Debate: Vortex Advantage vs SBLive! Value \ VOGONS

Debate: Vortex Advantage vs SBLive! Value

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First post, by matcarfer

Posted on 2017-06-29, 14:33

matcarfer Offline

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Hi, everyone, I'm 33 and I have been playing with PC parts since I was 3 years old. I always upgraded my PC myself, and memory starts to fade, so now I need your help.

I'm interested in retro gaming and started to get old hardware to play mainly games from Win98SE era. I have to PCs:
1. Pentium 3 866 Socket 370, Soyo SY-7VBA133 with latest bios, 2x256MB 133Mhz, 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 16MB (flashed with latest bios!!!), and a 40GB IDE Seagate 7200RPM Hard Drive.
2. Pentium 2 400 Slot 1, Soyo SY-6BE with latest bios, 3x128 100Mhz, another! 3dfx Voodoo3 2000 16MB and a 40GB IDE Seagate 7200RPM Hard Drive.

I'm interested in the 3dfx card which I never had when I was a kid (I had a Jaton Trident Blade 3D which sucked at Quake3, and Jaton driver had a newer OpenGL ICD driver than Triden website...) and a hardware accelerated 3D audio card (which also never had). I mainly want A3D and EAX 2 acceleration.

I managed to get a Vortex Advantage Card and a Sound Blaster Live! Value.

I wanted to know if someone could point me the high and lows, pros and cons of each card, and discuss them. Thanks!

Also, I could be interested in playing DOS games on my Win98SE PC.

Last edited by matcarfer on 2017-06-30, 00:10. Edited 1 time in total.

Reply 1 of 8, by matcarfer

Posted on 2017-06-29, 14:40

matcarfer Offline

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Also, I could get, if someone recommends it, a Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 2 SE PCI card, but cost is high and cant see the benefits.

Reply 2 of 8, by LHN91

Posted on 2017-06-29, 14:42

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Which SB Live! model do you have in particular?

Reply 3 of 8, by matcarfer

Posted on 2017-06-29, 14:44

matcarfer Offline

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LHN91 wrote:
Which SB Live! model do you have in particular?

Its a Sound Blaster Live! VALUE salvaged from a OEM PC. I can post the model number later today.

Reply 4 of 8, by swaaye

Posted on 2017-06-29, 18:21

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Vortex Advantage
-probably better A3D 1.x support than Live!'s A3D wrapper. Will be CPU driven however so a really slow CPU might cause frame rate issues.
-perhaps better signal quality.

Live!
-much more capable Windows MIDI synths.
-better DirectSound3D capability.
-EAX support.
-front speaker output is usually noisy.
-SB16 support for DOS games.

assuming it's not a Dell SB0200 that lacks EMU10K1. Those are mostly host driven and I'm not sure about features and capabilities.

Reply 5 of 8, by LHN91

Posted on 2017-06-29, 18:49

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I would need to qualify that with *limited* SB16 support for DOS games. I've never had much luck getting Live! cards to work in DOS.

Reply 6 of 8, by mrau

Posted on 2017-06-29, 19:27

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vortex used the cpu to do the magic? this was not done in hardware?

Reply 7 of 8, by LHN91

Posted on 2017-06-29, 20:09

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The Vortex 1 had some hardware magic, and the Vortex 2 had more - but the Advantage was a budget card, and it pretty much handled it all in software.

Reply 8 of 8, by matcarfer

Posted on 2017-06-30, 00:11

matcarfer Offline

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Well, I decided to put the Vortex card on the PII400 and the Live! Value on the PIII866. So far so good, I will post 3dmark2001se results later and some experiences! Thanks!

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