Best sound card for MSTS

[wwhall]

OK, I have my new Windows 7 machine running MSTS very well--all except for crashes that are occurring on occasion with AI trains and in sound-rich areas. After doing a lot of research, I think that I've narrowed the problem down to my computer having on-board sound. So, I'm planning on getting a sound card. Does anyone have recommendations? I don't want to buy more than I need, but neither do I want to have to re-visit this issue again.

Thanks for any advice.

[GoGoran]

Believe it or not, I have had a suprinsingly good experience with a cheap $3.-- USB sound "card", not any larger than a USB thumb drive !

I could not find any drivers for my onboard sound for Windows 7 64-bit edition, so I just bought this cheap little thing, plugged it in and skyped with it !

[conrail1]

OK, I have my new Windows 7 machine running MSTS very well--all except for crashes that are occurring on occasion with AI trains and in sound-rich areas. After doing a lot of research, I think that I've narrowed the problem down to my computer having on-board sound. So, I'm planning on getting a sound card. Does anyone have recommendations? I don't want to buy more than I need, but neither do I want to have to re-visit this issue again.

Thanks for any advice.

I’ve used Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi cards for years now without any problems but with today’s hardware I don’t see much reason anymore to even need a dedicated sound card for gaming. I run most of my games/sims on a 1080p HDTV and most of time just use the sound off the video card via HDMI and haven’t seen any difference from the two PCIe Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium’s I was using before.

If you’re getting crashes with MSTS running on decent up to date hardware I’d say you’ve got other issues going on besides on-board sound being inadequate.

[derekmorton]

I too installed a creative x-fi titanium and it makes MSTS very reliable. (as compared to my onboard sound)