songoffall wrote on Today, 10:41:

I came in possession of a pretty generic looking late-90s/early 2000s sound card. There is no branding, so it is quite hard to f […]
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I came in possession of a pretty generic looking late-90s/early 2000s sound card. There is no branding, so it is quite hard to find specific drivers or card info.

The attachment IMG_3246.jpeg is no longer available

The attachment IMG_3245.jpeg is no longer available

The sticker on the back of the card is from a local computer store from back in the day, and it shows the card was sold in Feb 2005. On Wayback Machine, their website from 2005 groups all sound cards as "sound blasters", and these are the cards they had for sale, with prices:

The attachment Screenshot 2025-10-05 at 14.16.49.png is no longer available

So we have the following suspects: a generic no name Crystal 4280 (SoundFusion), and two Genius cards: SoundMaker 32x2 and Value 5.1.

Genius/KYE sound cards were essentially Temu SoundBlasters. For Creative Sound Blaster Live! Genius had SoundMaker Live! and these mostly sold in asian and post-soviet markets.

Some Genius cards were surprisingly competent - like the original SoundMaker 32 which had an Aureal Vortex 1 chip.

From what I gathered, Genius SoundMaker Value 5.1 came with a C3DX chip (CMI8738/PCI). And Genius SoundMaker 32x2 looks the part, but comes with a ForteMedia FM801-AU chip.

So this leaves us with Crystal 4280 SoundFusion - apparently CS462x chips are also considered SoundFusion.

I have absolutely no idea about the capabilities of this chip, which OS to use it on, and whether it's any good.

Any help would be appreciated.

Given the labelling / barcode, suspect it might be this one.... https://fr.shopping.rakuten.com/offer/buy/312 … rround-2-0.html ....for all that adds to the (generic?) driver search

PC Hoarder Patrol wrote on Today, 13:13:

songoffall wrote on Today, 10:41:

I came in possession of a pretty generic looking late-90s/early 2000s sound card. There is no branding, so it is quite hard to f […]
Show full quote

I came in possession of a pretty generic looking late-90s/early 2000s sound card. There is no branding, so it is quite hard to find specific drivers or card info.

The attachment IMG_3246.jpeg is no longer available

The attachment IMG_3245.jpeg is no longer available

The sticker on the back of the card is from a local computer store from back in the day, and it shows the card was sold in Feb 2005. On Wayback Machine, their website from 2005 groups all sound cards as "sound blasters", and these are the cards they had for sale, with prices:

The attachment Screenshot 2025-10-05 at 14.16.49.png is no longer available

So we have the following suspects: a generic no name Crystal 4280 (SoundFusion), and two Genius cards: SoundMaker 32x2 and Value 5.1.

Genius/KYE sound cards were essentially Temu SoundBlasters. For Creative Sound Blaster Live! Genius had SoundMaker Live! and these mostly sold in asian and post-soviet markets.

Some Genius cards were surprisingly competent - like the original SoundMaker 32 which had an Aureal Vortex 1 chip.

From what I gathered, Genius SoundMaker Value 5.1 came with a C3DX chip (CMI8738/PCI). And Genius SoundMaker 32x2 looks the part, but comes with a ForteMedia FM801-AU chip.

So this leaves us with Crystal 4280 SoundFusion - apparently CS462x chips are also considered SoundFusion.

I have absolutely no idea about the capabilities of this chip, which OS to use it on, and whether it's any good.

Any help would be appreciated.

Given the labelling / barcode, suspect it might be this one.... https://fr.shopping.rakuten.com/offer/buy/312 … rround-2-0.html ....for all that adds to the (generic?) driver search

Well, that explains a lot. It's an even more Temu card than SoundMaker - copies both SoundBlaster's box design and Hercules GameSurround's name 😁

I still would expect it to be a better than nothing card on a late 90s build, but for that I still have an Aureal Vortex 2. Apparently not optimal to use on an XP rig - wouldn't expect it to be superior to the onboard audio (Realtek ALC888S in this particular case).