Hi,

my x-fi card will now definately go to ebay because the driver project (opensource.creative.com) doesn't seem to get anywhere. I'm running linux with the onboard sound atm and it always brings a little tear to my eyes when I boot windows and start winamp with the x-fi.

I need a new card that matches the soundquality of the x-fi and (obviously) have full alsa support. It should also give some more options to setup than volume up/down.
Which card can you recommend ? I read around a bit and found the oxygen hd chipset cards being very popular. Does anyone have one of those ? Or what else can you recommend ?

The following sound cards that I suggest.

Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1
Audiotrak Prodigy 7.1LT
Audiotrak Prodigy HiFi
Terratec Aureon 7.1
Terratec Aureon 7.1 Universe
Any M-Audio sound card that outputs 8 channels

Creative Labs does not make sound cards that produce audiophile sound quality. The sounds that I listed are what audiophile uses. Creative Labs makes sound cards for kids not for professionals and audiophiles.

almatic,
I agree with Electro in regards to the M-Audio cards. lot's of support also !
Scott

Check the LQ HCL to see what your fellow LQ'ers experiences are (see my sig block)

It is true that the Creative X-Fi card does not work with Linux, but practically every other Sound Blaster sound card does work with Linux. I have both an Audigy and Audigy 2 on the two Linux machines at my home, both in dual boot setups. One has Windows XP and the other is Windows Vista. None the less, you can find really good deals on older Creative sound cards. The Audigy 2 I have is reconditioned and cost me only $30. Think about it and put the X-Fi away as someday it will work with Linux, at least after the X-Fi/Plus/Gold/Platinum II comes out (ha-ha).

Thank You,

thanks for the replies. I'm looking into the recommended cards, getting an esi juli@ tommorow for testing (has the same chip as the prodigy). The only disturbing factor is that all those cards don't even support basic eax for games. I know I will miss that, using 2 cards is also not an option, since my board only has 2 pci slots :/

Audigy is not really an option, as this would be a downgrade.

Linux does not support EAX. EAX proprietary feature is created by Creative Labs. Games in Linux uses SDL. SDL is comprise of OpenGL and OpenAL.