Hi Brandon. Welcome to the forum.

There are many reasons why Creative is no longer the leader in pc computer audio that it once was. Creative seems to have abandoned musicians all together while concentrating on retaining gamers.

Soundblaster cards use either ISA or PCI interface connections. Both connectors are difficult to find on current generation motherboards. Most current motherboards use PCI Express (PCI-E) connectors because the connectors are available in so many different sizes.

Creative appears to have abandoned MIDI and game controller port support. You have to go all the way back to the Creative Audigy series to find a board with the five-teen pin MIDI gameport connector.

That brings up another point. It seems that Creative has decided not to provide drivers for older hardware and boards. If your computer operating system is Windows 8, 8.1 or 10 then your hardware is no longer supported.

Now for some good news. Motherboard makers essentially have three audio systems to integrate into their motherboard; Realtek, Intel and Creative. Both Asus and Gigabyte have motherboards with Creative audio systems built-in.

Audio interfaces seem to be the best way to manage computer audio today. There are audio interfaces that offer MIDI ports as well as digital and analog audio connections while using just one USB port on your computer. Unfortunately no audio interface offers built-in MIDI instrument patches like the Soundblaster card.

Finally, my desktop computer that uses the XP operating system has a Creative Audigy2 card with a combined game and midi port. My laptop runs Windows 7 and has a Realtek audio chip.

Jim Fogle - 2024 BiaB (1111) RB (5) Ultra+ PAK
DAWs: Cakewalk by BandLab (CbB) - Standalone: Zoom MRS-8
Laptop: i3 Win 10, 8GB ram 500GB HDD
Desktop: i7 Win 11, 12GB ram 256GB SSD, 4 TB HDD
Music at: https://fogle622.wix.com/fogle622-audio-home