# Creative Unveils X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Series PCI-E Sound Cards



## malware (May 16, 2008)

Creative, a worldwide leader in digital entertainment products, today announces the PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series and PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series sound cards, unleashing the full power of Creative X-Fi hardware audio processing for PCI Express-based PCs. 



 




The new PCI Express Creative sound cards each feature a striking design that screams "high performance." Creative will equip the world's best professional PC gamers, who are now competing in the Championship Gaming Series (CGS), with the new PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series, the official sound card of the CGS, the only worldwide professional video gaming league. 

"Audio plays a huge factor in professional gaming, where every competitive advantage can make the difference between winning and losing. The Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty edition sound cards significantly enhance any professional gaming rig, enabling us to hear what we can't see and perform at our highest level," said Johnathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel, world champion gaming legend and exclusive on-air analyst for the CGS. 

"I demand extreme performance from my PC, and I won't settle for less than Sound Blaster X-Fi. It gives me the huge advantage of hearing my opponent before they can see me, and finishing them off before they can do anything about it," said Yazan "Clown" Ammari, Counter-Strike Source member of the San Francisco Optx CGS team. 

"We've developed the PCI Express models of our Sound Blaster X-Fi gaming sound cards to meet the specific requests that we've received from end users," said Steve Erickson, VP and GM of audio and VLSI for Creative. "We have re-architected our X-Fi processor so we can deliver even more performance and provide the best audio available on the PC today. You'll know why it's worth the upgrade to PCI Express the second you hear it. We've also added Dolby Digital encoding, for connection to a home theater system for an awesome gaming experience. We created an entirely 

new I/O drive with an innovative design that can fit either a 3 ½" or 5 ¼" drive bay. Plus, the Sound Blaster Titanium series cards are optimized for Windows Vista with UAA-compliant hardware." 

The PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series features Dolby Digital encoding, for single-cable connection to home theater systems. The card leverages the power of the X-Fi processor optimized for PCI Express to deliver accelerated audio for improved game performance, with ultra-realistic EAX 5.0 effects and 3D positional audio. Hardware-powered 3D positional audio and EAX 5.0 effects provide stunning positional audio realism over headphones and speakers, for a much more immersive gaming experience than any motherboard audio solution can offer. The Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series also vastly improves voice chat clarity in online games where collaboration is vital. 

"With its superb audio fidelity, EAX 5.0 support, and 128 hardware-accelerated voices, the Sound Blaster X-Fi is simply the best way to experience the rich soundscape of Guild Wars. Gamers who really care about how their PCs sound should give it a serious listen," said James Boer, ArenaNet audio programmer and Game Audio Programming author. 

The new PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series sound card includes all of the features of the PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series, plus an internal I/O drive for quick front panel connection to headphones and headsets. This versatile internal I/O drive design offers the choice of placement in either a 3 ½" or 5 ¼" drive bay. The 3 ½" drive features mic-in and headphone-out connections. This drive slides inside the 5 ¼" drive, which adds RCA line-in connections. 

The world's first native PCI Express hardware accelerated sound cards, the PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series and PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Championship Series sound cards also feature: 
Creative X-Fi processor specifically designed for high-speed PCI Express slots in modern PCs 
X-Fi Crystalizer technology, which leverages audio algorithms to intelligently and selectively determine how to restore the highs and lows from sound effects, instruments and vocals and voices that were damaged or diminished during the MP3, AAC, game audio or other compression processes 
X-Fi CMSS-3D technology, to create virtual surround sound through speakers or headphones in games or music. In games, you hear your opponents in their exact location. With music, the sound expands so it completely surrounds you 
Dolby Digital support for compelling 5.1 surround sound through a home theater system 
Creative ALchemy to restore EAX and surround sound in DirectSound game titles running under Vista 
Certified UAA compliance for maximum Windows Vista compatibility 
X-RAM dedicated audio memory to boost performance in select games 
THX Certified surround sound for cinematic movie audio playback 
PowerDVD software with DTS-ES and Dolby Digital-EX decoding 
24-bit audio quality and 109db SNR audio clarity 
ASIO recording support with latency as low as one millisecond with minimal CPU load

*View at TechPowerUp Main Site*


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## btarunr (May 16, 2008)

Finally, they port the CA20K1 to PCI-E. This will own a Auzen X-Fi Prelude.


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## FatForester (May 16, 2008)

Creative needs to stop adding more adjectives to their products. 'The Creative Mega Super Extreme Sound Blaster X-Fi Professional Fatal1ty Titanium Champion Series PCI-E Sound Card!' is a bit redundant!


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## btarunr (May 16, 2008)

FatForester said:


> Creative needs to stop adding more adjectives to their products. 'The Creative Mega Super Extreme Sound Blaster X-Fi Professional Fatal1ty Titanium Champion Series PCI-E Sound Card!' is a bit redundant!



Why? Don't video-card / GPU / CPU / [insert component here] vendors do the same?


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## Black Panther (May 16, 2008)

This officially supports Vista apparently.

Great. 

That's why they threatened a modder with legal action when he adapted the drivers for their current x-fi cards to work well under Vista...


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## imperialreign (May 16, 2008)

> The new PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Champion Series sound card includes all of the features of the PCI Express Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Professional Series, plus an internal I/O drive for quick front panel connection to headphones and headsets. This versatile internal I/O drive design offers the choice of placement in either a 3 ½” or 5 ¼” drive bay. The 3 ½” drive features mic-in and headphone-out connections. This drive slides inside the 5 ¼” drive, which adds RCA line-in connections.




interesting I/O drive . . . I wonder, though, if they've actually gotten away from that damned proprietary front panel connector on their cards?


I'd fathom as well that this card will more than likely be PCIEx1.  It's nice to see that the BUS hungry APU be given a little more bandwidth than PCI can provide.  I might just have to pick one of these up . . .

I get the feeling this will be the first of the new X-Fi series; we're probably going to end up with as many X-Fi cards as there are Audigy cards


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## mab1376 (May 16, 2008)

any pictures?


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## Exavier (May 16, 2008)

I wanna know why ALchemy is still being used..I'd prefer a Asus Xonar v2 until I see a comprehensive report of these newer X-Fi cards...

..and is it me, or has Fatal1ty become a bit of a cop out?


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## FatForester (May 16, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Why? Don't video-card / GPU / CPU / [insert component here] vendors do the same?



Oh yea, but Creative definitely takes the cake.


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## sinner33 (May 16, 2008)

Man that whole naming scheme is hard to say in one breath. Why can't they go with something easier to say?


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## imperialreign (May 16, 2008)

here's some more news from vr-zone: http://www.vr-zone.com/articles/Creative_Unveiled_X-Fi_Titanium_Fatal1ty_Series/5781.html

they also claim an initial price of $299 . . . $150 without the I/O bundle - both varieties are already up for sale on Creative's website: http://www.soundblaster.com/products/product.asp?category=209&subcategory=669&product=17791



of major interest, these pics:



















I want pics without the EMI shield!!!!  Dammit! 


Guessing by that PCB size, they've been able to cut down some of the redundant architecture . . . hopefully.  I'm a bit worried on the size, though, as that's the same size as the Xtreme Audio and a couple of the Audigy cards.


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## Specsaver (May 16, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> Guessing by that PCB size, they've been able to cut down some of the redundant architecture . . . hopefully.  I'm a bit worried on the size, though, as that's the same size as the Xtreme Audio and a couple of the Audigy cards.



Judging by features this is a fully fledged X-Fi with a few bits added, primarily, and this seems to have gone unnoticed here, it has Dolby Live encoding. That's cool.


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## imperialreign (May 16, 2008)

Specsaver said:


> Judging by features this is a fully fledged X-Fi with a few bits added, primarily, and this seems to have gone unnoticed here, it has Dolby Live encoding. That's cool.



kinda sad on the encoding - the X-Fi's are capable of it, but the features were locked out . . . I think that had more to do with any deal between Creative, Dolby and Auzentech; as the Auzen Prelude had encoding enabled.  I think pressure from competitors is what finally drove Creative to enable it with a new card.


but still, I'm a bit leary of wht lurks under that shield.  Creative tried passing the Xtreme Audio and Xtreme Audio PCIEx1 off as full-fledged X-Fis, which they weren't . . . but with this card stouting the Fatal1ty logo, it _should_ defi be packing the X-Fi APU.

But, it's still a small card compared to the full-PCB designs of the current Fatal1ty, Elite Pro and the Prelude . . . and I fathom there'd have to be a PCIE chip on the card as well . . . I'm just curious what they cut, re-arranged, or re-worked to make this idea viable without sacrificing quality/performance.


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## INSTG8R (May 16, 2008)

Hmm TBH it looks a bit cheapish for a Fatality. No nice connectors on the back. It looks like my first mistake Creative buy, the Audigy LS....
As much as I would like a bit wider pipe my current Fatality does a fine job and I dont see anything "better" being offered here other than the PCI-E interface, I only see less...


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## btarunr (May 16, 2008)

Card looks Razer-_ish_. A lot like the AC-1 with the jacks instead of HD-DAI. Dimpled EMI shields are the next big thing, those pits you see aren't fancy decor, it deflects EMI better.


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## EastCoasthandle (May 16, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Finally, they port the CA20K1 to PCI-E. This will own a Auzen X-Fi Prelude.



Shouldn't you be more concern about what's under that covering 
My question about all this is if they listened to the modding community by adding the appropriate high quality components or did they just move from a PCI to PCIe with a some fluff? The cover is a bit concerning as an advertising piece.  I like to see what's on the board.


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## btarunr (May 16, 2008)

EastCoasthandle said:


> Shouldn't you be more concern about what's under that covering



I am, I'm talking to quite a few sound-card guys all over the web to get a pic of what's under the EMI shield. 

I will dismiss that there's no CA20K1 because:

A. Creative haven't come-up with a new APU, maybe this is a CA20K 2? (CA20K1 + bus translation ).

B. They wouldn't advertise features such as EAX 5.0 without the CA20K1 since it still is a hardware accelerated feature. You never know, though because the ASUS SupremeFX X-Fi uses software-accelerated EAX 4.0 HD which we all thought couldn't be soft-accelerated.

If you have a PCI X-Fi and its running without problems, there is _no _ reason for you to buy this. Unless you just went Crossfire/SLI and blocked a PCI slot.


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## imperialreign (May 16, 2008)

btarunr said:


> I am, I'm talking to quite a few sound-card guys all over the web to get a pic of what's under the EMI shield.
> 
> I will dismiss that there's no CA20K1 because:
> 
> ...




or if you want supported Dolby encoding from a Creative card . . . but if Dolby is yer deal, Auzen and ASUS have better sound quality for entertainment purposes.


Im really interested in seeing pics of this little thing nekkid - I want to see how they're translating for the PCIE BUS to the APU, unless this will stout a revised APU with integrated support . . . curious.  From what little bit I can tell from current pics, the PCB looks like it's going to be rather crowded.

Big thing for me, though, is I'm looking forward to the performance reviews.  The PCI Fatal1ty is already fast as hell, and this card could theorheticlly stomp the crap out of that due to the increased bandwidth across the PCIE BUS as compared to a standard PCI line.

On the EMI shield, yes, the dimples help a lot - it also appears they had the foresight to directly attach the EMI shield to the PCI bracket, which helps ground the plate for further shielding capabilities - first audio card I've seen with an EMI sheild to do that.


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## btarunr (May 16, 2008)

If it's the same old CA20K1 even with an on-die bus translation, you can expect high latency. It can actually mess with ASIO based recording setups in some cases.


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## imperialreign (May 16, 2008)

btarunr said:


> If it's the same old CA20K1 even with an on-die bus translation, you can expect high latency. It can actually mess with ASIO based recording setups in some cases.



true, and it'd require a translator chip on the card as well, which can be quite large in and of itself . . . 

and based on that PCB size . . .





odd, though, how no review sites heard hide nor hair of this thing, and all of a sudden it's up for sale . . . typically there's at least 1 "hands on" review before release . . .


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## btarunr (May 16, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> true, and it'd require a translator chip on the card as well, which can be quite large in and of itself . . .
> 
> and based on that PCB size . . .
> 
> ...



After all that happened between PC enthusiasts and Creative in the last year or so, this release lacks enthusiasm from a lot of people who were 'ZOMG!' when the original X-Fi released. Even the reliable friend of mine from Singapore is like "really? they released a new card? how did all this happen" - the sort of cold reaction similar to when you wake up in Hawaii and discover the Nasdaq index taking the fall.


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## EastCoasthandle (May 16, 2008)

One has to ask if this was the card that would be "Vista Compatible...".  During their public "posting debacle" many knew a new card was on the way.


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## btarunr (May 16, 2008)

You would still need ALchemy. It's advertised on the website as well. As long as you want your DirectSound games to exploit hardware EAX acceleration in Vista, you'd need ALchemy, unless MS replaces DirectSound to what is was during DX 9.0c


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## imperialreign (May 16, 2008)

I'm interested to see how and what kind of issues might arise with these cards, especially in Vista.

I'm hoping, though, Creative is starting to turn their stuff around and march back towards being a company I remember while growing up; not this money-grubbing corporate monstrosity they've turned out to be over the last decade.


This, combined with making ALchemy free for all users, might just be a good start . . . time will tell.


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## 1c3d0g (May 16, 2008)

Creative is dead. They recycle the same old crappy products as new yet the company can't even release some decent drivers. Talk about a greedy company! :shadedshu


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## Para_Franck (May 16, 2008)

I will start to be interested when the hardware supports all these fancy audio things + a Physics engine! Now that piece of equipment would have the arguments to find it's way in my CM690!

Franck


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## tkpenalty (May 16, 2008)

The sound card market needs a kick...honestly. Someone get nvidia and AMD to make sound cards already!

I wouldnt mind this sound card as its a PCI-E 1x card.. and btw, non-coloured jacks are a big PIA.


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## REVHEAD (May 17, 2008)

Thos Heradset plugs on the Drive bay look like mini jacks, I use sennheiser and my headset requires fullsize ,I am not happy they are moving to mini jack size.


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## NympH (May 17, 2008)

To bad i cant use any of my PCI-E x1 slots...


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## Wile E (May 17, 2008)

REVHEAD said:


> Thos Heradset plugs on the Drive bay look like mini jacks, I use sennheiser and my headset requires fullsize ,I am not happy they are moving to mini jack size.



Get an adapter. 99% of front panel connectors are 1/8" anyway, not to mention portables.


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## Mussels (May 17, 2008)

This card looks very much like the asus xonar, in length/overall shape.

Oh and most definately get an adaptor, thats how i've used my sennheisers for the last 5 years (HD-555 and HD-202)


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## btarunr (May 17, 2008)

NVidia needs to resurrect the SoundStorm project. If they release an audio accelerator, it would either bury Creative or kick start another competition, which will benefit us users, we'll get great technology at greater prices, if Creative's tech-support stays what it is now, it will spell doom for it as everyone will drop Creative for NVidia.


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## Mussels (May 17, 2008)

btarunr said:


> NVidia needs to resurrect the SoundStorm project. If they release an audio accelerator, it would either bury Creative or kick start another competition, which will benefit us users, we'll get great technology at greater prices, if Creative's tech-support stays what it is now, it will spell doom for it as everyone will drop Creative for NVidia.



I had a weird thought about that the other day, the reason soundstorm was dropped was because it ended up in the Xbox somehow. the Xbox (original) can do dolby digital audio (Which is what made soundstorm so damned special), and we know Nvidia paired up with Microsoft around that time (Nv made the GPU for the original Xbox, so maybe they paired up for soundstorm, but lost the rights when ATI got the deal for the 360?)


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## Wile E (May 17, 2008)

btarunr said:


> NVidia needs to resurrect the SoundStorm project. If they release an audio accelerator, it would either bury Creative or kick start another competition, which will benefit us users, we'll get great technology at greater prices, if Creative's tech-support stays what it is now, it will spell doom for it as everyone will drop Creative for NVidia.



I don't know about that. Nvidia doesn't exactly have a great support record either. We could just end up with twice the crappily supported products on the market.


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## btarunr (May 17, 2008)

Mussels said:


> I had a weird thought about that the other day, the reason soundstorm was dropped was because it ended up in the Xbox somehow. the Xbox (original) can do dolby digital audio (Which is what made soundstorm so damned special), and we know Nvidia paired up with Microsoft around that time (Nv made the GPU for the original Xbox, so maybe they paired up for soundstorm, but lost the rights when ATI got the deal for the 360?)



NVidia used to include this APU with the MCP-T southbridge of the NForce 2 series motherboards. They dropped it because the APU jacked up the manufacturing costs of MCP-T many fold, TSMC was being unreasonable, and that there was a southbridge without the APU called MCP-2, which many users opted for, it was cheap, and most didn't realise it didn't carry the APU. So, that cannibalised SoundStorm in the PC front. 

NVidia is filthy rich now, it can very much afford to resurrect SoundStorm for discrete sound-cards ..... or even high-end PC chipsets.


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## btarunr (May 17, 2008)

Wile E said:


> I don't know about that. Nvidia doesn't exactly have a great support record either. We could just end up with twice the crappily supported products on the market.



It's about competition fostering support. If not customer support, at least they'll work harder to see their products don't cause problems. I'm just being optimistic


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## Rebo&Zooty (May 17, 2008)

Mussels said:


> I had a weird thought about that the other day, the reason soundstorm was dropped was because it ended up in the Xbox somehow. the Xbox (original) can do dolby digital audio (Which is what made soundstorm so damned special), and we know Nvidia paired up with Microsoft around that time (Nv made the GPU for the original Xbox, so maybe they paired up for soundstorm, but lost the rights when ATI got the deal for the 360?)



naa, nvidia droped soundstorm because it was costing to much to support and added cost to the chipset, and they saw a chance to raise profits by lowering cost.

HD audio/alzia...whatever was already speced out, nvidia saw a chance to "pull a fast one" on people.

And the xbx's video chip is just a gf3 with a die shrink in reality, just as the cpu is really just a p3/p3 celeron, i have a buddy thats got a BETA xbox thats got a 370 socket, he was able to toss in a 1.4gz celron tulitin(impressive perf boost!!!)  also was able to up the ram to 512mb (it only had 2 memory slots.......), its a beta unit so its HUGE in comparison to the units they sold(that at the time where considered huge lol)   

i have used very consol from that gen, the xbx was the best, the dreamcast would have pwned it had sega not been a bunch of tards and left out dvd playback and an HDD tho......

blah, consols suck.........*hugs his pc*


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## Mussels (May 17, 2008)

btarunr said:


> NVidia used to include this APU with the MCP-T southbridge of the NForce 2 series motherboards. They dropped it because the APU jacked up the manufacturing costs of MCP-T many fold, TSMC was being unreasonable, and that there was a southbridge without the APU called MCP-2, which many users opted for, it was cheap, and most didn't realise it didn't carry the APU. So, that cannibalised SoundStorm in the PC front.
> 
> NVidia is filthy rich now, it can very much afford to resurrect SoundStorm for discrete sound-cards ..... or even high-end PC chipsets.



i came up with that theory at about 5am 2 nights ago. i never once claimed it to have facts 

thanks for the info, and it is a pity it never returned.


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## mab1376 (May 17, 2008)

beautiful!! and its got optical output right on the card!!


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## Rebo&Zooty (May 17, 2008)

btarunr said:


> It's about competition fostering support. If not customer support, at least they'll work harder to see their products don't cause problems. I'm just being optimistic



there was the mcp and mcp-2 that didnt have sound storm to be more accurate, the -t was the one you wanted if you wanted the APU.

IF nvidia had been smart they would have stuck with the orignal idea and included it on the chipset but also sold the standalone cards they had already designed, i have seen beta pci soundstorm audio cards, little buggy, but what do u expect they where beta hardware with beta driver support.....

wish nvidia would have gone that rout.

I have been hearing that AMD plans to add more DSP fetures to the cpu in the next few gen's, i been getting the impression that they would like to make it so the cpu had detocated hardware APU style support to compliment their HDMI audio thats already on their videochips, if true this could be a boon since it would also allow the use of soundstorm like setup where the external codec be it realtek or cmedia or ADI or whatever was just there as an external enterface
soundstorm was officialy mcp-t+realtek ac97 codec, some boards used cmedia chips with the mcp-t, those acctualy had better audio quility but you had to use drivers from the board maker OR install the audio codecs driver THEN the nvidia soundstorm drivers.

i have owned MANY boards and setup and tested many others, i honestly dont have a problem with any of the current HD audio chipsets in use as long as the drivers are updated properly by the chip maker OR the board maker in the case of ADI chipsets asus and intel use.

but then again most audio today is FAR diffrent from what many old skool comp geeks like us think of when we read/see "onboard sound", back in the day onboard was barly passable for use on uber crappy net machiens it aite cpu power like a mofo and sounded like a stock am/fm radio in a lowist of the low model ford festeveas, horrible horrible stuff.

now today we got MORE cpu power then is needed, and so called ac97/hdaudio codes are acctualy more powerfull in many cases then our high end soundcards of those days, Where this falls down is when you look at the drivers board makers put on the cd that comes with ur shiny new board, i just got a ta770 from biostar(kickass little board) its disk had drivers from b4 the board was even avalable.....i grabbed the current realtek drivers and installed hem and havent found any buggs since, but i know for a fact the older drivers sucked, because my last 2 boards have had realtek audio 

oh, little note, if you have an OLD system thats using an old cmedia full on sound chip for its onboard and it sounds like crap, check if its the 8738, if so, check out cmedia's forums, i just recently updated the drivers on 2 old systems(1 hp one compaq), they where running 2k, so slaping in more ram and the new drivers made a world of diffrance, the old drivers sounded HORRIBLE, and the 4 and 6ch sound didnt work properly, after installing the new drivers the change is insain, you would honestly think you went from ac97 to sblive.....all from a driver update made for XP on a chip as old as the sblive........(btw, creative dumped the sblive driver support and thats when i stoped buying/using their products, i payed neerly 450usd for the sblive kit i have, sure that was years back, but i also have a cmedia based SIIG card that uses 8738 chip on it, it cost me 30bucks, and its got uptodate drivers.....that WORK......


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## imperialreign (May 17, 2008)

IIRC, nVidia was also in cohorts with MS during the Vista development days - that's the last time I had heard talk of a possible SoundStorm ressurection.  nVidia and Creative were collaborating with MS during early Vista design . . .

I agree, though, we need much better competition in the audio market . . . at least competition has picked up near about 100% over the last 2 years.  Sadly, the Auzentech Prelude is kinda looked upon as an extension of Creative's X-Fi line, and neither ASUS, Razer or HT Omega seem to have enough "go get 'em" attitude in the audio market.

Sure, the Xonar proves to be the single biggest threat to Creative - but it's not enough, IMO.  Not enough to cause major change.


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## WarEagleAU (May 17, 2008)

so a pretty shield and dolby digital is all?


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## btarunr (May 17, 2008)

WarEagleAU said:


> so a pretty shield and dolby digital is all?



...and PCI-E is all.


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## Mussels (May 17, 2008)

btarunr said:


> ...and PCI-E is all.



not that the xonar isnt there already, as well as the x-fi extreme audio.

Wasnt it creative who said they'd never release a PCI-E card, due to higher latencies?


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## wiak (May 17, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Finally, they port the CA20K1 to PCI-E. This will own a Auzen X-Fi Prelude.


well. Asus Xonar have been on PCI Express for years now, and has _PROPER_ drivers
creative should *STOP* releasing product they cant make DRIVERS for
given the fact you have to PAY creative for drivers is kinda funny

and this is a copy of Asus D2X





it also have DTS Connect, Dolby Digital Live, PROPER EAX5 support (given the fact creative cant provide EAX in vista)


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## btarunr (May 17, 2008)

wiak said:


> well. Asus Xonar have been on PCI Express for years now, and has _PROPER_ drivers



...which has known compatibility issues with certain NForce motherboards. 



wiak said:


> creative should *STOP* releasing product they cant make DRIVERS for
> given the fact you have to PAY creative for drivers is kinda funny



That's why they made a truce with Daniel Kamakawi, a person who can. So Creative hardware + 3rd party drivers are quite a combination.

Let's not get into "oh yeah?.....blah blah blah". Let's acknowledge its a news thread and everything surrounds the product that's making news.


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## btarunr (May 17, 2008)

Mussels said:


> not that the xonar isnt there already, as well as the x-fi extreme audio.
> 
> Wasnt it creative who said they'd never release a PCI-E card, due to higher latencies?



They said that probably because at that time they didn't have an audio processor that could communicate using PCI-E, and that then if they came up with a card using the CA20K1, they'd probably have to use a bus-translation logic (which is known to step up latencies). I'm clueless about what's under that EMI shield so don't know if they're using CA20K1 + bridge or not, so can't really say if they went back on their word.


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## wiak (May 17, 2008)

btarunr said:


> ...which has known compatibility issues with certain NForce motherboards.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


funny even creative has nforce problems
http://www.pcper.com/comments.php?nid=1480


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## btarunr (May 17, 2008)

wiak said:


> funny even creative has nforce problems
> http://www.pcper.com/comments.php?nid=1480



Right, and those are NForce4 

Xonar D2X has known incompatibility with even the newest nForce 600 upwards, due to the bridge chip used.


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## selway89 (May 17, 2008)

Interesting this card looks good, but to be totaly honest I'm looking at the ASUS Xonar DX (the D2 and D2X little brother)

@ wiak ...

They emulate upto EAX5, not hardware supported... Drivers intercept EAX calls and emulates it to within a certain degree; slight differences and varied support in games.

Still thats quite a feat when creative ask anyone but X-Fi users to pay for a piece of code to intercept and translate EAX calls


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## Mussels (May 17, 2008)

technically, the creative cards are emulating it anyway in vista.

I run alchemy on my auzentech card, if you search for alchemy universal you'll realise that hardware EAX isnt neccesary at all.


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## btarunr (May 17, 2008)

Mussels said:


> technically, the creative cards are emulating it anyway in vista.
> 
> I run alchemy on my auzentech card, if you search for alchemy universal you'll realise that hardware EAX isnt neccesary at all.



It's not that the cards are, but legacy apps. 

OpenAL based apps hardware accelerate EAX in Vista. Take a look at the supported games list of ALchemy, you'll find that titles such as Quake 4 / Doom 3, etc. aren't there, because they're OpenAL apps, they'll not only perform EAX processing by hardware but also don't require ALchemy for multi-channel output. 

But you're right, with such 1337 CPU's around, it's insignificant, the whole hardware acceleration thingy. ASUS devised SupremeFX X-Fi that is advertised to support EAX 4.0 HD, but software-accelerates it, but you're assured you get the advertised features.


----------



## Silverel (May 17, 2008)

Black Panther said:


> This officially supports Vista apparently.
> 
> Great.
> 
> That's why they threatened a modder with legal action when he adapted the drivers for their current x-fi cards to work well under Vista...



After that reached the highest point, the ended up dropping their issues and supporting him in his endeavors. Just another example of bad PR on Creatives end. I'm sure when someone had the balls to tell one of the bosses how horrible that went over, they fired a few dozen people, and assigned new ones to soothe the poor guys ego.

Last I heard anyways.


----------



## EarlZ (May 17, 2008)

Does the DDlive encoding require a separate hardware chip or is it a driver feature that we can hack into the X-Fi Extreme music and above?


----------



## Bjorn_Of_Iceland (May 17, 2008)

selway89 said:


> Interesting this card looks good, but to be totaly honest I'm looking at the ASUS Xonar DX (the D2 and D2X little brother)
> 
> 
> 
> They emulate upto EAX5, not hardware supported... Drivers intercept EAX calls and emulates it to within a certain degree...



Thanks.. gave me a great idea for an algo


----------



## panchoman (May 17, 2008)

what is it with all of our pci cards turning into boxes?


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## imperialreign (May 17, 2008)

panchoman said:


> what is it with all of our pci cards turning into boxes?



video cards - it's better to remove the heat from the system out the back, if possible - plus, nVidia likes to purty up their cards

audio cards - need shielding from the vast amount of EMI/RFI produced from high powered GPUs, CPUs, motherboard components, WiFi adapters and routers, cathode lights, high-speed fans, etc

the audio card has the hardest job in the rig, and is greatly taken advantage of by the general user as well


----------



## btarunr (May 17, 2008)

panchoman said:


> what is it with all of our pci cards turning into boxes?



Two things, 

It gives the thing more of a product feel than a component feel (as nicely put by W1z). Secondly, sound cards of today need adequate amount of shielding from EMI that can affect performance/output quality (thanks to beefier video hardware), which is why, not just Creative but some other companies like ASUS have made it a point to provide sound-cards with protection against EMI (as seen on Xonar, SupremeFX).


----------



## Rebo&Zooty (May 17, 2008)

btarunr said:


> ...which has known compatibility issues with certain NForce motherboards.
> 
> 
> 
> ...



weird, i know a few ppl using that card on nf550/560/570/590 range boards without any issues.........

on the other hand i have personaly had to replace x-fi cards with alternitives for nforce4 owners because the card just wouldnt work, yet strangely ANY other audio card i slaped in WORKED PERFECTLY be it via,cmedia,crystal or a few other chips, creative didnt follow proper pci bus specs(iso) hence the problems, this has happened befor, creative sound blaster live cards had issues on alot of systems back in the day, some tryed to blame via, but it happened on EVERYBODYS BOARDS on both amd and intel, turned out the ONLY FIX was to push the pci latancy out of proper spec to 96 or higher..........

creatives KNOWN for pulling crap like that then blaming the board maker, asus is known for blaming the user for bios related issues(gigabyte and msi are just as bad about that tho) 

honestly, i really hope we see some good cmedia based pci-e soundcards, if only to spice up the market a bit, im a fan of cmedia ever since i disscovered that they acctualy have a usefull support forum that has some drivers for OLD chips that they dont even make anymore, creative just tells you to fark off and buy a new card.

as to the issues with fetures/drivers on the x-fi, danial k dosnt make drivers, he just mods them, same as OMEGADRIVE dosnt "make" drivers he just mods their installers.

see the DK drivers acctualy just enable stuff that creative INTENTIONALY dissabled or broke, thats why they got pissy when he fixed it, they wanted to force you to buy a re-hash of the same card but that had support for the fetures they intentionaly dissabled.

this is like nvidia or ati/amd dissabling dx9 support on a videocard on vista because they are bringing out a new videocard and want more sales, butt unlike creative, ati/nvidia wouldnt be stupid enought to pull that shit.........


----------



## imperialreign (May 17, 2008)

Rebo&Zooty said:


> weird, i know a few ppl using that card on nf550/560/570/590 range boards without any issues.........
> 
> on the other hand i have personaly had to replace x-fi cards with alternitives for nforce4 owners because the card just wouldnt work, yet strangely ANY other audio card i slaped in WORKED PERFECTLY be it via,cmedia,crystal or a few other chips, creative didnt follow proper pci bus specs(iso) hence the problems, this has happened befor, creative sound blaster live cards had issues on alot of systems back in the day, some tryed to blame via, but it happened on EVERYBODYS BOARDS on both amd and intel, turned out the ONLY FIX was to push the pci latancy out of proper spec to 96 or higher..........
> 
> ...





just curious . . . but, how many people with an nF5 or nf4 motherboard run SLI?  That's were a lot of problems started between the two - the X-Fi is BUS hungry, and the nForce chipset didn't want to negotiate the BUS correctly when certain VGA cards were installed, and SLI was worse.  Bad design on nVidia's part.

Granted, Creative didn't realize there would be issues, which is why the early revision X-Fi's were in need of firmware updates so soon.  Bad design on Creative's part.


----------



## Rebo&Zooty (May 17, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> just curious . . . but, how many people with an nF5 or nf4 motherboard run SLI?  That's were a lot of problems started between the two - the X-Fi is BUS hungry, and the nForce chipset didn't want to negotiate the BUS correctly when certain VGA cards were installed, and SLI was worse.  Bad design on nVidia's part.
> 
> Granted, Creative didn't realize there would be issues, which is why the early revision X-Fi's were in need of firmware updates so soon.  Bad design on Creative's part.



very few nvidia owners with SLI boards acctualy go SLI, i had a site with a survay, more CF board owners acctualy use the CF support then SLI chipset owners, probbly because many times to get a decent nvidia based board u gotta buy their higher chipsets, where as in most cases only ppl who want/plan to acctualy go CF buy the CF chipset boards.

and yes again creative FAILED TO PROPERLY TEST their designs, also the issue wasnt 100% fixed with the firmware and bios updates, it was just lessened in most peoples cases, they got it down to a level where it was "acceptable" or "passable" but still.....

i just find it funny that raid cards, scsi cards and any number of other devices that demand high bandwith over the pci/pci-e buss work FINE, but creatives very expencive cards had issues......

guess that shows how well they test their products b4 putting them in users hands........


----------



## imperialreign (May 17, 2008)

Rebo&Zooty said:


> very few nvidia owners with SLI boards acctualy go SLI, i had a site with a survay, more CF board owners acctualy use the CF support then SLI chipset owners, probbly because many times to get a decent nvidia based board u gotta buy their higher chipsets, where as in most cases only ppl who want/plan to acctualy go CF buy the CF chipset boards.
> 
> and yes again creative FAILED TO PROPERLY TEST their designs, also the issue wasnt 100% fixed with the firmware and bios updates, it was just lessened in most peoples cases, they got it down to a level where it was "acceptable" or "passable" but still.....
> 
> ...




I'll agree the cards needed further testing before release - but the X-Fi was designed from the ground-up, not recycling last gen chipsets like the Audigy and Live! series did.

most users who had issues with the nF4 and 5 series either ran SLI, or very specific nVidia cards - it was a bad design on nVidia's part, the chipset would ignore IRQ requests from other devices, to allow the video cards to keep access of the BUS; without the IRQ from the X-Fi being serviced, the APU kept buffering the audio and it would start to break up . . .


other issues from other boards which started up further down the road, where due to overheating of the APU (lack of testing on this is obvious, or they didn't intend there would be a problem).  Early revisions didn't have a heatsink, and the higher temperatures put a strain on the APU itself over extended periods of time - after a long enough period of abuse, the capacitors started to break down, and started leaking, and just prior to that, you would start experiencing vast amounts of audio issues, usually in the form of SCP.

I can't blame Creative 100%, but they shouldn't had the foresight to at least slap a heatsink on them from the start just to be safe.  They're not the only company that's run into issues with lack of adequeate, cooling, though . . .


and then there are the growing number of pre-built systems from the likes of all the big OEMs, and most of these have locked BIOSes for their motherboards.  Depending on the motherboard, CPU, and the general SYS setup, PCI latency needs to be adjusted for the X-Fi cards . . . hell, PCI latency is something that has had to be adjusted for years and years, but, back in the day, the BIOS was open to users - cause you either knew what you were doing in BIOS, or you didn't so you left shit alone.   As systems have become more and more pre-built, and more and more average users started purchasing systems, the BIOS had to be locked from features that could potentially damage hardware, and out the door PCI latency settings went.

Not really a problem, until you bring home an X-Fi, Audigy, or some other BUS hungry PCI device, and install it.  Now you'll start running into hardware issues, as your new device won't work properly, especially under load.  But you can't adjust the latency properly, as the OEM design wasn't meant to be 100% supportive of upgrades, and who takes the flak for the device not working correctly?  The manufacturer of said device.




All I'm trying to say, is that yes, Creative should've put a little more effort into testing prior to initial X-Fi shipment; but for nearly almost all of the major problems people have complained about, it's nothing to do with the X-Fi but instead is typically caused by something else.  The vast majority of users who've purchased the cards aren't as keen as the majority of us here, and that's where a lot of problems start to arise.



Creative's hardware is still great, but I'll full-out agree that their tech support and customer service are crap as of right now.


----------



## Rebo&Zooty (May 17, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> I'll agree the cards needed further testing before release - but the X-Fi was designed from the ground-up, not recycling last gen chipsets like the Audigy and Live! series did.
> 
> most users who had issues with the nF4 and 5 series either ran SLI, or very specific nVidia cards - it was a bad design on nVidia's part, the chipset would ignore IRQ requests from other devices, to allow the video cards to keep access of the BUS; without the IRQ from the X-Fi being serviced, the APU kept buffering the audio and it would start to break up . . .
> 
> ...



you want funny, i have an OLD ASS avance logic audio card that was CHEAP AS HELL, it came with a heatsink on the audio chip........why could a 20$ from way back have a sink and the xfi, one of the most expencive audio cards not?

as to "most issues" your forgetting the x-fi music cards driver issue that causes the driver to use 100% cpu at times, thats 100% a software flaw creative should have spoted, and would have if they used the same testing menthods videocard and cpu makers use( acctualy having REAL PEOPLE test the hardware b4 u sell it :O )

i  for a week trying to track that down, in that time the client was upset, thinking i had setup the system wrong(he is the one who ordered the x-fi card because of all the hype) and then a post showed up on creatives forums detailing the problem i was having, the "fix" was to remove most of the software that came with the card, leaving it effectivly the same as old cards that dont have spicific drivers(aureal/avancelogic where its just the windows built in driver) 

in he end the client had me swap the card for a VIA chipset card that i had in my work machien( had it in corner of the shop used to play music and download drivers/manuals/bios's exct)  it wasnt a cheap card, but it was under 1/2 the price he payed, he just desided the hassle wasnt worth it, so i resold the card AS IS to somebody(who then was mad whenhe had the same issue on his dell  )

basickly its exectly what we can both agree on, creatives support sucks.

and to be honest, it has alwase sucked, just that they got lucky a few times like the audigy cards, most of them had very few problems compared to sblive and x-fi cards.......

i want to see mobo makers start using GOOD CHIPS on their enthusist boards.

imagin them using cmi8768+ chips for onboard audio.....it wouldnt be that much extra cost, but would drive the quility of the onboard sound thru the roof if done properly(solid caps, good solid coils, exct) 

creatives really hurting lately because most people dont see the need to change from their onboard sound once they update the drivers, i know i dont see the "need" not that i would turn down a razer/auzen/htomega/asus sound card if it was offered to me, but i dont "need" it anymore, hell i hope realtek, cmedia, adi and the rest endup doing what asus did, putting out EAX software enabled drivers, that would pretty much FORCE creative to get......creative HAHA......(nice pun!!!)


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## imperialreign (May 17, 2008)

I remember hearing about that CPU load issue - but, then again, what manufacturer hasn't released a driver at some point that didn't either 1) cause a memory leak or 2) cause 100% CPU load?


Only reason Creative gets reamed on their software issues is cause they release only 1 or 2 driver packages a year . . . which means that if there are issues, you have to roll back and wait 7-8 months for the next update.  That - is inane and retarded, IMO.  I've even run into is before when running WIN XP Media Center for a short while - the only driver that worked with that OS was the one bundled on the CD; no driver update worked correctly - even though Creative listed is as being supported.  At the very least, they could give us a set schedule so we know when to look forward to, instead of just releasing a driver whenever they feel like it.



onboard is starting to give Creative and C-Media a run for their money, for sure, and coupled with the vast amounts of users who can't hear a difference, or don't have decent enough speakers to hear the difference, Creative really needs to change their tune.  You can sell people the new hardware, but when the majority of users are complaining about your customer service and tech support - they won't buy.


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## Rebo&Zooty (May 17, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> I remember hearing about that CPU load issue - but, then again, what manufacturer hasn't released a driver at some point that didn't either 1) cause a memory leak or 2) cause 100% CPU load?
> 
> 
> Only reason Creative gets reamed on their software issues is cause they release only 1 or 2 driver packages a year . . . which means that if there are issues, you have to roll back and wait 7-8 months for the next update.  That - is inane and retarded, IMO.  I've even run into is before when running WIN XP Media Center for a short while - the only driver that worked with that OS was the one bundled on the CD; no driver update worked correctly - even though Creative listed is as being supported.  At the very least, they could give us a set schedule so we know when to look forward to, instead of just releasing a driver whenever they feel like it.
> ...



would also help if they did what they use to do with the high end cards, bundle a good set of speekers and some other extras with them, sure it raises cost a bit, BUT it also show cases your product better, my sblive 5.1 gamer plat card(very good card once u worked the bugs out) came with a set of cambrige soundworks speekers(4ch with a sub/amp) i still use them to this day, because dispite their being better speeker sets avalable, they arent that much better, at least not enought better to get me to buy a set, currently im using 3 sets of speekers on this rig, the above mentioned cambrige soundworks set, a logitech set(left and right+sub) and an altec lancing set(for center and sub outputs) all are high quility sets i have had around, desided to try this out, and it works great, so why buy a new set till i see something that really blows my mind?

i mostly game an watch movies, music tends to be turned way up so everybody can hear it when we are doing housework or working outside(no shit, this setups louder then the very expencive shelf system my father gave me when he upgraded.....well upgrade that turned out to be no better then what he had  )

honestly, for the size of the speekers they kickass, and the subs from the logitech units THUMPS u can feel it thru the walls (impressive for its size!!)

meh, like i said, if only they would make it intresting to people to buy a new card, but creatives supports BLAH at best, horrindus is a better word for it, and many of the cmedia based cards just lack fetures that grab most ppls attention, i think for cmedia and the like adding asus style eax software acceleration would probbly grab peoples attention.

auzen lost my intrest when they dumped the x-med in favor of kissing creatives arse to get the x-fi chip........the ONLY reasion i can see them dumping it is because it was something they had to do to get creative to work with them.


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## btarunr (May 18, 2008)

This isn't a thread for Creative-bashing.


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## Mussels (May 18, 2008)

btarunr said:


> This isn't a thread for Creative-bashing.



every thread is a thread for creative bashing 

creative have always made decent hardware, but their software has always been pisspoor - they will drop the old products very fast in order to make people buy a newer one.

Thats actually good knowledge for anyone reading this thread about this product.


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## TheGuruStud (May 18, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> the BIOS had to be locked from features that could potentially damage hardware, and out the door PCI latency settings went.



It can be done in software and you can customize each IRQ with PCI Latency Config 3 (supports x64 too).


----------



## btarunr (May 18, 2008)

Ehm? The Current X-Fi series was around for more time than NVidia GeForce 8 series. Why not this thread also serve the purpose of telling people that the decent hardware Creative makes can be coupled with 3rd party drivers to make it decent(hardware+software).


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## Mussels (May 18, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Ehm? The Current X-Fi series was around for more time than NVidia GeForce 8 series. Why not this thread also serve the purpose of telling people that the decent hardware Creative makes can be coupled with 3rd party drivers to make it decent(hardware+software).



indeed it can serve that purpose. Its just that i (and many others) dont think that should be neccesary - if i pay for the product, i shouldnt have to go ask some other random guy to make it work. It should work out of the box, with all advertised features.


----------



## btarunr (May 18, 2008)

Mussels said:


> indeed it can serve that purpose. Its just that i (and many others) dont think that should be neccesary - if i pay for the product, i shouldnt have to go ask some other random guy to make it work. It should work out of the box, with all advertised features.



My Xtreme Gamer works with all advertised features, out of the box.


----------



## TheGuruStud (May 18, 2008)

btarunr said:


> My Xtreme Gamer works with all advertised features, out of the box.


----------



## btarunr (May 18, 2008)

TheGuruStud said:


>



Ya rly.


----------



## Mussels (May 18, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Ya rly.



nothing below an X-fi does, or daniel K wouldnt be modding the drivers. when the next gen cards come out, you'll find you get dropped as well.


----------



## btarunr (May 18, 2008)

Mussels said:


> nothing below an X-fi does, or daniel K wouldnt be modding the drivers. when the next gen cards come out, you'll find you get dropped as well.



Say hello to my next card:







So your Audigy box came with a print which read it supported Windows Vista? In case you forgot, Audigy users can now download and use ALchemy for *free* and legal.


----------



## Mussels (May 18, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Say hello to my next card:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



oh they changed it to free did they?

Regarldess, without daniel K's drivers it is missing features. The website states the audigy card supports several features (such as dolby decoding, amongst others) that simply didnt work until daniel K enabled them. Are you aware that in vista with an audigy card, ALL we get is the windows volume slider and speaker settings? none of the creative apps are there, so we cant enable any of the advanced features.

oh and have fun with the asus card, they seem to be doing well at the moment. (i'm waiting hopefully for a shorter card that will fit in my matx rig)


----------



## Rebo&Zooty (May 18, 2008)

Mussels said:


> indeed it can serve that purpose. Its just that i (and many others) dont think that should be neccesary - if i pay for the product, i shouldnt have to go ask some other random guy to make it work. It should work out of the box, with all advertised features.





Mussels said:


> nothing below an X-fi does, or daniel K wouldnt be modding the drivers. when the next gen cards come out, you'll find you get dropped as well.



exectly


----------



## btarunr (May 18, 2008)

Mussels said:


> oh and have fun with the asus card, they seem to be doing well at the moment. (i'm waiting hopefully for a shorter card that will fit in my matx rig)



Thanks. The card in the pic is a Xonar DX. It's fully low-profile compatible and the package includes a low-profile bracket. It sells for ~$80 in the US. If you find it, buyyy eeetttt!


----------



## imperialreign (May 18, 2008)

TheGuruStud said:


> It can be done in software and you can customize each IRQ with PCI Latency Config 3 (supports x64 too).



yeah, but that's a hassel - especially if you have to reconfigure after each boot

besides, for the average user . . . 


. . . it's sad, though, what has become "restricted" in a locked OEM BIOS.  I've seen some where the only thing the end user can set is Date/Time . . . and that's it. :shadedshu  WTF even have a setup menu, y'know?





			
				btarunr said:
			
		

> Thanks. The card in the pic is a Xonar DX. It's fully low-profile compatible and the package includes a low-profile bracket. It sells for ~$80 in the US. If you find it, buyyy eeetttt!





  TRAITOR!!!


j/k 


That's the first low-profile Xonar I've seen, are they new to the market?

damn, it's even got an AC97/Azalie front panel connector as well . . . you lucky dog!  What I wouldn't give for one of those headers on my card, instead of this proprietary garbage 





Kinda back on topic:


Creative offer support for hardware much longer than other hardware manufacturer's do.  It was just the end of last year when they finally cut the Live! series, and they were 10 years old.

Audigy was looking questionable, but after Creative decided to make ALchemy free for Audigy users, I get the feeling they intend to continue it's support for some more time to come.

Hopefully, though, after the Dan_k driver debacle, the next driver release will be heaven-sent . . . I've got high hopes Creative will turn their act around <knock on wood>


----------



## btarunr (May 18, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> TRAITOR!!!
> 
> 
> j/k
> ...



What's more, it uses the same DAC as XG Fatal1ty Pro:






X-Fi 2 is the same CA20K1 with more software-enabled features, leaves me with no reason to upgrade. Therefore, ASUS.

Only when Creative comes up with something genuinely new, I'll consider it.


----------



## imperialreign (May 18, 2008)

btarunr said:


> What's more, it uses the same DAC as XG Fatal1ty Pro:
> 
> 
> 
> ...





I completely understand on the no upgrade deal . . . so you know for sure the new X-Fis are still stouting CA20K1, then, huh?  


Hard to tell from that pic, but that's defi a Cirrus Logic DAC . . . I just can't read the chip number . . . I like how the regulators, DAC, and ADC are on the backside of the board, and how neatly organized the capacitor placement is on the front . . . very professional looking card.

Does it come with a shield like the D2X does?


----------



## btarunr (May 18, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> I completely understand on the no upgrade deal . . . so you know for sure the new X-Fis are still stouting CA20K1, then, huh?
> 
> 
> Hard to tell from that pic, but that's defi a Cirrus Logic DAC . . . I just can't read the chip number . . . I like how the regulators, DAC, and ADC are on the backside of the board, and how neatly organized the capacitor placement is on the front . . . very professional looking card.
> ...



No shield  At least I get my Dolby decode. My a$$hole brother took my Auzen away and doesn't look to be in a mood to return it. 

Yes, I believe Creative would continue to use CA20K1, at best they could modify it to have a bus translation logic on die, call it CA20K{something else}, remember what they did to EMU10K? Made it whore across two distinct generations of cards. So Creative has to come up with an entirely new APU to get my cash, else I think I'll be pretty happy with this X-Fi and the upcoming ASUS card.


----------



## imperialreign (May 18, 2008)

btarunr said:


> No shield  At least I get my Dolby decode. My a$$hole brother took my Auzen away and doesn't look to be in a mood to return it.
> 
> Yes, I believe Creative would continue to use CA20K1, at best they could modify it to have a bus translation logic on die, call it CA20K{something else}, remember what they did to EMU10K? Made it whore across two distinct generations of cards. So Creative has to come up with an entirely new APU to get my cash, else I think I'll be pretty happy with this X-Fi and the upcoming ASUS card.



Sucks you lost that Auzen . . . I'd be royally pissed . . .

At least not having a shield on that Xonar model, you shouldn't have to worry about PCB component EMI - I figure the PCB itself will provide enough insulation from the OPAMPs and caps to not cause interference with the converters and regulators on the backside . . . but EMI from other SYS components might be an issue, though . . .

I figure you're prob right on the CA20K1, especially considering Creative's current track record; but I don't intend to draw conclusions until we can see what the new PCBs will look like . . . but considering these new cards must've been under development last year, possibly beginning of this year, before the PR blunder, I'm not getting my hopes up.


As it stands, though, I'm getting the impression that the X-Fi series is going to turn out like the Audigys did . . . too many cards, and series "revisions"  Which means that a complete new architecture is still a couple of years down the road.  My Fatal1ty will serve me well until then, and possibly further after the card is hard-modded beyond it's current audio quality and capabilites.  If for some reason I do plan to purchase a new card soon, I've given the D2X some serious thought, and I might even consider the AC-1; but that's if I decide to purchase something else.

Seeing as how I spend more time gaming, I'd like to stick with a dedicated APU over a chipset.


----------



## Rebo&Zooty (May 18, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> yeah, but that's a hassel - especially if you have to reconfigure after each boot
> 
> besides, for the average user . . .
> 
> ...



acctualy it depends on the live card you had, creative NEVER put out proper vista drivers and it took them over a year to get x64 beta drivers out, and those where like the audigy drivers for vista, just the very base settings.

the older live cards pre 5.1 didnt get any real updates, i cant remmber how it went but there i think was an audigy card that used the came chip as the live 5.1, and the live 24bit was basickly a value audigy card(worse then the 5.1 live by a good bit)

creatives got horrible record for acctualy updating drivers or putting out drivers for new os's, when 2k came out i had to use drivers that an OEM company acctualy payed 3rd party developers to creat(the OEM had used awe32/64 and sb16 cards in pretty much eveyr system they sold)  because creative was farking around......again other chip makers had drivers out eather along side 2k OR within a couple months they had a full driver, betas earyer then that.

i know my tutle beach card and my old yahama cards had KICKASS drivers for 2k within weeks of 2k going RTM, where my awe64(the highest end isa model) didnt get proper drivers till i found those OEM drivers, then creative put out drivers eventuly, but htey where buggy 

creatives hardware normaly is good, its the software and support side that suck.

tho they also have a problem not properly testing their hardware designes, as you saw with the sblive and boards of its day, and the x-fi with nf4, the list goes on and on.

oh and no, it dosnt take a high end card to get the x-fi to crackle, i just confermed it with a buddy, he had an x300, then x700, also a 6200 card in that rig, all had the problem even after rma to creative to get a card that was updated, creative blamed nvidia, we blamed creative since if they had stuck to PCI specs that wouldnt have been an issue, he took my turtle beach card( wish i hadent given it to him!!!) it was a 8768 based card, hes still using it, sold the x-fi on ebay.

creative comes out with good CHIPS, the problem is their pcb and drivers.........

its like putting a v8 in a geo metro.........


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## btarunr (May 18, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> Sucks you lost that Auzen . . . I'd be royally pissed . . .
> 
> At least not having a shield on that Xonar model, you shouldn't have to worry about PCB component EMI - I figure the PCB itself will provide enough insulation from the OPAMPs and caps to not cause interference with the converters and regulators on the backside . . . but EMI from other SYS components might be an issue, though . . .
> 
> ...



Lesson to learn: Don't show off your e-pen** to your older sibling that happens to be an IT guy, you'll be obliged to lend it. 

Yes, we can sail though till a new APU comes up but we have to agree with Muzz, they'll probably estrange X-Fi users once X-Fi 2 comes up. At best they'll just put up drivers for Vista, nothing more.


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## imperialreign (May 18, 2008)

The Live! series is roundabouts when Creative started going downhill with recycled cards and crap customer service and tech support.  But, seeing as how the Live! was never intended to support Vista, I can't blame them for not having V drivers - the card was far past it's prime when Vista was released, and there are still quite a few users running them as well . . .


But, yes, the Audigy series featured a few rebranded Live! cards, as has the X-Fi series featured re-branded Audigy cards.

TBH, if you look at the Xtreme Gamer, is the same as an Audigy SE, and a couple of the early Audigy cards were re-branded Live! offerings.  Hell, the Live! 24bit was basically a slimmed-down Audigy Value.



But, as much as it's kinda crooked, I can't blame them either for disabling support in their drivers - audio cards outlive every other component within a SYS, even in terms of service life.  Without cutting support or functionality, users would never upgrade, and the company would make no money at all.  This practice just hasn't been that apparent, as Creative have been the only major form of audio solution for the last 15 years.





			
				btarunr said:
			
		

> Lesson to learn: Don't show off your e-pen** to your older sibling that happens to be an IT guy, you'll be obliged to lend it.
> 
> Yes, we can sail though till a new APU comes up but we have to agree with Muzz, they'll probably estrange X-Fi users once X-Fi 2 comes up. At best they'll just put up drivers for Vista, nothing more.



push comes to shove, there's always good 3rd party drivers, either Dan_k's or op-pax. Or continuing to run outdated drivers . . .


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## Mussels (May 18, 2008)

creative dropped the lives that werent 24 bit - they NEVER got vista drivers. you needed daniel K's to make them work, and even then they were buggy.

The problem wasnt that they 'didnt release drives' its that the drivers they released were often hidden inside teh X-fi drivers (you had to unpack then with winrar and manually install them, not something an average user would do) and they rarely got updated on the website.

Even then, as i said before - all you got was a volume slider. None of the advanced features, none of the decoding options. Its the complete lack of effort from the SB live! series all the way to audigy 4 - dont think that they just ditched the older models, EVERYTHING below X-fi got dropped until daniel_k came along.


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## Wile E (May 18, 2008)

Anybody find any reviews of these cards yet?


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## Simri (May 18, 2008)

imperialreign said:


> I remember hearing about that CPU load issue - but, then again, what manufacturer hasn't released a driver at some point that didn't either 1) cause a memory leak or 2) cause 100% CPU load?
> 
> 
> Only reason Creative gets reamed on their software issues is cause they release only 1 or 2 driver packages a year . . . which means that if there are issues, you have to roll back and wait 7-8 months for the next update.  That - is inane and retarded, IMO.  I've even run into is before when running WIN XP Media Center for a short while - the only driver that worked with that OS was the one bundled on the CD; no driver update worked correctly - even though Creative listed is as being supported.  At the very least, they could give us a set schedule so we know when to look forward to, instead of just releasing a driver whenever they feel like it.
> ...



2008 i have tested 3 driver set on Creative Audigy 4 Pro (Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro)

Present im use Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Driver 2.15.0006 (2008-02-22/6.0.01.1304)
Works on all Audigy X /X-Fi/E-DSP (Windows XP/Vista)


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## imperialreign (May 18, 2008)

Wile E said:


> Anybody find any reviews of these cards yet?



not yet . . .


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## INSTG8R (May 19, 2008)

REVHEAD said:


> Thos Heradset plugs on the Drive bay look like mini jacks, I use sennheiser and my headset requires fullsize ,I am not happy they are moving to mini jack size.



Bah I think that Front Panel is a joke anyway and wouldn't waste the effort putting in...Heck I still look at my breakout box in mine and think I should just pull it out . BUT at least mine is useful. I have every audio connection you can shake a stick at on mine(in or out) 
THAT is essentially a headphone jack pretending to be some sorta "break out box" 

Im really not impressed with this card at ALL I see nothing but a cheap card in a new suit pretending to be special...


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## Ionicdevil (May 20, 2008)

I like the fact that the gaming mode and volume control can be accessed conveniently through the i/o drive.. it's nice to see them making the x-fi available in pci-e version especially for those who need one for their pci-e slot cool color too!


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