can digital audio cards darla/delta66 ect. take care of normal pc audio functions?

signal2112

New member
that's a question i've been wondering? would you need a second soundcard in you pc to handle normal pc functions like games, mp3 and cd audio listening ect.? or can these cards like the darla or the delta66 handle those functions as
well as being a high end digital audio recording soundcard?
if so how do they compare to the soundblaster
line, made mostly for that function?

and if not, i've heard that there can be major problems with intergrating two sound cards in one pc.
 
I think the main concern about using you "pro card" for the normal pc stuff is whether or not it supports direct sound (for gaming). I use my Delta66 as my primary sound output and also have a SBLive for the midi input without probs...so far.
 
I've been wondering the same thing, and have also heard that using two soundcards would cause problems.

I'm thinking of getting the Delta 66, and have Turtle Bay Montego II.

Could I install the 66 and keep Montego II without any compatibility problems?

-Floyd
 
Hey again, Floyd,

Yeah, it can be difficult. Most PCs only have one or two PCI slots that aren't going to share their IRQs with some onboard device, like the USB controller and a UDMA66 controller if there's one on the motherboard. Most PCI cards are supposed to be able to share IRQs but it's a bit of a crapshoot. I am able to run my two cards but the computer evntually freezes after maybe 15 minutes, maybe an hour or more if I'm lucky... however I am now suspecting it's the UDMA66 controller that's the real culprit and I am troubleshooting that with high hopes for a solution soon. Many people seem to be able to run the SB Live and a Delta or Gina or Layla or something else with no problems. But I get the impression that a lot of them disable USB and their serial and parallel ports and don't have a modem or network card -- a computer basically used just for digital audio recording and nothing else. I, alas, have only one machine and I need to use it for everything.

-AlChuck
 
yes chuck, i too only have one system and hope to use it for all my needs.
i think the simpilest way to ask my question
is if i only had a delta66/44 in my system
and loaded up unreal tournament or quake3 there would be sound generated from the card for the game, like a soundblaster? I really don't want to have to add two cards if i can help it.
 
signal2112, I use my Delta 66 as the primary sound device on my system so yeah, I'm able to get sound when playing games such as Rogue Spear(pretty much the only game I play).

AlChuck, I guess I'm one of the lucky ones. This is my only pc as well. P2-300, 128mbRAM, ATI agp card, 4PCI slots(from top to bottom-Delta66, empty, modem, SBLive), and 2 empty ISA slots. Also, have a Wacom USB tablet, a USB scanner that I use regularly and an Epson printer plus the serial connection for the digital camera. Now I haven't tried to use 'em all at one time but this is the normal config and I leave my system on 24/7 (majority of the time). According to the device manager, the Delta is on irq11(shared with the display adapter), modem on #9, and the SBLive on #10.
I don't have any udma66 or scsi controller. Two hdds and two cdroms taking up both ide channels, slave and masters.

[This message has been edited by nodark (edited 06-14-2000).]
 
I run three cards at once and only have one machine.

I do this by have two installations of windows on two HD partitions, one for normal pc stuff, one for digital audio. On the audio installation I disable all the hardware I don't need and get by with no conflicts, no crashes and nearly no problems. Well, that last one's a bit of an exaggeration.

Anyway, I think two cards in a machine is no problem, I was doing it in 1996. You just have to be prepared to set hardware settings manually (not so hard with a bit of experience :-)

G'luck,

mattk
 
signa2112,

To answer your last question directly, yes, the Delta will serve you playing any game sounds that are WAV files. If you have any games that use the MIDI synth at all (do any "big kid" games do this? I know some of my kids' CD-ROMs do, but I myself don't do gaming), you won't hear that unless you use some sort of soft synth like the Virtual Sound Canvas. And you won't be able to hook up your CD-ROM drive to play audio CDs through the computer; headphone jack only for that.

Nodark and Cakey2, thanks for sharing your setups and experiences. I'm glad to hear that your Delta 66 is working fine whilst sharing IRQs with the display card, nodark -- another clue in favor of my problem being the on-board UDMA66 controller. Hope to have it solved soon (have new BIOS to try, and if that doesn't work then I'll try a Promise Ultra66 controller card) and then I can spend my energies on making terrific music with this box.

-AlChuck
 
AlChuck, one thing I did to fix my no midi output was to run my output from the SBLive into ins1/2 on the Delta. By doing this I'm also able to keep the cd audio. The output doesn't seem to be as high but I'll settle.
 
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