Okay. I'm trying to get decent stuff myself.

The major problem with Creative cards, is tha,t as far as I know, they STILL don't sup[port midi portmenteau at all like eevery single CS compliant synth (and XG one) is supposed to. this alone makes them unsuitable for serious MIDI.

GS stuff requires a Sound CAnvass. There is no substiutute. there is no decent sound cnavass on a pc card anymrore, so you are stuck with softsynths. YOu want GS midi? get an external unit. PERIOD.

XG the situation isn't much better. On the plus side, XG units have a GS compatible mode when you send a GS resert sysex.

ANyway, the softsynths are your best bet. The famous DS-XG chipset is not very 200/XP friendly. ALso they BOTTCHED some things when they made the chipset! The softsynth, as well as the sw60xg/db50xg gets it right. Play the XG version of CHildren floating around on the net adnd you will see how the hardware synths on those pci chipsets get it WRONG.

I've obtained an XP compatible SY50XG and it is sweet. You aren't gonna fidn anything else.

I really wish someone would make a XG synth with soundfont support. why can't someone manage that concept?