dustinyo

in order to get true dolby digital you need digital input and output. in order to get digital output on the soundblaster that is actually compatable with normal stereo equipment, you have to get a digital I/O module, available at www.soundblaster.com for $60-$70. then you will need an external decoder to act as the digital input for the pros (you can't use the onboard decoding on the soundblaster because the digital output is a 3.5mm jack, which only works for the I/O card. the digital I/O module converts it to coaxial and optical, which will only work on the decoder, the pros don't have digital input on their own) the midiland ads 2000 works good. on sale for $99 at www.midiland.com. use a coaxial or optical cable to go from the I/O module, to the decoder, then you can hook the pros up to the decoder the same way you would to the sound card. kind of crappy that the digital out they put on the sound card isn't compatible with anything EXCEPT the I/O module. as far as software goes, get powerdvd and set it to "spdif output" and choose "dolby surround" don't get mad though, a complete pc dolby digital setup with decoder will usually run between $300-$600. and you still have to get the digital I/O card to use it with a soundblaster. you'd be getting a much better system for pretty cheap, as far as dolby systems go. if anyone is to blame, it's creative for not putting standard stereo hookup on their cards. bastards. oh yeah, and make sure you get a coaxial or optical cable too. hope that helps

i have a radeon 64 MB DDR, love every bit of it. but i will admit, compared to it's competition, it's slow. out of the box it runs at 183 Mhz. i have really crappy ram that gets the worst benchmarks i've ever seen in my system, and a crappy motherboard, (all to be upgraded in 2 days) and i get benchmarks of around 4,000 (3dmark2000) that's pretty good for the situation. after i upgrade, i'm going to replace the fan on it and add ram heatsinks and try overclocking. i've heard of people getting to 215 Mhz on the retail fan and still running stable. so i'm very excited. with good case cooling as well, i'm hoping to get the max of 4x AGP (266 Mhz) with that, i think this will be one hell of a card to contend with. also love the software with it.

duct tape is very painful when applied to a body part with hair on it and ripped off. beleive me, i know!

i have a radeon on the way, my dad has one, and my best friend has one. both say that it is far and away the best vidcard they've ever seen. plus you get the kick *** TiVO on it that works beautifully for DVD's on a TV, which is much cheaper than buying a seperate DVD player. i'm not sure, but i think the geforce has TiVO too. go read gamerdepots review of it. they put it up against a geforce and it rocked the geforce, at 32 bit. i would say, why get a card for old technology? radeon supports newer games better. if you're like me, you play a game for about a month, tops, beat it a couple times, and move on, never to play it again, and get newer games. might as well be ready for them. also, radeon has the best DVD support i've seen.