QuantumForce goes Creative Xi-Fi

[saaya]

Hey Guys,

We were thinking of using Creative Xi-Fi for future boards and i figured id give you guys a headsup and check what you think.
yay or nay?



EDIT: latest update
I discussed your comments and feedback with the team and we decided to go for the software solution!
Our sonar card is pretty damn good, and there really isnt much sense in dropping it for an old creative chip that is about the same or inferior to our sonar card while costing a bunch more.

now what does this software solution mean?

• We will use the same add-in SONAR soundcard as on the blackops and avenger, its very low profile/short and will not occupy a pciE x1 slot!
• We will use a slightly updated codec from realtek, the latest one, which supports more features (Dolby DTS etc) and is a tad more powerful.
• We will offer you a driver that enables CMSS 3D, EAX 4.0 and other creative Xi-fi features
• We will offer you a SONAR2 sound driver based on the realtek driver, for those of you who dont want to install a creative driver

So basically nothing really changes, we will provide you guys with a better audio hardware solution, the Sonar2, and we will offer you an optional upgrade to get CMSS 3D, EAX 4.0 and other Creative XiFi features via a special driver. For free!

This solution is a very nice compromise between added cost and added features imo, as the added costs are very small, the added features are entirely optional, and for those who want them, are very useful and appreciated

what do you guys think?

[negev]

Great idea, but would it be any less powerful than having a separate pci-x card?

[saaya]

Just talked to our engineers, the sound quality and the performance will be the same between a pciE add in card and a custom Audio Interface Card using the same chip. The difference between the Realtek 88x and the Creative Xi-Fi is that the XI-Fi chip supports EAX 5.0 and CMSS 3D, but we are not sure how important you guys think this is...

[Rattle]

I love cmss 3d for gaming and couldnt live without it, my xtreme music capacities in a small 1x pci-e add in card would be SWEET I think.

[saaya]

I love cmss 3d for gaming and couldnt live without it, my xtreme music capacities in a small 1x pci-e add in card would be SWEET I think.

I checked many reviews and while theres a lot of criticism for xifi, after all its still better than the realtek and other audio solutions...

I think it will come in a custom form factor though that only fits in foxconn boards, it wont be pciE x1 i think, but let me check

[negev]

Would having an x-fi onboard rather than a separate card put more strain on the board?

[jolliffee]

I like this idea but would not want to have this on the Mobo but as an extra.... Does this mean a new rev to BlackOps is on the cards

[zanzabar]

its a good idea but i remember having a board withan intergrated creative back in the day, and it wasnt anything like a card. can u guys just cut audio out of the board and make an add in card (like asus) but with cms3d

[filmbot]

If it's going to be the same quality as if I was to buy a stand alone card, how can you go wrong?

Go for it

[saaya]

thanks a lot for the feedback everybody!!!

Would having an x-fi onboard rather than a separate card put more strain on the board?

it wont be onboard, itll be a add in card just like on blackops

I like this idea but would not want to have this on the Mobo but as an extra.... Does this mean a new rev to BlackOps is on the cards

while thats not impossible, i was actually referring to future boards (x58 and ongoing )

its a good idea but i remember having a board withan intergrated creative back in the day, and it wasnt anything like a card. can u guys just cut audio out of the board and make an add in card (like asus) but with cms3d

nono, itll be a add in card, just like our current audio card

If it's going to be the same quality as if I was to buy a stand alone card, how can you go wrong?
Go for it

well im not sure if itll be the same as a creative sound card, but even if its not, itll still beat regular audio codecs everybody else is using, that relie on the cpu to do most if not all the work

ill check and keep you guys updated on the details!

[hrahn]

Just remember not to do the same dumb thing like MSI, adding Audigy SE / X-FI Extreme Audio chips to their mainboards which are in essence die-shrinks of the old SBLive-Chips (check the parts number from Creative) and can´t do EAX4&5 in hardware - and only half as many hardware voices than the normal Audigy cards.

Either have a full-blown X-FI chip accompanying the board, or leave it out.

[YukonTrooper]

Saaya, will it be hardware accelerated with an actual X-Fi chip, or will it be the dumbed down version like the XtremeAudio?

[saaya]

im checking with the engineers on the details and will let you guys know

[saaya]

i didnt get a reply yet, but after doing some research i suspect we will use the audigy SBlive chip, which doesnt offer hardware acceleration for the latest eax, but it DOES support more features and has better sound quality than conventional intel HD audio codecs. i googled around and i only saw good comments about it in all reviews. the sound quality is about the same as the asus xonar and the xifi fatality soundcard, which is pretty damn good for onboard sound imo...

http://hothardware.com/Articles/MSI-...Audio1/?page=9

just about every comparison went in the X-Fi Fatal1ty's favor with a lower reported Noise Level, higher Dynamic Range, and lower distortion and crosstalk values. With that being said, though, taking a closer look at each set of comparisons shows that the differences between the onboard audio and the add-on card are very slight. Typically we don't expect the values seen in the X-Fi Xtreme columns for integrated audio solutions.

Looking at the results, we see that there is no real performance advantage for spending the money on the carded version of the X-Fi Fatal1ty (or other variants) when compared to the integrated X-Fi Xtreme Audio solution.

[yiancar]

Thats a great idea there , for sure foxconn is gona made the best enthusiast mobo EVER

[negev]

Saaya, IMHO if the chip is any less performing than a real X-fi card (i.e. no hardware eax) then most gamers are just going to disable it and buy an x-fi card, which ultimately just pushes up the cost of the board for zero gain.

The Sonar card annoyed the p1ss out of me, going "You have plugged in headphones"..... "ohhh wow.. have i? i wondered what i was doing..."

Seeing as its clearly such a clever piece of hardware, I tried filling the headphone socket with sand to see if it knew how to count. It didn't.

[saaya]

Saaya, IMHO if the chip is any less performing than a real X-fi card (i.e. no hardware eax) then most gamers are just going to disable it and buy an x-fi card, which ultimately just pushes up the cost of the board for zero gain.

the cost is very low... and the gap to xi fi that has hardware acceleration is huge, it costs more than 10x more... so implementing the latest xi fi will be way to expensive, not to mention many people dont care about it that much and wouldnt want to spend that much extra on the board.

i asked creative if we can add audigy2, but im afraid itll cost too much to be worth it :/

The Sonar card annoyed the p1ss out of me, going "You have plugged in headphones"..... "ohhh wow.. have i? i wondered what i was doing..."

Seeing as its clearly such a clever piece of hardware, I tried filling the headphone socket with sand to see if it knew how to count. It didn't.

sorry about that m8... its not our guys fault tho, its the realtek codec we use and the realtek driver that does this. let me check with realtek if we can disable this and other annoying messages.

[zanzabar]

what about a via envy chip could u guys do that
http://www.via.com.tw/en/products/audio/controllers/

those chips are in cards that go from $15-250 for full cards with the cheap ones being as good or better than a full xfi card for openAL and ASIO

[saaya]

im sure we could do that, but im not sure how much it would cost to add that chip...
it might cost the same or actually even more (!) than the SBlive chip aka xifi xtreme.
and it doesnt have CMSS 3D which a lot people seem to like, and it doesnt support the EAX stuff either as far as i know...
the creative chip at least supports it in sotware and offloads it to the cpu, which is fine since even dualcore cpus dont have both their cores fully maxed out with most of the current games, and lets not even talk about quadcores, while we will have 8 threads in high end systems soon...

[zanzabar]

via has their own cms3d like thing (QXpander) and it works with virtual 7.1 instead of 5.1, and i think that the chip also has a fire wire controller so that via firewire chip that everything has wouldent be needed (atleast most of the sound cards have fire wire with those chips while they were popular). and via has real openAL and EAX dosnt work in openAL so there is no point anymore

[saaya]

hmmmmm so are you sure the via chip is the same or superior to the SBlive chip? i mean just sound feature wise...
even then id rather vote for creative xifi xtreme simply cause its well known among gamers while via... doesnt really have a good name in gaming or the hardware world in general...

[YukonTrooper]

The X-Fi logo would definitely sell you more boards, and it is still the better gaming chip, regardless of the lack of hardware acceleration. Hardware acceleration would be awesome, though. Perhaps the software solution for low-end and hardware acceleration for high-end? Wishful thinking?

[crazy1323]

Could this possibly be going in the X58 Quantum Force.....

In all honesty, I think most people would prefer the extra PCIe X1 slot rather than a slot that would only accept a Foxconn card. Unless you meant a card that is software locked and not a specific slot.

I personally do not mind buying an extra audio card. My theory has always been as follows:
buy speakers from people who only make speakers
buy Monitors from people who only make monitors ect..

[naokaji]

how about scrap onboard sound completly and bundle a regular pcie x1 sound card with the board?

[negev]

saaya, i guess it really depends on what you're trying to do. Are you trying to sell as many boards as possible (to anyone) or are you trying to make the ultimate xtreme enthusiast board?

If you want to sell boards, X-Fi on the packaging will no doubt increase sales.

If you want to create the ultimate enthusiast board, then get rid of onboard sound as all the extreme enthusiasts will get a card anyway.