Any alternative to X-Fi for games?

[krille]

Hey!

I'm looking to buy a new sound card this Xmas, upgrading from my old Creative Sound Blaster Audigy 4 Pro. I was looking at the Creative X-Fi Elite Pro (with all the 64MB XRAM and all that), however, I've heard scary stories about Creative's drivers and their support, especially with the nForce 4 chipset and AMD platform. Is there any (at all) basis to these stories and fears? Or does everything work 100% with X-Fi and nF4 (say DFI nF4 SLI-DR) and everything else?

If there indeed are problems, is there any alternative at all to X-Fi (and Creative) for the ultimate gaming experience?

Thanks!

krille

[mdzcpa]

I'll say this....I've never been much of a soundcard kind of guy, but I absolutely love my X-Fi card. So much so that I won't consider a motherboard that doesn't have enough room for me to run SLI and the X-Fi.

As far as NF4 compatability and drivers, all seems fine to me. I've had the X-FI in the DFI Ultra D, and the new DFI Expert. No complications at all. The sound quality is awesome!!

I didn't want all the fancy doo-hickies, so I just got the much less expensive Gaming addition.

Creative has released another driver with a bunch of fixes. I didn't have any issues with the first driver, but the second runs fine too. Driver support seems to be solid.

I sold my sound cards a year ago. I never shed a tear for my SB Audigy 2 Z. But I'm going to be keeping my X-Fi card a long time. Yes...its that good.

[krille]

Oh... interesting. Sounds good. :) Btw, I'm getting the Elite Pro solely for the better DACs over the "Gaming" version, I never cared much about Front Panels or "Professional Capabilities" or anything.

But, would you just check out these threads at the creative support forum and give me your opinion. Thanks!

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&message.id=31426

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&message.id=39909

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board?board.id=soundblaster

It seems to say there are known issues with nF4?

Thanks again!

[mdzcpa]

Hmmm....those links seem to be typical Creative soundcard problems. Creative always produces PCI bus hogging cards. That said, they have been better as of late. I haven't experienced any issues at all. I'm running 2 GTX cards in SLI and running RAID 0. One thing I do is disable everything I do not use in the BIOS to save resources such as the IrDA, parallel port, serial port, the Marvell on board LAN (I use the NF4 MAC LAN), firewire, etc. Maybe that helps.

That all said, I haven't read many reports of trouble. You'll always see trouble at the manufacturers forums. But looking out over the other various internet forums, reports of trouble are sparse.

My 2 cents:)

[mesyn191]

Supposedly this one is top notch, no EAX4/5 support but that is just more stupid reverb effects anyways.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/ProductList.asp?Submit=Go&DEPA=0&type=&description=Bluegears+xMystique&Category=0&minPrice=&maxPrice=&Go.x=0&Go.y=0

[003]

EAX is NOT stupid. if you have ever experienced EAX 4.0/5.0 on a $330 set of 5.1 speakers (klipsch promedia ultra 5.1), then you will know what I am talking about. It sounds so real if you close your eyes it sounds like you are in the middle of the action, dont get the elite pro, that is WAY overpriced, who the heck is going to shell out $500 for a sound card?! get a fatal1ty fps, it's almost half the price of the elite pro, and it has the 64mb of ram. btw, please dont refer to the ram as xram, that is so stupid, all it is is ddr sdram. also, creative has released a firmware upgrade that fixes the incompatibility with nF4. here, the fatal1ty fps is on sale here for $250 with free shiping and no tax:
http://www.cambridgesoundworks.com/store/category.cgi?item=l1sbxffa&akhg1999=WPGRABBRL4

[mesyn191]

Sorry, having heard a 5.1 set up with the x-fi in store EAX 4/5 does nothing for me. Its just more of the same... Sound quality was better than my Audigy2 ZS though, but not enough for me to shell out for it.

[003]

he has an audigy 4 pro already, so even upgraing to that other one on newegg is kinda stupid. the audigy 4 pro uses the same higher quality dacs as the elite pro.

[mesyn191]

Probably, but he was looking for one anyways so why not point out to him that other card?

[krille]

Indeed, I am actually having big issues with my current Audigy 4 Pro

More and more stuff stops working, and I am experience noises, popping, crackles and even lags, hisses and stuttering in games.

I've tried shipped drivers, latest final drivers on their web site as well as beta drivers. The updated original drivers worked best so far (with some beta drivers, it would take ~20 min for PC to reboot... then I tried another which had other issues). Over the time, more and more things went wrong. Right now, it's gone so bad that whenever I plug-in the Sub/Center channel 3.5mm cable into the sound card, all sound just dies. I can no longer play 5.1 analogue (and only stereo via coax, unless watching a DVD with SPDIF bypass DD, AC3 or DTS) just 4.0 or quadrophonic. It sucks, I will try to reformat and reinstall windows and see if it works, just reinstalling drivers combined with DriverCleaner usage didn't fix anything... And OpenAL never worked good, nor EAX4.0 or EAX3.0 anyway, not even with beta drivers (lots of stuttering and lag in music... very annoying).

As you see, I've pretty much had it with my Audigy 4 Pro (although DACs are allright), and I'm looking to upgrade. AFAIK the Elite Pro DACs are better than Audigy 4 Pro DACs and those are better than Fatal1ty, so I'm gonna get the XRAM (why bother... arguing about this? I know it's just ordinary RAM, but if then I can't install my own, so why not?) along with the best DACs I can get, moreover I hate the Fatal1ty brand, can't stand it. Won't sponsor such POS PR nonsense. And I mostly use this for gaming anyway with my "$330" 5.1 speakers (Logitech Z-5500, around that price point somewhere), so I do want to experience all the features games has to offer (btw... I'm looking ahjhh mom

[003]

I don't know why everybody calls it xram, that sounds just so stupid, it's not any kind of special ram or anything

[krille]

Apparently you were right 003 (and I was wrong :) ), the Elite Pro DOES use the same DACs as A4 Pro, but I don't think Fatal1ty does, and I'm not looking for a downgrade, so basically this is about me either getting Creative X-Fi Elite Pro or another brands model that's better (read around same price point...may be a bove or below...doesn't really matter too much...it just has to be better for gaming). This is not my HTPC or anything, just my gaming rig. ;).

Btw, do you know if you actually can use 96 Khz mode or even 192 Khz mode with the X-Fi , because (although marketed as a 96Khz/24bit board) on the Audigy 4 Pro you definitely CAN'T. Annoying, is this because of the DACs or the Audigy chip (EMU10K2 something)? Anyway, does 96Khz/192Khz work on the X-Fi?

Thanks!

[Major_A]

I doubt it, but if Creative can ever write good drivers the Pro and Fatality boards have the 64MB of XRAM. The other two only have 16MB I believe. Essentially the more you offload onto the XRAM the less of a hit your CPU will take, meaning more FPS.

[003]

The other two don't have any.

[mesyn191]

No, they do, but its something piddly like 2 MB of it. Apparently there is a bare min. needed in order for the X-Fi to work.

[003]

Yes they all do have 2mb, but that is not used for the same thing as the 64mb on the fatal1ty and elite pro.

[krille]

1. Well, I am aware of the other cards' limits, and I'm *only* looking into the X-Fi Elite Pro or possibly an even better card from another company, that is just as good - or better - at audio and games. This doesn't seem to be the case according to you? Or?
Q: Is there a better card, or is EAX and the like unique to Creative?

2. However, even if I will be getting the X-Fi Elite Pro, I'm still interested in this, since I currently have a 5.1 system (Logitech Z-5500) and I'm looking into upgrading to a 9.1 system:
Q: Does the Creative X-Fi Elite Pro support 6.1, 7.1 or even 9.1 surrround sound?

3. Also, since my current card only supports 96 Khz in advertising, I wonder the following.
Q: Does the Creative X-Fi Elite Pro support 96 Khz or even 192 Khz when using 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 or 9.1 (whatever number of discrete channels are supported)?

Thanks a lot, and don't worry about the ram, I'm willing to pay the price for 64MB all day long. ;)

[krille]

Above questions still apply, so please answer. Just wanted to provide what Creative's specs say about it.
http://www.creative.com/products/product.asp?category=1&subcategory=208&product=14064&nav=1


24-bit Digital-to-Analog conversion of digital sources at 96kHz to analog 7.1 speaker output
This must mean that it's supposed to support 7.1 distintive multi-channel surround at 96 Khz per channel? But does it really work? I'm not convinced, since 96 Khz doesn't even work in stereo with my Audigy 4 Pro.

[nn_step]

I will say this again.. Because no one listens AUDIOTRAK PRODIGY

[krille]

nn_step, actually, you didn't say this. This was your first post in this thread. ;)

Still, thanks for your suggestion. I'd love a motivation to as to why go Auditrak Prodigy over Creative X-Fi Elite Pro? Does it really have as good support for games (I want all audio options and goodies on and enabled)? Any comparisons between the cards?

I do appreciate your opinion, but I'd like to hear your reasoning behind it as well. :)

Thanks!

[nn_step]

nn_step, actually, you didn't say this. This was your first post in this thread. ;)

Still, thanks for your suggestion. I'd love a motivation to as to why go Auditrak Prodigy over Creative X-Fi Elite Pro? Does it really have as good support for games (I want all audio options and goodies on and enabled)? Any comparisons between the cards?

I do appreciate your opinion, but I'd like to hear your reasoning behind it as well. :)

Thanks!
I have posted it in many threads.. and no one reads it..
and as for my motivation.. Try native Audio Processing and Universal drivers that will work in any OS (this includes unix, bsd, Linux, and every flavor of windows) And because it's sound support is native.. it will support every game.. As for comparisons.. You wont find any.. Creative pays to much to let it's cream of the crop card get Pwnd by a middle range competitor

[Heretic]

Since he's going to be using it for gaming, does that card have the ability to use the later EAX versions? I don't know if that'll be influential on his decision or not, but it is something to think about if you want the latest EAX support. I can't really comment on the latest EAX versions since I haven't used Creative in a while.