Music Creator 2 and sound card recommendation?

These days we call then Audio Interfaces. A soundcard was something that was inserted into a PCI buss and more for gaming than Audio. Not many companies make PCIe cards like the old Deltas anymore. 
 
So Audio interfaces in the lower price rang use USB. Go to Sweetwater and look at the interfaces.
https://www.sweetwater.com/shop/computer-audio/audio_interfaces/
 
 
Here's a blurb I wrote giving you ideas on what to look for while shopping
http://www.cactusmusic.ca/Recording.htm  look for the link to jump to the spot on the page. 
 
As far as an interface that works with you software it's more about the interface needs drivers for your OS. And if your software is real old it will probably not work properly with a new OS. You should look at buying the new Home Studio for only $50. It's pretty easy to use and guaranteed to work with all new OS and interfaces.  
 
 

When I look up the sound device name on the computer, it comes up as: Digital Audio (s/PDIF) High Definition Audio Device.
 
Unfortunately, no options show up in Music Creator 2 no matter what I try. :( I've never had this problem with a computer before. The odd thing is, the new computer has the same sound card as my old one. It just baffles me. 
 
On the audio interface...I'm not sure how that would work, since I can't get it to recognize the sound card. It looks like with an audio interface, it would still use the sound card that comes with the computer? Sorry, I don't know much about audio interfaces.
 
 

Welcome to the forum.
When you first opened MC 2, the Wave Profiler should have run automatically to set up the audio device. Do you remember it doing that?
In MC under Options>Audio at the top, is there anything listed for Record Timing Master and Playback timing Master?

Yep... you have a really old version.  My recommendation is to update as someone above mentioned. For $50 it's certainly worth it and while yes, you have to kind of learn your way around again, it's not like you're starting from scratch. Besides that, there have been some really amazing advances in the software and the instrument sounds since MC2.

Any factory soundcard generally is not a good card for running this sort of software. Invest in a good USB interface and run ASIO drivers and you will be amazed at the ease of use.

If you want something that is better than the usual motherboard sound, you could look at the Soundblaster sound cards.
It's not great but it's definitely better than the onboard sound probably is.
 
I recently replaced a SB card that failed after ~7 years. The specific card I bought was a Audigy RX model# 1550 for about $60. The minimum OS is WinXP.
 
For home-recording use: it can record and play at higher bit-rates and with much less buffering than the typical mobo sound can. It is the only SB card left that has hardware support for Soundfonts (if that is your thing) and it can use the Smart Recorder software to record any audio the PC plays, despite whatever copy-protection the media player has.
 
That said--it isn't really a MIDI/home-recording card. It is mainly for gaming and home-theater. Creative has kinda given up on home-recording market. The old card had a gameport that you could attach a MIDI pigtail to, that gave you a MIDI-in and a MIDI-out port. None of the current Creative cards seem to have that now.
 
Also I will say: I mainly edit existing sound files on the PC; I don't use the PC for actual recording. You can do MIDI recording okay on a PC if you have the MIDI interface but for audio it is much cheaper and easier to just use a stand-alone recorder,,, in my own experience.