenly jump into a metal crawlspace, and the effect is amazing. The same goes for Thief 2, which came bundled with this card. With four speakers, the sounds truly come from their appropriate sources. In some games that can make huge difference in immersion, and can be helpful to your gameplay. You will really want a four speaker setup once you've heard it for games, music or a DVD.

Also, if you enjoy making crank calls, or just pretending that you are a terrorist demanding ransom money, EAX can alter your voice like the villain from the "Scream" movies did.

The Sound Blaster Live X-gamer comes with full versions of four games! These are Thief 2, Deus Ex, Unreal Tournament, and MDK2. I could have thrown the card away, and these four games would have been worth the $99 price themselves. I've reviewed Thief 2 and Unreal Tournament elsewhere on Epinions, and they are both incredible games. I've only recently started Deus Ex, and it too is amazing in what I've seen so far. MDK2 is the weakest of the bunch, but still a game well worth playing.

There are also various sound software additions that came with the card. These include things like wave players, Midi editors, a wave editor, Rythmania (which is a sort of a keyboard / drum machine player), and some more. I'm not really a user of any of these, but I appreciate having even a simple wave editor and player for when I need it.

If you are one of the people using Redhat Linux, this card has drivers that works at least up through version 6.

The card is also flash upgradeable, which should make a huge difference in terms of longevity. With all these features, I'm sure this is the last soundcard you'll ever need.




Recommended: Yes

Amount Paid (US$): 99