Cheap soundcard ..pls read

[beppe]

Hi all GigaUsers,
im going to set up a dedicated giga pc.
Since im very low on budget (and i already have a pc with a hoontect dsp2000 which i use mainly for running Cubase), i was looking for a VERY cheap audiocard with SPDIF out (not interested with other features) to be run on the giga box.
The card is supposed to be able to play digital sound coming from Giga, and the signal will be recorded and mixed from my main pc.
I spotted the new Guillemot Gamesourround Fortissimo II, a really cheap card. I see it\'s Direct sound compatible,so my question is: will i be able to use it with windows 98 and gigastudio?????

I have seen a friend pc which was running Giga with a soundblaster and w98 .. good latency even with directx drivers. Will i have problems with that Guillemot???

Thanx in advance for your help.

Beppe

[Daniel Fx]

Hi Friend, I bought Maya Soundcard from www.audiotrak.net (\"http://www.audiotrak.net\") it works well and is low priced card good luck, Daniel.

[killerbobjr]

The Guillemot is based on the CMedia CMI8738 chip which does NOT work with GS. The drivers seem to have a glitch in them that causes sound output to be turned off. GS still works and will even write to a WAV file, but there is no sound output.

[ellle]

a pity since this chip is now ending up integrated with motherboards such as Asus.
Any improvement to be expected?

[killerbobjr]

CMedia has apparently stopped updating the VxD based drivers and are only updating the WDM drivers. WDM drivers have horrible latency under Win9x, and GS W2k/XP can\'t use DirectX under W2k/XP. Right now the best option for a cheap GS compatable card with S/PDIF is still the M-Audio Audiophile @ $150 or so street price.

[Reinhold]

Hi,
I have built a dedicated GigaStudio system with a \"Audiophile 2496\" sound card.
Costs $149, and is good value for the buck!
Here is a link with more info: http://www.cdbm.com/shop/detail.cgi?id=128600 (\"http://www.cdbm.com/shop/detail.cgi?id=128600\")

[clonewar]

I second the M-Audio Audiophile. I have it in my Giga DAW and its great. It has onboard S/PDIF and MIDI I/O and since it uses the M-Audio Delta series drivers it has stable and up-to-date drivers.

Mike

[Jan]

Maybe the Delta410 is something for you, it has 2 analog ins and 8 analog outputs, and delivers the same audio quality as the more expensive Delta cards. It costs about 650 DM. I have ordered one last week, and I am waiting for it to arrive.