You could go for a Sound Blaster Live! or Audigy (perhaps also an Audigy 2, not sure), and then install the kX audio drivers: https://github.com/kxproject/kX-Audio-driver-binaries

As far as I know, those include ASIO support. But using the kX drivers instead of the official Creative drivers may come at the expense of EAX and such.

I do remember the kX drivers being rock stable back in the day.

digger wrote on 2021-09-05, 15:28:

You could go for a Sound Blaster Live! or Audigy (perhaps also an Audigy 2, not sure), and then install the kX audio drivers: https://github.com/kxproject/kX-Audio-driver-binaries

As far as I know, those include ASIO support. But using the kX drivers instead of the official Creative drivers may come at the expense of EAX and such.

I do remember the kX drivers being rock stable back in the day.

Thanks for suggestion, i'll look into it!
As for eax i'm not a gamer so...

spacedrone808 wrote on 2021-09-05, 15:39:

digger wrote on 2021-09-05, 15:28:

You could go for a Sound Blaster Live! or Audigy (perhaps also an Audigy 2, not sure), and then install the kX audio drivers: https://github.com/kxproject/kX-Audio-driver-binaries

As far as I know, those include ASIO support. But using the kX drivers instead of the official Creative drivers may come at the expense of EAX and such.

I do remember the kX drivers being rock stable back in the day.

Thanks for suggestion, i'll look into it!
As for eax i'm not a gamer so...

Hmmm... Windows 2000, ASIO, no games. I wonder what kind of old-school audio creation software you're going to tinker with. Fruity Loops? Buzz? Logic, before it was acquired by Apple and went Mac-only? 🙂

probably one of those m-audio cards with envy24 chipset. Pretty sure there are models with balanced jacks as well.

Pretty sure I remember thrashing an M-Audio 410 FireWire on Windows 2000 for a good number of years, running Cubase, Reason and a bunch of VSTs.

I'm most pleased with my ESI Juli@ sound card, works on 98SE/ME/2K/XP and newer stuff too. Has ASIO and other goodies such as 24/192 support too.

digger wrote on 2021-09-05, 15:28:

Hmmm... Windows 2000, ASIO, no games. I wonder what kind of old-school audio creation software you're going to tinker with. Fruity Loops? Buzz? Logic, before it was acquired by Apple and went Mac-only? 🙂

I'm Renoise nerd.

Warlord wrote on 2021-09-07, 12:43:

probably one of those m-audio cards with envy24 chipset. Pretty sure there are models with balanced jacks as well.

Thanks for pointing out! Will look into it.

pixelatedscraps wrote on 2021-09-07, 15:18:

Pretty sure I remember thrashing an M-Audio 410 FireWire on Windows 2000 for a good number of years, running Cubase, Reason and a bunch of VSTs.

FW is very slick, but think about internal card.

Tiido wrote on 2021-09-07, 17:12:

I'm most pleased with my ESI Juli@ sound card, works on 98SE/ME/2K/XP and newer stuff too. Has ASIO and other goodies such as 24/192 support too.

How could i forget! It looks like i'm close.

spacedrone808 wrote on 2021-09-07, 17:50:

pixelatedscraps wrote on 2021-09-07, 15:18:

Pretty sure I remember thrashing an M-Audio 410 FireWire on Windows 2000 for a good number of years, running Cubase, Reason and a bunch of VSTs.

FW is very slick, but think about internal card.

I remember doing a ton of research way back when around 2001-2004 looking for the perfect budget studio audio interface and external FireWire came out the best at the time. FireWire cos of the bandwidth / latency at the time and external vs internal won out due to decreased noise / interference.

That said, I had a ton of issues with my 410 at the beginning so it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park either…sigh, the memories. If the OP is thinking to make some tunes on a retro machine I think I’d still lean towards an external interface.

pixelatedscraps wrote on 2021-09-07, 15:18:

That said, I had a ton of issues with my 410 at the beginning so it wasn’t exactly a walk in the park either…sigh, the memories. If the OP is thinking to make some tunes on a retro machine I think I’d still lean towards an external interface.

I've noticed that external audio solutions always brings pain.
And those modern lo-quality drivers and software!