Reply to What sound card(s) should i purchase?

I havent been on this community in a while. Ive been following dj tech tools for a while tho, until i hit a brick wall when i was trying to map my vci100 to traktor.

Note that i know very little about djing, or using computers for making music. Ive only ever used sony acid i believe it was called, for a bit.

Anyways i remember reading that i needed a sound car that could play my left track in my left ear, and my right track in my right ear when using traktor. Back then i was using a creative sound blaster card on my computer, i read that i needed some sort of external sound card to be able to hear the different tracks in different ears.

Im planning on staying away from the sound blaster cards from creative since ive had nuthin but problems with them, and now every time i restart my computer my computer forgets that the card exists.
So can anyone suggest what sound card(s) i should purchase?

What setup would i need if im trying to play games in 7.1 surround sound, and wanting to mix songs with headphones?

I will need to use digitial audio out, for my music as well as my gaming headphones. I believe im limited to 5.1 with digital audio right? Thats what i heard. Im hooking this up to my home theater setup which is 7.1 surround sound.