Santa Cruz/Sonic Fury experiences?

[GHackmann 0]

I'm getting really frustrated with my SB Live! and I'm about ready to demand a refund. I'm really considering going with a Turtle Beach Santa Cruz card, but I have a few questions for anybody out there who has one:

 

1. Do the current drivers work right with ACPI (the whole IRQ sharing fiasco)?

2. Do they work with hibernate?

3. Does UT have the same massive slowdown with EAX enabled as with the SB Live!?

4. Are the reverb & 3D volumes right (i.e. not like the SB Live! which plays them really, really loud)?

5. Any BSOD problems?

 

In other words, does it do what the SB Live! doesn't: work as advertised?

 

Testimonials from GeForce and Athlon users would be especially helpful (KA7 owners especially) but if you've got any info at all then it would be useful. Thanks in advance.

[EJ 0]

I have Santa Cruz and I have no problems with it. I dont have any of the problems that you were asking about. Except I dont know about UT cause I dont play it. I also have a geforce 2 and Athlon with KT7 mobo.

[franzj 0]

I have struggled to get my STB Desktop TV card to work with the Santa Cruz: something between the sound drivers and the TV video capture device gave me a blue screen whenever I opened the video capture. Also, it tends to crash explorer when previewing sound files in thumbnail view. Another problem is that WinDVD 2000M (6-speaker DVD player software) does not properly utilize the 6-speaker 5.1 mode, so I am using PowerDVD 3.0. These are all experiences that I've had with the Santa Cruz.

[franzj 0]

On a few positive notes:

 

The Santa Cruz drivers work fine with IRQ sharing, particularly now since 3dfx released new drivers for the Desktop TV. I haven't tested it, but it seems likely that the drivers would not conflict with hibernate; they do work with Suspend. With my PIII 600, 256MB RAM, the Santa Cruz has never shown intense CPU usage. The sound output options are fully customizable, and will not change once you set them. I warn you, though; some programs are known to change the volume without user consent. This of course, is independent of the sound card you have. One other thing about the Santa Cruz; the sound is quite remarkable once you achieve the right balance between speakers.