Best sound card to use with the Virus TI

Good Day all,

I'm hoping that I can explain this properly and that someone has seen this situation and knows the solution.

I currently have an SB Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro (PCI) that I can't really use effectively because it's sample size is 96, 192 bytes (etc), not the 128 or 256 bytes that the Virus wants. Now even though I can dismiss the warning message, I have found that using this incompatible sample size makes the virus very laggy with a delay after hitting a key on my MIDI keyboard much greater than the reported latency (ms) of my system.

To resolve this problem I have to use my Virus as a sound card. This however presents the problem that I only get 3 outs and can't use an In for the atomizer.

1). Is it just the USB-In that is disabled when I am using the TI as a soundcard? Can I use the 2 1/4 in inputs on the Virus to use the atomizer and still record the data into my DAW?

2.) If I need to use another audio interface, can someone recommend a quite good sound card (USB, PCI or PCI-E) with compatible sample sizes (128, 256) that works well with the TI (very low latency) so that I can use the TI's input. XLR with 48v on the sound card would be ideal.

And now for a completely unrelated question, has anyone been able to use Ableton on a PC and Logic Pro 9 on a Mac and connected them via MIDI and been able to make them sync so that you can make them play together?

I would be very happy if I could only spend about $200US but I can go a little higher if I absolutely have to, say to $300US but my wallet would then be crying.

Thank you, going to that thread.