Dual Sound Cards?

[tim8604]

Anyone know if it's possible to get two different sound channels coming out of one computer? The reason I ask is because at LAN parties we like to have some background music, which I usually just use an online streaming radio station for. I was wondering if it would be possible to have this sound coming out of one sound card, and then video game sounds coming out of a headphone channel. Is this possible with two sound cards, or some other method? Right now I have a SB audigy. Thanks.

 

[lePobz]

You can have as many sound cards as you like, as long as they all have the right drivers, the only problem being windows usually only lets you 'pick one' for your windows/games sound output(DirectSound) so you'd need an audio player that could send to a different card (which winamp can do, in the plugins/output configuration settings).

I used to have two soundcards for some mp3 mixing software I had, used one as output w/speakers and the other as the monitor (w/headfones) worked a treat

 

[tim8604]

Just a little update here. I finally found the old 'Hercules' card I bought for $20 on sale about a year ago and decided to try installing it right before our lan party we had this weekend. I just stuck it in an open pci slot, had to download a few drivers off their site, and restart my computer. I also have a audigy 1 installed, so the problem I was most worried about was the new sound drivers interfering with my old ones. So after the restart, I went into winamp, selected the Hercules driver for the output of winamps music, opened up another sound program, and plugged my headphones into my audigy, and my speakers into my hercules. I could hear the one program in my headphones, then the winamp music on the speakers! This worked great for the LAN party because all I did then was add a ton of mp3s from a bunch of people's computers from over the network and set it up to loop and be random. That way throughout the lan we had non-stop music to keep us pumped, and I could still use my sound to help me out in games . Thanks for the tips, and I hope someone might use this info to their advantage. Feel free to ask any questions...later.

 

[Maxi]

Lan parties are awsome! especially if you only have a "few" friends over (6-12 ). Me and my friends had one awhile ago and my friends dad (who was hosting) had borrowed a tv projector from work on which we had winamp visualizations on and trance on two big speakers and a woofer.