Rating: 
Summary: Lack of features
Review: A major flaw is the lack of SPDIF digital in and out, as available on the Philips soundcard.
Rating: 
Summary: Audigy Gamer
Review: Audigy Gamer is a good sound card. It works very well with XP windows. I have a hp computer with XP windows. I put the card in my computer and then loaded the drivers and restared my computer and it worked great. The card came with 2 games they are ok but you have to use a mouse for them I wish you could use a joy stick it would be a lot more fun. Both games work ok on my computer. If you have only 2 speakers you should get the 5 to 1 speaker set. It would work alot better for you.
Rating:
Summary: Attention WIN XP Users!
Review: First of all, buy it! it is awesome.Hardware installation was quick and easy. the manual was helpful.
The drivers included are not signed by MS for WIn XP. You will have to download the patch for them ... the moment you install them you will experience problems, don't reboot. add the patch and then reboot. be sure to uninstall all other soundcards and thei drivers and disable onboard drivers before doing anything.
Why doesn't sounblaster let you download the complete set of drivers?? It is a hassle. Also the installation took me a good 15 mins. So get a beer and a bag of pretzels....after installation you will love this card. EAX HD is simply amazing....buy Jedi knight Outcast and play it! you will learn the ways of the Jedi with it.
Rating:
Summary: Plenty of "bang" for the buck
Review: For shear sound quality alone, I would have to give this card 5+ stars. This card is leaps and bounds better than my old TBS Montego II. It supports EAX (which is what I wanted it for. Hardly anyone uses A3D anymore), 5.1 speakers (to be bought soon) and the fire wire port is a welcome addition (no more USB external drives!)
However, getting it installed and running is a diferent story. It took me two days and a two and a half hour long call (which I was paying for. Creative has no 1-800 number) to Creative tech support to get this thing working right. It seemed that the drivers they shipped this thing with would allow master volume to reset to 100% on everything, so every time I rebooted, I got blasted with Windows sounds. However, once the new driver was installed, everything is working great.
All in all, I like the Audigy Gamer. I just wish it wasn't such a hassle to get running.
Rating:
Summary: nice card, horrible hassle
Review: Great sound, but making it work with windows xp is impossible unless you have a masters in computer science. customer service from creative is AWFUL. i mean AWFUL. if you have a problem, (and with windows xp you will) you're going to have to fix it yourself. the combination of audigy and windows xp is NOT for the faint of heart or the unsavvy of consumers. other than that, no complaints.
Rating: 
Summary: worked better on xp os than philips 5.1 card
Review: i am running a 1.4ghz athlon on an msi k7ta 266 motherboard, with 256mbs of ddr ram and a geforce 3 ti 500 video card. when i installed the xp operating system i was able to update drivers for everything except the philips sound card. i was able to find the beta drivers but they ended up being pretty lousy. coming out of stanby the only sound would be loud hissing. i have klipsch promedia 5.1 sound system so good sound was a must. i tried this audigy x-gamer and it worked perfect. no snags on the install, downloaded the drivers from the sound blaster site. the sound from this card is great. if your a gamer you gotta try this card.
Rating:
Summary: Phenomenal Sound!
Review: I bought this card to replace my onboard audio which started to play an annoying buzz thru my speakers. All I can say is WOW! The sound is so much clearer and stronger than before. There are many different sound profiles that you can choose from to change how the sound is heard (for example, concert hall, heavy metal, jazz, etc) in addition to being able to specify what type of speakers you have (desktop, surround sound, etc). I installed this in about ten minutes (including opening up the computer) with no fuss whatsoever on a Win98SE machine. I uninstalled software for the onboard sound and then disabled it in the bios before putting in the new card so there would be no conflicts. There is a poster foldout that has diagrams and instructions for how to install along with a sidenote for WinXP users. It has the standard line-in, line-out, mic jacks along with a digital-out plug for Digital surround sound speaker systems or 3 plugs for an analog surround sound system. If you want to use the joystick port, it will require an additional slot being used. It comes with a digital and analog cable to connect to your internal CD-Rom/DVD-Rom. The big surprise is the FireWire port on the card. The box says you can use this for a computer to computer connection for gaming (using FireNet software on the CD), but I see this as something you can use to connect to an external hard drive, digital camcorder or some of the newer portable music players. Some people complained about all the bloatware (I can't really argue that point), but during installation you have the option to do a full install, drivers only install, or a custom install (I did) which you can pick and choose what you want to load on your system. This version also comes with the games Deus X and Giants: Citizen Kabuto.
Rating:
Summary: works perfectly
Review: I got XP and it works fine. It's a very good sound card, better than my previous one. Recommend it to those who seek a good sound card at a low price.
Rating:
Summary: Audiophile quality for an incredible price.
Review: I had no idea this card would make such an incredible difference than the factory card that was in my system. This is truly audiophile quality for those that really can't afford to be an audiophile. Creative claims that with their 24-bit/100dB SNR that you can listen to MP3/WMAs, CD's and any stereo music with high definition audio clarity surpassing high-end home theatre receivers and now I believe them. And for this price? It is incredible and most don't even know it exists. I bought a logitech z-560 speaker system and it sounded great with my system. Then a guy at a certain store that rhymes with gest guy told me that this would help the sound. What an understatement. It took a while to get hooked up properly (call creative and make sure all is set up right, they are very helpful) but when it worked I was flat out astonished at the clarity and power without hiss or ANY distortion. And all for less than a low quality home system amplifier by itself. This sounds every bit as good if not better than systems well over a grand. Toss out that old soundcard or even a new one and do whatever it takes to install one of these. It is certainly worth it.
Rating:
Summary: Audigy Gamer
Review: I have purchased a lot of electronics in the past, often with minor quirks I had to work through, but the level of problems with this product is absurd. I read all of the Amazon reviews plus reviews from other websites, and I thought I could overcome the problems. That was then, this is now.
I purchased the card not over a week ago and installed it in my machine. I am on the verge of upgrading my CPU along with my software, so I purchased this card to work both in my old 400 MHz Pent. II machine running on Win98(first edition) and to work on a new XP system I'll get in the near future. The box, description, and tech support people ALL clearly assert that the software and the card work with Win98 first edition. THEY DO NOT.
DO NOT BUY THIS CARD IF YOU STILL OPERATE ON WIN98 FIRST EDITION.
Here is why: When attempting to load the software, the autoload program will give you an error telling you to upgrade your system. Dumb, huh? Yup, in a leap before you look move, Creative has started shipping retail versions of this product, each clearly stating they work with WIN98 First edition, with CD's that don't contain the proper software.
But that's not all.
After calling tech support, I was told to "explore" the CD and install each program individually. They assured me that the proper software was on the disk, but the front end loading program was not correct. I tried this grand idea, and it DESTROYED MY OPERATING SYSTEM. I could not even reload WIN98. Luckily I had a new hard drive I could install, which I did, and reloaded WIN98. It only took me roughly 12 hours of work to recreated everything that formerly existed on my old hard drive.
But that isn't the end either. No, I, like a fool, tried again. Nope, not even with nearly 30 gigs of extra hard drive space, nothing on earth running on my computer that could conflict, and an overly optimistic attitude, could I get the software to properly load. On a positive note, this time it didn't crash the entire system.
Ahh, but that is still not the end. I called tech support again, and they told me to do various things to attempt to make the card to work. So, I completely updated my WIN98 from the microsoft site (I had always done this before, but remember I had to start with a new, clean HD), I upgraded my system BIOS and drivers from the manufacturer, AND I swapped around every card to try to resolve system conflicts.
Nope. None of it worked - furthermore, it wasted more hours needlessly.
So friends, I now await the final step in this quest to listen to my computer ding in 4.1 surround sound or higher - I will try installing new software from Creative, if the CD ever arrives. Yup, the tech people at Creative don't ship out new CDs, that's another department - and none of them really know when the other gets around to doing their job, so I don't know when I'll get the CD. Maybe this week...maybe next...
If it works, I'll write a review on the sound quality. For now, I put my old Montego back in the computer and have enjoyed my 2.1 dings and blips.
One final note for the working class among you. Please realize that Creative does not have a toll free number and is only open from 9:00 AM to 6:00 PM Central time Monday-Friday. If you are like me and work during these hours, you will never be able to both call and be by your computer at the same time. That leaves you to waste time at work just to get "answers" that don't work. Oh, and the email support is a joke. After explaining the above, the first person to respond (a day later) asked me if I'd tried installing the drivers. I responded by asking if they actually read the emails or just liked playing cruel jokes on foolish customers. The second person (again, another 24 hour turn around) just told me to wait for the CD. That would have been a nice thing to tell me BEFORE the guy on the phone gave me personalized instructions on how to kill my old hard drive.
Moral: buy a SantaCruz card
Update: 2/4/2004: New CDs are junk - still does not work. Creative labs must just not care to help.
Update 04/21/2004: I got too busy to return the card, so when I bought a new XP system, I decided to give the card another try. DOESN'T WORK AGAIN! The software installed, but the card gives out no sound. I'd call them for support, but again that 9-6 M-F timing is the worst possible. I e-mailed them and will see if they can offer a real response.
Update 1/10/05: I dropped this into a new XP unit and it works fine. I'm still not sure it is worth it, but it does work. If you have an XP unit it likely already has 5.1 sound available right off the motherboard. If you are a gamer, I'd first buy a great video card, more RAM, and a good speaker system. Then see if you need this card. I doubt you will.
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