what is the cheapest sound card that is compatable with vista?

11/20/2007 3:13:04 PM

Sound Cards
AC'97 Audio Codecs[6]
Analog Devices AD1988D
Asus Xonar D2 Ultra Fidelity 7.1 PCI Sound Card (32/64-bit)
Cakewalk SONAR Power Studio 250, Cakewalk SONAR Power Studio 660 (32 & 64 bit)
Creative
Creative Audigy2 NX basic features works. No CMSS3D, Dolby Digital or EAX.
Creative Labs SBLive! 24-bit - works fine with 01.04.0055 beta drivers, BUT there is a few small limitations such as lack of EAX support...for now.
Creative Labs Sound Blaster® Live 5.1 - drivers are automatically downloaded by Windows Update.
alternative driver by kX Project. After installing kX Audio, you can install the main drivers and some important Creative softwares (not all, but for example Recorder, AudioHQ with EAX support, WaveStudio works fine) under Vista via the installtion CD of sound card without any problem. Then, you can uninstall kX drivers. Your sound card is recognised as real Creative SBLive! series and you can have a good performance as in WinXP. The game port cannot be recognised automatically but you can recognise and use with special ways that can be found at this link. Also, you can get more information about installing kX Audio drivers and real SBLive! drivers at this link
Creative Labs Sound Blaster® X-Fi™ Fatal1ty, Platinum, XtremeGamer, XtremeMusic and Sound Blaster® Elite Pro - driver available for Vista x86 and x64 (v2.13.0012)[7]. Creative notes that Dolby Digital and DTS decoding, DVD Audio, DirectSound EAX-based games and 6.1 speaker mode are not yet supported in this release. SPIDF passthrough is supported only in Vista 32-bit. Do not use this driver for X-Fi Xtreme Audio; they have a separate driver for this one.
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 1/2/4 - Vista Driver 2.12.0002 for Vista x86 and x64 on Creative web site[8]
Creative Sound Blaster Audigy SE
Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio works fine
Echo Digital Audio
AudioFire 2, AudioFire4, AudioFire 8 & AudioFire 12 (32/64-bit)
Layla3G & Gina3G (32/64-bit)
Indigo, Indigo io, Indigo dj (32/64-bit)
Layla24, Mona, Gina24, Mia, MiaMIDI
M-AUDIO
M-AUDIO Fast Track USB - Windows Vista 32-bit
M-AUDIO FireWire Series (FireWire 410, FireWire Audiophile, Firewire 1814, FireWire Solo, Ozonic, ProjectMix I/O, ProFire Lightbridge, NRV10) - Windows Vista 32-bit
M-AUDIO Conectiv, X-Session Pro, Xponent - Windows Vista 32-bit
M-AUDIO Revolution 5.1 - Windows Vista 32-bit
M-AUDIO Audiophile USB, Black Box USB, Fast Track Pro, Jamlab, Micro, MobilePre USB, Transit USB - Windows Vista 32-bit
M-AUDIO Trigger Finger, UC-33e - Windows Vista 32-bit
M-AUDIO MIDISPORT 1x1, MIDISPORT Uno USB - Windows Vista 32-bit
nVidia n-Force Soundstorm onBoard Chip works fine with the actual nVidia driver
PreSonus INSPIRE 1394, FireBox, FP10 and FirePod (32/64-bit)[9]
Realtek High Definition Audio Codecs (for Vista x86 and x64)[10]
Sigmatel High Definition Audio using XP drivers
SoundMax
SoundMAX ADI-1986A High Definition Codecs 32/64-bit
SoundMAX ADI-1988 High Definition Codecs 32/64-bit
Toshiba Conexant Audio Driver for Windows Vista

Most soundcards made withthin recent memory should be AC97 compilant.

[Edited on November 20, 2007 at 3:17 PM. Reason : dd]

11/20/2007 3:16:22 PM