# Do ALL sound cards have RAM?



## hat (Feb 19, 2008)

I was reading the X-FI clubhouse and learned that ALL X-FI cards have SOME amount of RAM even if it is only 2MB. So I wonder... does my SB Audigy2 ZS have any RAM?


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## Nitro-Max (Feb 19, 2008)

Not all creative sound cards have ram you'll have to check there website.


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## hat (Feb 19, 2008)

Hm... I wonder if it says anything about the audio processor? I wonder if its overclockable?


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## francis511 (Feb 19, 2008)

I was reading a review of a sound card the other day and the guy said he saw a fps increase with a generic 5.1 sound card !!!


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## beyond_amusia (Feb 19, 2008)

I remember when I had a SoundBlaster card and a AWE-32 add-in with it that you could put a stick of RAM into...


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## Nitro-Max (Feb 19, 2008)

Ive seen reports of people going from a audigy 2 card to the latest xfi and been dissapointed because sound wise they sounded the same. And they felt they wasted heaps of cash.

i use a cheap audigy soundblaster live external card and its great in any game.Infact its proved to be better in one game lol compared to the xfi.

operation flashpoint "ressistance addon" suppose to dissable eax but it still worked on mine gave me a huge advantage.


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## Mussels (Feb 19, 2008)

only x-fi cards have ram.

Going from a crappy AC97 card to a real card will sound better and give a performance boost.

Changing from a dedicated card to a HD audio onboard (or vice versa) only quality changes, as onboard audio is quite good for resources tehse days. The thing is, the dedicated cards come with shiny features (enhanced equalisers such as X-fi crystaliser, EAX etc) that INCREASE CPU usage.

That said, there is barely any difference from an SB live to an Audigy 4 - its pretty much down to your speakers/headphones, with the exception of bass control (for some reason, no onboard i've used has a working/useful bass boost feature)


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## DaMulta (Feb 19, 2008)

Not true, my awe 32 has ram. LOL but is ISA


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## Mussels (Feb 19, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> Not true, my awe 32 has ram. LOL but is ISA



may god have mercy on us.

But thats ram you ADD ON, we're talking integrated RAM


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## DaMulta (Feb 19, 2008)

You got me there, but the card did take extra ram for that extra kick.

That card rocked in its day, and I'm glad I still have one.


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## spud107 (Feb 19, 2008)

dunno if mine would have any, ct-4780


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## DaMulta (Feb 19, 2008)

spud107 said:


> dunno if mine would have any, ct-4780



No the live card does not.


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## imperialreign (Feb 19, 2008)

hat said:


> I was reading the X-FI clubhouse and learned that ALL X-FI cards have SOME amount of RAM even if it is only 2MB. So I wonder... does my SB Audigy2 ZS have any RAM?



not _all_ sound cards have onboard RAM.  From what I know of the current audio card market, only the Creative X-Fis and the Auzen X-Fi Prelude are packing.

The biggest reason the X-Fis are using onboard RAM is to try to alleviate a dependancy on the SYS BUS for transferring audio files in and out of SYS MEM, as a file is being processed, it's swapped to MEM, where another component will call it then send it back, and over and over until the file is ready for playback.  By having MEM integrated to the board, all work in progress is kept on the PCB, instead of moving it in and out of SYS MEM.  Asides from that, the X-Fi APU works so quickly, that it would end up hogging the crap out of the SYS BUS (as if they aren't BUS hogs enough as it is).

But, although onboard MEM goes down to the 2MB range, you don't really see a performance benefit with only 2MB; as the BIOS for the APU is loaded into the MEM on the card, much like how the SYS BIOS is loaded into SYS MEM upon startup, but this leaves very little room with which to work - which is why, much like video cards, the more MEM on board, the better the card performs.

Creative's marketing strategy, though, is to only advertise 64MB on their high end cards, the Fatal1ty and the Elite Pro; and for marketing reasons, they call it X-RAM (cause it just sounds ever so much more hardcore than DRAM).

As to your Audigy 2 ZS - no, not packing.



			
				hat said:
			
		

> Hm... I wonder if it says anything about the audio processor? I wonder if its overclockable?




believe me, I keep my eye out   Haven't run across any software to do so yet, and hardmods haven't gotten to the point of trying to vmod the card, either . . .


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## trog100 (Feb 19, 2008)

i just ditched my creative Audigy 4 to use my onboard sounds.. the fact creative still manage to sell expensive "soundcards" any more amazes me..

marketing hype and the power of peoples imagination seems to keep em in business..

trog


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## DaMulta (Feb 19, 2008)

Or that the fact is that they sound better than onboard.


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## spud107 (Feb 19, 2008)

ct4780 > alc850 imo.
unless i need 7.1


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## trog100 (Feb 19, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> Or that the fact is that they sound better than onboard.



do they.. how.. ????

trog


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## spud107 (Feb 19, 2008)

frequency response/sample rate i think,
onboard - 200-100000 hz
card - 100 - 191999 hz


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## Deleted member 3 (Feb 19, 2008)

ISA cards used to have RAM for the wavetable, this was because the ISA bus was way too slow. However when PCI became the standard they moved from using onboard RAM to using system RAM.

Good old times, I recall the sound difference between my Opti card and the AWE32. Amazing it was.


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## Graogrim (Feb 19, 2008)

Onboard audio has indeed come a long way from the days of AC97. That said, performance and quality still varies. SoundMAX has a great onboard solution that performs very well. When measuring impact on framerate, it generally proves equal or superior to PCI solutions. The price to be paid, however, is in audio quality. Certainly there's no practical difference for tasks like MP3 playback, but in games that take advantage of EAX and 3D audio there is still a compelling reason to choose an add-in board like an Audigy or X-FI. The difference is plainly audible, and not just because of frequency response or signal to noise ratios--the quality of the reverb and the clarity of the 3D placement is superior. Quality aftermarket sound cards also tend to support mixing of a greater number of sounds than their integrated brethren.

Either is an acceptable solution, depending on your preferences and the tradeoffs you're willing to make.


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## Graogrim (Feb 19, 2008)

DanTheBanjoman said:


> ISA cards used to have RAM for the wavetable, this was because the ISA bus was way too slow. However when PCI became the standard they moved from using onboard RAM to using system RAM.
> 
> Good old times, I recall the sound difference between my Opti card and the AWE32. Amazing it was.


To this day, the best most authentic sounding wavetable I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying came from an old Turtle Beach Tropez Plus. It had a strange combination of DOS and Windows drivers that required a weird initialization process and it was glitchy at times, but playing some well-crafted MIDI files with it could actually fool people into thinking they were listening to real instruments. And it had something else that's been missing from wavetable sound ever since--punchiness. You could actually feel the percussion thrum through your body. And somehow the Wavefront processor on it was smart enough in handling playback that it could be aggressive with note attacks without sounding fake.

I've listened to some high end wavetables since--32, 48, 64 MB and even higher sets, and although they've sounded great in their own way, smooth and refined, none of them have had the oomph or the authenticity of that old ISA Tropez Plus.


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## trog100 (Feb 19, 2008)

its all very subjective.. plus its all dramatically affected by the quality of the amp/speakers plus room acoustics and our own ears..

anyone that claims how good it is or sounds while at the same time using the average crap plastic PC sound system has a very active imagination..

as regards system load.. thats a bit meaningless with all the spare multicore horsepower most of us have..

in my "subjective" opinion my onboard sounds make very nice noises.. but i mostly run with special affects off.. they are there if i want em thow..

i have used sound cards for years as a matter of course.. but what was.. aint what is.. i have finally decided to  catch up with the times.. he he

i now have two audigy 2 cards one live card and 1 audigy 4 card in my junk pile..

no doubt the odd older card lurks deeper down in the pile..

an awe 32 was my first real sound card..  back then there was a positive difference.. now i dont think there is.. mind u my ears aint as young as they used to be.. but then again neither is my imagination..

trog


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## zCexVe (Feb 19, 2008)

I felt a good difference(well I dont know if its my ears are bad)going from AC97 audio to Creative SB audigy SE ,both are onboard.(The creative one is same as SB 2 ZS external)It felt great with EAX,bass boost and lots of things.But Unfortunately I feel like all the SBs are same in quality like.


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## spud107 (Feb 19, 2008)

when iv got it running through my stereo i notice the difference,
plus, my onboard has 16/20 2d/3d channels, card has 64/64,


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## Graogrim (Feb 19, 2008)

zCexVe said:


> I felt a good difference(well I dont know if its my ears are bad)going from AC97 audio to Creative SB audigy SE ,both are onboard.(The creative one is same as SB 2 ZS external)It felt great with EAX,bass boost and lots of things.But Unfortunately I feel like all the SBs are same in quality like.


That's often how it is. Basically you've either got it or you don't. The effects difference between integrated and aftermarket is pretty profound, but once you have a capable sound card that does the effects processing in hardware there's much less reason to seek an upgrade.

I, for example, have an original Soundblaster Audigy, and have been comfortable with it for years in several systems. It's easy to tell the difference when gaming between it and my motherboard's onboard sound. But for the most part, the sound quality difference between it and its successors like the later Audigies and X-Fi is very hard to perceive, even connected through a receiver to decent speakers like Criterion.


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## Mussels (Feb 19, 2008)

trog100 said:


> do they.. how.. ????
> 
> trog



sennheiser 555 headphones + logitech X-540 say audigy 4 beats onboard 

With headphones the software matters so much, and even in vista with its crippled driver support i get much better control and therefore better sound for the headphone use.


As you mentioned in a later post - hearing matters too. I just took a hearing test and blitzed it, so its definetely a factor.


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## imperialreign (Feb 19, 2008)

trog100 said:
			
		

> its all very subjective.. plus its all dramatically affected by the quality of the amp/speakers plus room acoustics and our own ears..
> 
> anyone that claims how good it is or sounds while at the same time using the average crap plastic PC sound system has a very active imagination..



+1

It's been a big gripe of mine when it comes to people who complain that their audio still sounds like ass after they've spent $xxx on a high end audio card



			
				trog100 said:
			
		

> as regards system load.. thats a bit meaningless with all the spare multicore horsepower most of us have..
> 
> in my "subjective" opinion my onboard sounds make very nice noises.. but i mostly run with special affects off.. they are there if i want em thow..
> 
> ...




I somewhat understnad your point . . . with more and more people running multicore processors, the CPU itself can easily handle the extra amount of load generated by audio processing - even in game.  And very true, also, that onboard chipsets have come a long way over the last few years.  Many of the newer offerings from C-Media, Realtek and the like are highly capable of good quality.

But, where the PCI solution still shines over the onboard chipsets, is one, it still takes that extra load off the CPU.  Two, a PCI card isn't as sensitive to EMI generated from high-powered CPUs, SYS MEM, NSBs and SSBs, and various other PCB componentes used on motherboards.  Also, dedicated audio cards have more components available to them for audio processing, components that are for the most part solely designed for audio processing.

Anyway you look at it, a mid-range to high end sound card will have superior sound quality to even the best onboard solutions;  one can use software to compare this, or even look at the datasheets - but a high quality set of speakers will let you hear the difference without needing to see it on paper . . . unless you're one of those that truly can not tell the difference, in which case, onboard will really suit you best.


But, in the performance ring - the X-Fi's reing supreme for performance audio processing, and we're not taling about the mythical 1-2FPS gain by going to a PCI card . . . we're talking how fast the card can process a file and send it to the speakers.  The reason there was so many issues with the X-Fi's right out of the gate, was that it was an entirelly new product, from the design board up.  It's the first time Creative have ever put a processing unit (not a chipset) onto an audio PCB - even the PCB architecture is entirelly different (although many people compare the looks to the Audigy series; it's a bad comparison - just because two cards "look" the same in pics, doesn't mean they are).  How many companies have a solid, "brand new" design product upon release?  But, anyhow, the X-Fi APU can process more voices, and work them faster than any other audio card on the market.  I can't think of any onboard solution that can handle 172 hardware voices, let alone the vast number of software voices the X-Fi is capable of handling - and still couldn't come anywhere near the processing speed of the X-Fi APU (just for comparison, the X-Fi APU is capable of more instructions per second than many of the early Pentium 4s were).  And besides, although a CPU can easily handle these audio tasks, a good chipset or APU can handle them quicker, as that's what it's designed to do - like comparing GPU output versus that same output through a CPU, which handles rendering tasks quicker?

When it comes to serious gaming, every edge counts - which is why many devout gamers will still shell out good cash for a high-end audio solution.  Many audiophiles can't stand the sound quality of onboard chipsets, and are willing to shell out good cash for high-end audio cards.


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## trog100 (Feb 20, 2008)

my onboard sounds are connected up to a half decent sound system.. one i spent many hours setting up two or three years back.. 

a decent five channel amp.. hi-fy specs not PC stuff.. two front left right tower cabinets each with four mid range drivers and one tweeter.. nine drivers in all.. 

one center speaker with two mid range drivers and one tweeter.. two similar rears again with two drivers and one tweeter each.. nine drivers in all..

two 100 watts subs.. one driver in each..

course i cant really use it cos i have neighbours.. he he he

this lot cost money.. now am i gonna waste the whole lot by penny pinching on a pissy soundcard.. nope i aint..

i like my good sounds.. but i am firmly convinced my current  onboard sounds are doing a good job.. if i wasnt i would bung back in one of the redundant creative cards i have in my junk pile..

my theory is a simple one.. sounds can only get so good.. the rest is in the imagination.. my imagination aint that active any more..

dont get me wrong.. what finally made me junk the audigy 4 was conflict denied ops..  i had no game sounds at all with it the creative drivers it didnt like.. .. sooo i did what i have been thinking about doing for ages.. finally once and for all junked it.. he he he

and it really aint any good reading specs or running sound card benches that say one card is better than the other.. if the rest of the system cant produce it and the ear cant hear it.. it might as well not be there..

i would never argue a good sound card isnt technically superior to onboard sounds.. simply that todays onboard is that good the separate card technical superiority is wasted..  a wee bit like many PC parts.. the extra performance potential is there but nothing uses it..

trog

ps.. but as i said earlier its all very "subjective".. we hear what we hear and we see what we see.. and the imagination really does play a large part.. fall for the hype and u really get the results..  its what subjectivity is all about.. reality is grim.. he he he


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## imperialreign (Feb 20, 2008)

well . . . really good reviews of current audio cards pit their playback quality against known audio files - using a software analyzer (and sometimes coupling with hardware analyzers) to rate the specific signal to roise ratio, frequency response, etc.

problem being, though - much like synthetic graphical benchmarks - you reach a point where we still see a difference based on analysis, but due to speaker limitations, limitations of each individuals specific ear "tuning" (what one person can actually hear over another), and so forth, we can't actually percieve the difference.  It's like, a synth graphical benchie will report back 100FPS, but we can only percieve 70FPS.  The data is there, but we can't perceive it.

But, to each his own - if your more than happy with onboard, by all means man.  Onboard solutions have come a very long way over the last couple of years, and truly do offer good quality playback; I can't and won't deny that.  Some people will be, and some people won't be happy with it.


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## tiys (Feb 20, 2008)

I didn't even know that Sound cards had ram


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## Tatty_One (Feb 20, 2008)

http://www.dh38.dial.pipex.com/spge/kb/kb199907202302.htm

Dont think it makes a lot of difference these days, when onboard ram did take off a bit in the nineties we were talking about system memory working at "tractor pulling a whale" speeds which perhaps did not help quality but with modern day DDR2 and 3 I think there is little difference, the important factor is that if a card has onboard RAM then you are paying more for it, even though the sound/specs may be no different to any other card.


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## btarunr (Feb 20, 2008)

Not all X-Fi cards have RAM. The ones without the CA-20K1 processor notably the Xtreme Audio and the Xtreme Audio PCI-E come with no memory. All cards with the CA-20K1 require at least 2MB of primary memory for storing the processor firmware and BIOS when powered. More than 2MB in those cards featuring the X-RAM technology.

Give my blog entry a reading if you want to learn more: http://btarunr-gd.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-2-mib-sdram-bank-on-x-fi-xtreme.html

Append: DaMulta, a collector will pay you a fortune if you auction that. Creative semiconductor parts from Malta are exotic as hell. I have a Made in Sunnyvale (USA) chip Creative-Ensoniq card, a guy from here offered me $300 for it. Not BS'ing. I didn't sell it......yet.


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## Black Panther (Feb 20, 2008)

DaMulta said:


> Not true, my awe 32 has ram. LOL but is ISA



Are my eyes playing tricks? That chip's manufactured in Malta? 

Wow... now I am wondering which factory...


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## btarunr (Feb 20, 2008)

Creative is Fab-less. Most likely they would have been manufactured by the largest player, ST Microelectronics.


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## trog100 (Feb 20, 2008)

wasnt the memory on the older high end cards there to store the built in midi soundbank.. in other words was it ram at all.. ??

back then midi software used to eat up to 60 % cpu power.. which was why i had such a card.. decent midi without bringing the rest of the system to a halt.. 

watching things grind to a halt just to play decent midi tunes seems a long long way in the past.. he he

trog


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## DaMulta (Feb 20, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Not all X-Fi cards have RAM. The ones without the CA-20K1 processor notably the Xtreme Audio and the Xtreme Audio PCI-E come with no memory. All cards with the CA-20K1 require at least 2MB of primary memory for storing the processor firmware and BIOS when powered. More than 2MB in those cards featuring the X-RAM technology.
> 
> Give my blog entry a reading if you want to learn more: http://btarunr-gd.blogspot.com/2007/09/what-2-mib-sdram-bank-on-x-fi-xtreme.html
> 
> Append: DaMulta, a collector will pay you a fortune if you auction that. Creative semiconductor parts from Malta are exotic as hell. I have a Made in Sunnyvale (USA) chip Creative-Ensoniq card, a guy from here offered me $300 for it. Not BS'ing. I didn't sell it......yet.



Say what?


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## btarunr (Feb 20, 2008)

Let's face it, everything was of better build quality before it moved to Taiwan. People from America, Mexico (Conexant), UK,, and places as far as Malta had awesome engineering jobs, all gone to Taiwan. My old CT-Ensoniq card made with chip made in USA and DAC made in Japan (AKM) even today makes an MP3 sound much richer than on the codec my motherboard shipped with (Realtek ALC 889A) while my SB Live! which had Taiwanese parts laid a big egg in three years' use.



DaMulta said:


> Say what?



Collectors' item, DaMulta, simple. There really do exist such people that buy Creative parts, You'll be able to sell that card at a good rate if properly marketed.

edit. TC wasn't UK


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## craigwhiteside (Feb 20, 2008)

i think what btarunr is trying to say, is that you have a collectors item, and people will pay lots of money


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## DaMulta (Feb 20, 2008)

So $4?


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## craigwhiteside (Feb 20, 2008)

or you might even get as much as $10


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## Graogrim (Feb 20, 2008)

trog100 said:


> wasnt the memory on the older high end cards there to store the built in midi soundbank.. in other words was it ram at all.. ??


Yes. RAM is RAM, regardless of how it is purposed. In many cases, it was possible to swap those old 30-pin SIMMs between the sound card and main computer memory.

Once wavetable hit the scene and took over from FM, MIDI was great, but personally I've always preferred tracker module music to MIDI anyway. It's both more flexible and more consistent, sounding the same on any system.


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## TechnicalFreak (Feb 20, 2008)

I have seen high-end* soundcards (mainly for producing music) with more memory than other soundcards. But then the price is starting from around 800$...


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## imperialreign (Feb 20, 2008)

TechnicalFreak said:


> I have seen high-end* soundcards (mainly for producing music) with more memory than other soundcards. But then the price is starting from around 800$...



the most common brand is EMU, which is now owned by Creative.  EMU were as much of computer audio pioneers as Creative were, they partnered up for a while, and then Creative bought them, along with all their technology rights and all.  Some of hte EMU design foundations were the basis for the late Audigy models and the X-Fi line; truth be told, the X-Fi audio processor is really an EMU audio processor that Creative had "fine-tuned" for the mainstream market.


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## Electric (Mar 2, 2008)

Most of the sound cards have ram ......they wont advertise as creative does with their Xram...Even the Xtreme music  has ram......


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## lemonadesoda (Mar 2, 2008)

You really DONT need RAM in a soundcard anymore. If you see it, its a marketing gimmick. Not that every sound card has a bit of RAM in the chip for processing sounds, but what we are talking about here is not a few K, but MBs for *holding* soundbanks.

RAM was very important 10 years ago, because the "sound chips" had only VERY limited quality on-chip sounds, e.g. MIDI soundset.  The RAM, like Creative AWE or Turtle Beach Tropez, allowed you to load a 8MB soundbank which was 100x better than the typical onboard synthesised rubbish. The onboard sound was usually made up by mixing a set of independent oscillators that mimicked a real sound. Whereas RAM banks could be used as samplers. A PC acting as a sampler was much cheaper than a standalone professional sampler at the time.

Today, the on-chip soundsets are WAY better. Hence, MIDI soundset is OK. However, it is now common practice NOT to use onboard soundbanks, but to have the sound data in the PC's main memory (as a sample) or for the CPU to generate the sound (as in synthesis).

If you go to PRO-AUDIO PC devices, you will see that the very expensive sound cards used in music production DO NOT HAVE RAM. (Anymore). What they have is very high quality A/D and D/A converters and DSPs.  The actual sounds "data" is generated by the CPU.

In a professional studio, PCs have replaced samplers and discrete synthesis modules.

So if professional musicans and producers DONT use sound cards with RAM, the we certainly dont need them either.


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## btarunr (Mar 2, 2008)

But now, with the X-RAM on some X-Fi cards, the use of the memory is nothing to do with MIDI synthesis, it's more of a direct sound-sample cache. An application can write data directly  on the X-RAM and aid EAX 5.0 acceleration. The data written here are the EAX 5 commands and raw sound-samples, supporting games write onto the X-RAM directly and chop down latencies significantly (and unburden the system of the storage/retrival/processing of wave samples when running such games....improved system performance.


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## Electric (Mar 2, 2008)

Xram wont give you any extra performance since most of us use core 2 systems.....It will give a performance increase if you have a older system such as a P4......


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## btarunr (Mar 2, 2008)

Electric said:


> Xram wont give you any extra performance since most of us use core 2 systems.....It will give a performance increase if you have a older system such as a P4......



Baseless. Core 2 systems + most of us? Where's the survey?

How does it increase performance for a P4? How is that even linked?

Let me help you understand:


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## Electric (Mar 3, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Baseless. Core 2 systems + most of us? Where's the survey?
> 
> How does it increase performance for a P4? How is that even linked?
> 
> Let me help you understand:



I have tested all the X-Fi cards......I don't need reviews to show that X-Ram has no effect.... I have played Crysis with a Xtreme Music and with a Gamer FPS(Core 2 PC)....Maybe the FPS gives 2FPS improvement thats all....For the price the FPS is tagged with going from Xtreme Music to FPS just to gain 2 FPS is a complete waste of $!   Why a P4 system will benefit? Core 2s Processing cycle is a lot advance than the P4, it even has a better cache(Which games takes advantage)..Playing on a P4 with Gamer FPS will give you ~6 FPS improvement......

EDIT=Quality wise all X-Fi cards excluding the Xtreme Audio and Elite Pro are the same.......


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## btarunr (Mar 3, 2008)

Electric said:


> I have tested all the X-Fi cards......I don't need reviews to show that X-Ram has no effect.... I have played Crysis with a Xtreme Music and with a Gamer FPS(Core 2 PC)....Maybe the FPS gives 2FPS improvement thats all....For the price the FPS is tagged with going from Xtreme Music to FPS just to gain 2 FPS is a complete waste of $!   Why a P4 system will benefit? Core 2s Processing cycle is a lot advance than the P4, it even has a better cache(Which games takes advantage)..Playing on a P4 with Gamer FPS will give you ~6 FPS improvement......
> 
> EDIT=Quality wise all X-Fi cards excluding the Xtreme Audio and Elite Pro are the same.......



Care to share the details? Crysis doesn't even proess EAX 5.0 HD under Vista, leave alone using X-RAM. Test the same with UT3, Doom3, Quake 4, Prey, etc and see for yourself. X-RAM aides EAX processing. It's not about performance increment by frames/second, todays games are least CPU dependent than ever before.


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## Electric (Mar 3, 2008)

If you find Xram useful on a core 2 system then by all means enjoy your Gamer FPS.....


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## Mussels (Mar 3, 2008)

Electric said:


> I have tested all the X-Fi cards......I don't need reviews to show that X-Ram has no effect.... I have played Crysis with a Xtreme Music and with a Gamer FPS(Core 2 PC)....Maybe the FPS gives 2FPS improvement thats all....For the price the FPS is tagged with going from Xtreme Music to FPS just to gain 2 FPS is a complete waste of $!   Why a P4 system will benefit? Core 2s Processing cycle is a lot advance than the P4, it even has a better cache(Which games takes advantage)..Playing on a P4 with Gamer FPS will give you ~6 FPS improvement......
> 
> EDIT=Quality wise all X-Fi cards excluding the Xtreme Audio and Elite Pro are the same.......



he isnt talking about fps. he IS talking about quality, and does crysis even use EAX? dunno about you, but even with HD audio lots of games (especially older EAX titles with EAX off) give distorted audio, or drop sounds entirely when the action gets going. X-ram with EAX titles allows more sound at once, which is a boost if you use surround sound - not for FPS, or for ALL games.

I dont care about it, because i use vista. I'd need creative alchemy and various other things, and i just cant be stuffed.


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## Electric (Mar 3, 2008)

Mussels said:


> he isnt talking about fps. he IS talking about quality, and does crysis even use EAX? dunno about you, but even with HD audio lots of games (especially older EAX titles with EAX off) give distorted audio, or drop sounds entirely when the action gets going. X-ram with EAX titles allows more sound at once, which is a boost if you use surround sound - not for FPS, or for ALL games.
> 
> I dont care about it, because i use vista. I'd need creative alchemy and various other things, and i just cant be stuffed.



No having X-Ram wont increase the quality of the audio....having 2 or 3mb Ram is more than enough to process audio.....Having X-Ram will only benefit in games.....That too is not effective when you run games on a core2!....Wont believe me..put a gamer and gamer FPS together and see!

EDIT=X-Ram is not hi performance ram!


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## btarunr (Mar 3, 2008)

The part where you talk about "core2" is crap. What is Core 2 anyway? It's just a multi-core processor. A processor that can that can handle multiple threads. Processing audio requires less RAM is true but the point is not about how much memory but latency. As it is the X-Fi processor suffers huge latency issues as described in several reviews. X-RAM is a storage for all the sound samples of a game in a given map so that the audio processor can handle the audio data quicker than if it were on the main-memory. Even a 50ms latency can have a huge impact on the output quality as with the known issues of bad EAX processing. X-RAM is NOT used for audio Processing, just to reduce latancies between accessing wave data from the main memory, let me put up that again:


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## Electric (Mar 3, 2008)

Do you have a Gamer FPS?


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## btarunr (Mar 3, 2008)

I've got Xtreme Gamer and Auzen X-Fi Prelude. The latter has the X-RAM, the former doesn't.


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## Electric (Mar 3, 2008)

Obviously the Prelude has more quality!...IT is the best card so far for games and movies.....hehe...all this time you were comparing the prelude and the normal Gamer? should have said so!.......Compare the Gamer to a Gamer FPS.....


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## btarunr (Mar 3, 2008)

Electric said:


> Obviously the Prelude has more quality!...IT is the best card so far for games and movies.....hehe...all this time you were comparing the prelude and the normal Gamer? should have said so!.......Compare the Gamer to a Gamer FPS.....



Bleh..you're confusing quality to latency. Latency = disproportionate EAX effect in an environment caused when the sound sample has to come from the main memory through a long path to the audio processor, causing a lag and the effect is produced a 'little late'. This causes bad output, not to be confused with output quality (sound quality).


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## Electric (Mar 3, 2008)

without testing cant say that Xram is useful in Gamer FPS....No First test both cards and see if you get performance/quality/delay/lag etc increase....Im 100% sure that you wont get any.....Maybe 1 or 2 Frames in a game!...Remember X-ram is not High Performance Ram......Having 2mb is enough to process audio including EAX in games! + The Prelude you have prevails over the Elite Pro and Xonar..It is the "BEST" card you can get on the market price and performance!

Test em and see......


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## btarunr (Mar 3, 2008)

Soon as imperialreign gets his Q6600 (and we come up with a similar system configuration), I'll do just that. I'll compare my Xtreme Gamer to his XG FP and show you the role of X-RAM. I could use my Auzen but you fail to understand the issue is not output quality as in clarity, it's output quality as in bad EAX processing due to increased latency due to lack of X-RAM and asynchrony of visual and audio outputs. so I'll keep my Auzen card out of the picture.


----------



## Electric (Mar 3, 2008)

What exactly is your point? and how can you prove it?


----------



## btarunr (Mar 3, 2008)

Point: X-RAM reduces latency with EAX processing by acting as sound cache. I will prove it.


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## Kursah (Mar 3, 2008)

Electric, are you trying to cause a flame-war here? I know Beta fairly well, and he doesn't state without backing it up! You'll soon see...but what exactly is your point man? Glad you spent so much on so many different cards and all, I'm sure in a more professional manner your knowlege would be much appreciated and maybe nice to be donated to the X-FI support thread here...but you two dragging this in the same circle over and over...I want to see some good facts and results out of page 3, not your bantering dammit! 

I'm running an ExtremeMusic, and it's fine for what I need...but I didn't get it for FPS...I could really care less about that fact, my games play great and my sound is pretty damn good. I know I don't have the best card out there, nor do I need it...but a better understanding of how my card works, what it has to work with and such is nice stuff to know. I just hope this thread's filled with more than a few lines of bantering and pointless arguements when I return!


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## beyond_amusia (Mar 3, 2008)

I bought an Audigy at Wal-Mart and even though the box bragged abt EAX support all my game audio was stuttering with EAX enabled, so I reverted to my on-board Realtek... Sounds just fine, even with EAX enabled.


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## Kursah (Mar 3, 2008)

beyond_amusia said:


> I bought an Audigy at Wal-Mart and even though the box bragged abt EAX support all my game audio was stuttering with EAX enabled, so I reverted to my on-board Realtek... Sounds just fine, even with EAX enabled.



I never have had an Audigy, the only reason I got my X-Fi was due to the fact the sound chip on my P5B went south and I needed sound...a few guys here recommended the X-Fi XtremeMusic for my budget and it's worked out nicely.

Now I have this DFI that has the Realtek 8885 or something like that, which is supposed to be a pretty decent onboard HD sound chip, but I've yet to use it. I may just to compare it with my X-Fi one day out of boredome though! I know that onboard can't beat an add-in, but for most, and like I did for years, on-board is proven good enough and getting a lot better.


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## EastCoasthandle (Mar 3, 2008)

Back in the day the 2 best sound cards that I ever came across was A3D (which was decades ahead of Sound Blaster) and Yamaha sound cards (which were more geared towards musicians).
A3D went into bankruptcy in litigation (lawsuits between them and Sound Blaster).  Sometimes in 2000 Sound Blaster bought them.  I have no idea why Yamaha stop making sound cards.


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## Electric (Mar 3, 2008)

My point is if you take a Xtreme Music which is ~90$ and a Gamer Fatal1ty which is ~145$,spending more on the gamer is a waste where to my experience it gives only about 2 FPS improvement in a game...There are NO lags or delays in the Xtreme Music......The S quality and gameplay experience are the same on both cards! Spending 90$ on the music and modding it will own the Faltil1ty!
The only differnece between those two cards is the 64mb X-Ram which the Fatal1ty has....So jut to gain 2 FPS in a game is it worth to spend about 50$ more?


----------



## imperialreign (Mar 3, 2008)

Electric said:


> My point is if you take a Xtreme Music which is ~90$ and a Gamer Fatal1ty which is ~145$,spending more on the gamer is a waste where to my experience it gives only about 2 FPS improvement in a game...There are NO lags or delays in the Xtreme Music......The S quality and gameplay experience are the same on both cards! Spending 90$ on the music and modding it will own the Faltil1ty!
> The only differnece between those two cards is the 64mb X-Ram which the Fatal1ty has....So jut to gain 2 FPS in a game is it worth to spend about 50$ more?




Just my thoughts on an argument that seems to have flared out of nowhere . . .

you're looking at "X-RAM" the wrong way . . . it doesn't give one a performance benefit of 1-2 FPS, hell you'r lucky to see maybe 0.5 FPS from the addition of the RAM.  The FPS benefit that Creative advertises comes more from the fact that the X-Fi cards use a dedicated audio processor instead of an audio chipset (like everyone else on the market).  A dedicated processor can handle audio tasks hundreds of times faster than a chipset is capable of.

As to the benefits of the RAM - for starters, all of the higher end X-Fi cards use some high quality DRAM modules to begin with, in various amounts ranging from 64MB down to 2MB.  The benefit of the RAM is such that, whatever file is currently being processed can be *stored on the card* instead of it having to be swapped back and forth to SYS MEM.  When one stops to consider the architecture of the X-Fi data BUS itself, every component on the card, from the APU to the DAC has access to that audio file at any given time, through the use of a data transport.  Once a component is given the 'OK' to access that file, the transport pulls the file to allow the component access to it, which then processes the file, and moves it back into the data BUS where it's then accessed by the next component.  This design allows for thousands of simultaneous audio streams, as the processing is done "in house" instead of the information having to be swapped back and forth with the SYS MEM - which each swap calls for 2 interupt requests of the PCI BUS, one to send the info to MEM, and another to call it back.  The more MEM on board the audio card, the more audio processes the APU is capable of orchestrating.






A typical audio card has all of it's components organized into a line, which severely limits the number of audio streams that the card is capable of handling.


The use of the onboard DRAM isn't solely to load ingame audio files into MEM (although, this is an advertised feature, if game developers write to support this function) - which *would* give you a 1-2 FPS increase, but instead, it's primary function is for temporary storage of works in progress, which significantly reduces the amount of traffic on the PCI BUS.  The real performance you actually hear, though, isn't measureable by FPS.  



Also, although on a spec sheet it would appear that all the X-Fi cards, except the Elite Pro, have the same playback quality, that's not the case.  SNR is a generic specification used for audio cards nowadays, and most reviews of audio equipment do not go into great detail as to the nitty-gritty of audio quality . . . asides from, how many review sites actually follow the same standard of testing, or use the same audio file for testing?  The final quality of the playback is more dependant on both the components used on the card (and the lower range cards tend to use cheaper quality components), and the enviornment in which the card is installed (sandwiching a card between two 8800 GTSes in SLI will cause degregaded quality that might not necessarily show up in testing).


----------



## Electric (Mar 3, 2008)

For your information  64MB Xram DOES improve the frame rate by a very very small amount! 

I post according to my experience!  Your technical data is correct! But in real life technical data/Specs wont do you any good(regarding Audio)! I may not be as good as you in technical mumbo jumbo... hell no... but i do know which  is better and which  is worse.
that my friend, i can guarantee you....

The Fact Still remains that having X-ram is not worth for the price the cards which has X-ram is tagged with! I repeat Xram is not performance ram! Having 2 or 3mb ram in a X-Fi is more than enough to process audio.........

Yes mentioning SNR is bull...Why the Elite Pro prevails over the rest of the X-Fi?
It has different architecture....Basically Elite Pro uses better DACs and OPAMPs........

So going from a card such as Xtreme Music to Fatal1ty is a complete waste of $!


----------



## imperialreign (Mar 3, 2008)

Electric said:
			
		

> For your information  64MB Xram DOES improve the frame rate by a very very small amount!



as I said, maybe 0.5 FPS with newer CPUs, older single cores maybe 1 FPS.



			
				Electric said:
			
		

> I post according to my experience!  Your technical data is correct! But in real life technical data/Specs wont do you any good! I may not be as good as you in technical mumbo jumbo... hell no... but i do know which  is better and which  is worse.
> that my friend, i can guarantee you....
> 
> The Fact Still remains that having X-ram is not worth for the price the cards which has X-ram is tagged with! I repeat Xram is not performance ram! Having 2 or 3mb ram in a X-Fi is more than enough to process audio.........
> ...



2MB onboard offers near no performance benefits in processing.  Keep in mind that the card utilizes an audio processing unit, and therefore needs a BIOS for the SYS to be able to communicate with it.  On a card only stouting 2MB, about half of that is used to store the BIOS for the APU, leaving no viable space for audio processing.

The key about the onboard RAM is not for increasing SYS performance, but increasing the number of audio voices the card is processing at any given moment - which, conjunctively, is why the Xtreme Gamer Fatal1ty Pro and the Elite Pro can handle twice the number of audio voices as the Xtreme Music can.  Also to take into account, the Fatal1ty and Elite cards utilizes higher end components over their mid-range and lower end bretheren.  And to get nit-picky over it, the Elite Pro is an entirelly different PCB architecture to any of the other X-Fi cards.  TBH, it shares more in common with the Auzentech Prelude than it does either the Fatal1ty or Xtreme Music.

one must remember, also, that the X-RAM is not the largest difference between the Xtreme Music and the Fatal1ty.  There are more advertised differences than that.  The Xtreme Music is a great, all-around card for it's cost; but, it's not as dedicated to gaming as the Fatal1ty card is.  In contrast, the Elite Pro is the best sounding X-Fi card, but it's not intended for heavy gaming, either.  The Fatal1ty can handle more voices and process them quicker than the Xtreme Music, and the faster an audio file goes from source to playback means an increase in your reaction time.  

That, right there, is the biggest difference between *ALL* of the X-Fi cards - how quickly said card can convert an audio file from source to playback.  This is why the cards, overall, are targeted more at the gaming community as compared to the audiophile community (with exception to the Elite Pro).


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## Electric (Mar 3, 2008)

These are the differences in my point of view!

Questions about X-Fi

question no.1
would i be able to tell the difference? ----- YES

question no.2
will general stuff like avi files,dvd's,mp3,etc sound noticibly different or just games that support high sound quality settings? ----- ALL OF EM!

question no.3
will it be worth it? ----- down to your last penny lad!

question no.4
is it really really really really worth it? ----- like a new revelation sonny!

question no.5
is X-Ram useful? ----- Not Really, only on few games and OpenAL based sound(ie: Prey, Dirt, etc).

question no.6
which X-Fi has X-Ram? ----- FYI, all X-Fi has Ram on it (XMusic has 2MB, XGamer has around 4 to 6MB, while XGFatal1ty, XFatal1ty, XElitePro have 64MB)

question no.7
what is the differences between X-Fis? ----- Ok.. i've made a quick reference on that:
X-Fi Xtreme Audio - Accessories for your barbecue grill or you can use it as a kick ass keychain.
X-Fi Xtreme Gamer, Music, Gamer Fatal1ty, Platinum - sounds the same, plus minus some features.
X-Fi Elite Pro - sounds better since it has a slight difference architecture, and better DAC, Opamps, and Capacitor sizes.
X-Fi Prelude - sounds even better than the rest, since it uses Auzentech technology for sound processing combined with X-Fi chipset.

question no.8
what is this modding i kept hearing of? ----- X-Fi uses cheap, low performing, and unstable components to suppress the selling price, that way we all get cheaper price for x-fi, but also by doing that, it caps out the true potential of your X-Fi.

question no.9
why on earth would i mod my uber expensive card and risk breaking it? ----- too bad my friend, it does wonders to your ears.

question no.10
which X-Fi can be modded? ----- all except Xtreme Audio and Xtreme Gamer.

question no.11
modding it will void my warranty, is there anyway i could have the same audio quality but without voiding any warranty? ----- Get Auzentech X-Fi Prelude.

question no.12
is there any card better than X-Fi? ----- most certainly yes, but not in gaming.

question no.13
do i need the front panel thingy? ----- actually i wouldn't recommend you the front panel.... it degrades the audio quality, if somehow you need it for additional headphone plug, get Plantronics Switcher instead.

question no.14
what are the differences between Xtreme Gamer and the other X-Fi? ----- half height cards, no A/D Link, and cannot be modded.

question no.15
i'm a little low on cash, would Xtreme Audio be enough? ----- actually yes if your budget really cannot be compromised, but i wouldn't recommend you doing so, that card isn't actually an X-Fi....

question no.16
Hey man! your X-Fi sucks! it doesn't work in Vista! ----- try latest driver for X-Fi, it helps a lot... and actually, almost all soundcards are not working perfectly under vista.

question no.17
get a life man! you know too much! ----- i have a life, a great one, if not because of you people keep asking about "is X-Fi really worth it?"


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## btarunr (Mar 3, 2008)

Electric said:


> These are the differences in my point of view!
> 
> question no.1
> would i be able to tell the difference? ----- YES



Between what?



Electric said:


> question no.5
> is X-Ram useful? ----- Not Really, only on few games and OpenAL based sound(ie: Prey, Dirt, etc).



So? That doesn't explain how X-RAM is a bad technology. How many games actually used NVidia and ATI's vendor specific OpenGL extensions (TruForm / Distance fog) but they were good bits of technology which cannot be written off. 



Electric said:


> question no.6
> which X-Fi has X-Ram? ----- FYI, all X-Fi has Ram on it (XMusic has 2MB, XGamer has around 4 to 6MB, while XGFatal1ty, XFatal1ty, XElitePro have 64MB)



INCORRECT. The Xtreme Gamer and Xtreme Music use the same 2 MiB banks made by either Samsung or Hynix. It's just the XG-FP, PFC, EP, Az XFP that come with 64 MB of memory made by Micron. Details of which are in our club.



Electric said:


> question no.7
> what is the differences between X-Fis? ----- Ok.. i've made a quick reference on that:
> X-Fi Xtreme Audio - Accessories for your barbecue grill or you can use it as a kick ass keychain.
> X-Fi Xtreme Gamer, Music, Gamer Fatal1ty, Platinum - sounds the same, plus minus some features.
> ...



Let's face it, you're here to troll.


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## Electric (Mar 3, 2008)

The difference between the previous cards before X-Fi n onboard! ok btarunr you enjoy your X-Ram i will say no more!


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## imperialreign (Mar 3, 2008)

Electric said:


> The difference between the previous cards before X-Fi n onboard! ok btarunr you enjoy your X-Ram i will say no more!



X-Fi onboard used on a very few, selective motherboards, only make use of a Creative chipset . . . the same chipset used on the Xtreme Audio cards.  A motherboard could not truly make use of the X-Fi APU, as there wouldn't be enough space, really . . . it would require the same amount of space as a typical southbridge chipset, and would also need to impliment a heatsink + a DAC somewhere in it's vicinity.

Again, I iterate, the onbnoard RAM of a X-Fi card is meant more to aide audio processing.  Only on the 64MB models would it allow for audio files to be loaded directly to the card, and only if the game developers implimented this technology.  As of this point, only a few games do.

The "64MB X-RAM" is a marketing point of the Fatal1ty and the Elite Pro cards, because these are the only 2 models that ship with 64MB of DRAM.  The Xtreme Music typically had 32MB, either a single 32, or two 16MB chips.  The Xtreme gamer typically ships with 4MB - early models only stouted 2MB, and some of the later revisions packed 8mb.  The Xtreme Audio cards make use of 0MB, as they don't utilize an APU, and the Creative chipset isn't designed to function with onboard MEM.


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## Mussels (Mar 3, 2008)

Electric said:


> These are the differences in my point of view!
> 
> Questions about X-Fi
> 
> ...


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## btarunr (Mar 3, 2008)

Oh the X-Fi Prelude is 192 kHz too, that apart Auzentech is a great brand. The best performing (gaming) card though is the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Professional (long name) but the best sounding cards would definitely be any of the Auzens. The X-Meridean died prematurely. Talks doing rounds suggest Creative handed them the X-Fi technology if they cannibalized the X-Meridean just as Creative cannibalized the Zen Vision: M for making an X-Fi Apple iPod dock... ....all talk though. I would trade my X-Fi Prelude for a X-Meridean. Been begging current owners on several AV forums...no luck.


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## Mussels (Mar 3, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Oh the X-Fi Prelude is 192 kHz too, that apart Auzentech is a great brand. The best performing (gaming) card though is the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Fatal1ty Professional (long name) but the best sounding cards would definitely be any of the Auzens. The X-Meridean died prematurely. Talks doing rounds suggest Creative handed them the X-Fi technology if they cannibalized the X-Meridean just as Creative cannibalized the Zen Vision: M for making an X-Fi Apple iPod dock... ....all talk though. I would trade my X-Fi Prelude for a X-Meridean. Been begging current owners on several AV forums...no luck.



prelude is not 192KHz, go check auzentechs site.
my X-plosion only has one thing i miss: a working EQ under vista. Bass control just kinda fails for headphone use. (Creative only added this for x-fi cards in vista... yet another thing they ditched to boost sales for x-fi)


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## btarunr (Mar 3, 2008)

Mussels said:


> prelude is not 192KHz



Oh yes, it's on the box too. Strange, the CA20K1 processor is designed for 192 KHz analog output.


----------



## TechnicalFreak (Mar 3, 2008)

Are all the new soundcards for PC same as for modern Mac's - PCI-Express?


----------



## Electric (Mar 3, 2008)

Mussels said:


> Compared to what? a soundblaster 16? X-fi prelude? my auzentech X-plosion? Will it be for the better? not always. generic claims like this belong in marketing.


Do you think one is that stupid to compare it to a soundblaster 16? Have common sense..Im afraid i cant help you with that
It will have a difference compared to the previous cards like Audigy.....That too is all about your ears...If you cant notice the difference then im sorry.......




> Read my point above. The crystalliser sounds like shit on my headphones, and thats the only thing that x-fi has over my audigy 4.


Yes for most people Crystallizer is complete garbage......But is the Crystallizer the only thing about X-Fi? No i dont think so.....
If you haven't noticed X-Fi is famous for its Advanced HD 5.0, can record via ASIO in Stereo and many more......No point telling you




> Really? you mean i can throw away my X-plosion and audigy 4, and buy one of those? someone with  a $400 card from last gen will do it and not care!?!?
> Again, generic claims like this belong in big letters on the box. you'll only start a flame war pulling this crap on a forum.


No no one is telling you to throw away anything.....The X-plosion will prevail in some areas but certainly not the Audigy 4!




> Really? the auzens arent any better? are we talking EAX 5.0 games only, or actually... every game? I'd like to see you beat the other auzentechs, since the overall quality is LOWER on the x-fi prelude than the other auzens. X-fi prelude is 24 bit, 96KHz - even the older audigy 4 i have is 24 bit 192Khz.


You measure Audio like 24 bit xxxKhz bla bla?? Good for you.....You are very knowledgeable...
This is Audio you cant measure audio by numbers!
X-Fi cards are the best for gaming..proven fact around the world!




> front panel thing is useless for most. its just creative not wanting to let you use the front jacks on your case to make more money.


Totally agreed!




> i've heard they use a different chipset, and do not support alchmey as well. havent verified this, its just what i heard.


All X-Fi excluding the Xtreme Audio uses the same chip!





> i've never seen one not work. hell, even AC97 realtek cards and SB live 4.0 work in vista if you try. its EAX that doesnt work in vista, because creative want to force everyone to buy an X-fi and use alchemy.


No one is forcing you......EAX works perfectly with Alchemy.....Alchemy is given free to X-Fi cards!
If you dont like X-Fi dont bash the product! No one said anything about your Auzentech? I help a lot of people regarding audio but when i cant help with your setup,Im sorry but please do shove it up your own @ss GeeZ........


----------



## imperialreign (Mar 3, 2008)

Electric said:
			
		

> Do you think one is that stupid to compare it to a soundblaster 16? Have common sense..Im afraid i cant help you with that
> It will have a difference compared to the previous cards like Audigy.....That too is all about your ears...If you cant notice the difference then im sorry.......



The difference with a X-Fi card isn't just about the audio quality over the Audigy lineup.  The architecture of the card also allows for faster audio processing than the Audigy did, and can support more audio voices as well.




			
				Electric said:
			
		

> Yes for most people Crystallizer is complete garbage......But is the Crystallizer the only thing about X-Fi? No i dont think so.....
> If you haven't noticed X-Fi is famous for its Advanced HD 5.0, can record via ASIO in Stereo and many more......No point telling you



The Crystallzier feature is actually great for it's intended marketing point - it increases the audio depth of compressed audio files.  This feature is marketed for those who make use of a lot of mp3s, etc, and is also quite adept with gaming audio (seeing as how 95% of game audio is compressed to begin with).

Although, use the Crystallizer feature on high quality audio files, and you actually hurt the final quality of the playback.




			
				Electric said:
			
		

> No no one is telling you to throw away anything.....The X-plosion will prevail in some areas but certainly not the Audigy 4!



. . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . .  . . . 



			
				Electric said:
			
		

> You measure Audio like 24 bit xxxKhz bla bla?? Good for you.....You are very knowledgeable...
> This is Audio you cant measure audio by numbers!
> X-Fi cards are the best for gaming..proven fact around the world!



True that the X-Fis are the best for gaming purposes.

Audio, like any other form of digital media, can easily be measured by numbers - if you have the equipment to do so, and the knowledge to make proper use of that equipment.  The problem being with the audio realm, is that there is more "grey area" than if we were comparing graphics cards.  Besides, though, gener rule of thumb is that the higher the sample rate (i.e. 96kHz vs 44kHz), the better the playback quality.





			
				Electric said:
			
		

> All X-Fi excluding the Xtreme Audio uses the same chip!



and which cip might that be?  Are you refering to the Cirrus Logic DAC on the card; the OPAMPs?  Or are you referring to the audio processor?

If you are referring to the DAC - you're wrong.  The Elite Pro does not make use of the same DAC found on the other X-Fi cards, and neither does the Xtreme Audio.

But, if we want to get to your original quote:



			
				Electric said:
			
		

> question no.14
> what are the differences between Xtreme Gamer and the other X-Fi? ----- half height cards, no A/D Link, and cannot be modded.



wrong, wrong . . . and wrong.

The XG and the early XA were both "half PCB" designs, and there are some revisions of the XG card that do have an A/D link.  All X-Fi branded cards can be modded to improve sound quality, but for the average consumer this is beyond their scope of ability and care of implimentation.



			
				Elctric said:
			
		

> No one is forcing you......EAX works perfectly with Alchemy.....Alchemy is given free to X-Fi cards!
> If you dont like X-Fi dont bash the product! No one said anything about your Auzentech? I help a lot of people regarding audio but when i cant help with your setup,Im sorry but please do shove it up your own @ss GeeZ........



EAX does not work perfectly as of yet with the ALchemy drivers, and better yet, the EAX playback that one does recieve from the ALchemy drivers *IS NOT* the same playback one would hear if running WIN XP.  The driver set is a workaround to a OS hurdle that prevents hardware acceleration capabilites of the cards.


----------



## btarunr (Mar 3, 2008)

Sample Rate related capabilities do matter, especially if you have like say a high def audio source (8 channels, 48 kHz / 2 channels, would imply 48 * 4 = 192 kHz) Blu Ray discs have an audio output rate of just that. A recording company can choose to use 8 channel audio too on Blu Ray discs.

Electric, mind your language. We don't insult eachother here.


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## Jimmy 2004 (Mar 3, 2008)

I can see this thread quickly descending into a flame war - try to ease off the arguments otherwise the thread will be closed.


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## Mussels (Mar 3, 2008)

btarunr said:


> Oh yes, it's on the box too. Strange, the CA20K1 processor is designed for 192 KHz analog output.



well the website says otherwise. ones wrong, i make no claims as to which one.

anyways i dont really care, i was just throwing in what i know - and obviously some of its innacurate.


----------



## imperialreign (Mar 4, 2008)

Mussels said:


> well the website says otherwise. ones wrong, i make no claims as to which one.
> 
> anyways i dont really care, i was just throwing in what i know - and obviously some of its innacurate.





s'all good man, not really your fault, Creative doesn't keep up all that well with their advertised claims on their website and packaging.  The Fatal1ty card still comes in the same packaging they were using a couple of years ago.


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## Electric (Mar 4, 2008)

imperialreign said:
			
		

> Audio, like any other form of digital media, can easily be measured by numbers - if you have the equipment to do so, and the knowledge to make proper use of that equipment. The problem being with the audio realm, is that there is more "grey area" than if we were comparing graphics cards. Besides, though, gener rule of thumb is that the higher the sample rate (i.e. 96kHz vs 44kHz), the better the playback quality.



generally yes it's correct... but not as simple as it sez....while it is very easy to measure with numbers, it's not very easy to measure the exact measurement

Take a Example!
if you have 2 different setup having exactly the same score in measurement...... i bet the sound itself wont be the same to your ears
And imperialreign i said the Crystallizer is complete garbage for most ppl......There are some who likes it. Im one of those ppl......

And no modding the XG is a waste as it cant be modded like a Xtreme music,FPS etc.....

And i was talking about the EMU20K1 Processor not DACs and OPAMPs.....


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## imperialreign (Mar 4, 2008)

Electric said:


> generally yes it's correct... but not as simple as it sez....while it is very easy to measure with numbers, it's not very easy to measure the exact measurement
> 
> Take a Example!
> if you have 2 different setup having exactly the same score in measurement...... i bet the sound itself wont be the same to your ears
> ...




<sigh>

as I stated before, rating audio output is quite a capable measurement of a cards abilities, if one knows what one is doing - but the "grey area" I refered to earlier, but didn't go into much detail about, is the fact that most review sites have very different setups, and on top of that, there is no "defacto" baseline to use for comparison (meaning, there isn't one or a few agreed upon audio files of a certain set quality) as there is in the gaming realm.  To make matters more confusing, the audio manufacturers themselves use their own means of testing, and don't always share their methods either.  Even more to complicate the matter, the age of the PCB components themselves have a major affect on the playback quality - of specific note, the audio capacitors used on any PCB; and if in the review/testing world, an audio card is shipped to a reviewer, who then tests and ships to the next reviewer, there will be a major difference between the quality heard by the first reviewer and the quality heard by the last; and the biggest grey area of all: one's own capability to hear audio frequencies.  Two exactly identical testing rigs built with 100% identical components will sound exactly the same to one person - but someone else will swear it sounds different, and they'd be correct.

As to the rest of the comments . . . I recall you stating the Crystallizer was 





> . . . complete garbage . . .


, but now you state you also use it - nothing wrong with that, as it truly makes a difference in playback quality in game . . . but, backpedaling an argument like that is kinda frowned upon

I still can't say that modding a standard XG (not a Fatal1ty) is a waste, as the capacitors are of fubar quality, as well as the OPAMPs (like the majority of the X-Fi lineup).  Due to how mass produced the Creative cards are, I can reason with them having to purchase mid-range components for PCB use . . . if they purchased top dollar components like Auzen and ASUS do, Creative's prices would be as expensive as their competitors - but, then again, the sound quality of the X-Fi cards would dominate the market, with only real competition coming from Auzentech.

You have to keep in mind, the XG audio card is designed specifically to target a single purpose - and that is superior audio quality and performance for gaming.  The card is not marketed as being a major contender for typical audio listening and movies (whereas the XA card is meant to take that role - and both cards are priced the same, go figure . . .), it's not marketed at all for audio creation roles.  The only X-Fi card that tops the XG in both performance _and_ audio quality _and_ is built for basic audio creation work is the Fatal1ty.


and that's it - I'm done with this discussion and don't intend to drag it out further.


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## btarunr (Mar 4, 2008)

Just to add, the XG and XG FP come with the same capacitors, DAC.


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## niko084 (Mar 4, 2008)

francis511 said:


> I was reading a review of a sound card the other day and the guy said he saw a fps increase with a generic 5.1 sound card !!!



Very common even with a cheap card... More so on a weak system.


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## Electric (Mar 4, 2008)

Your are wrong imperialreign If you take a Auzentech card with 24bit 96Khz and a Creative card with the same 24bit 96Khz they WONT sound the same!!!! You cant always go looking at the Specs!

Audio cant be measured looking at the specs! If you hear a difference then you can see a difference!......

For example....To my experience i categorize sound cards like this....

Games=X-Fi
Movies=X-Fi,Auzentech,Xonar
Music=ESI Juli@,Onkyo


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## imperialreign (Mar 4, 2008)

someone else reading this thread, as I'm truly curious here - please tell me where I inferred that two _*different*_ audio cards by two _*different*_ manufacturers rated at the _*exact*_ same quality would sound the same


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## Electric (Mar 4, 2008)

Ok sorry about that but the thing mussels told was 24bit 192Khz Audigy 4 is better than 24bit 96khz Prelude(Indirectly)......



> since the overall quality is LOWER on the x-fi prelude than the other auzens. X-fi prelude is 24 bit, 96KHz - even the older audigy 4 i have is 24 bit 192Khz.


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## dj_dn (Mar 4, 2008)

I wish eax would just die so we can move to a better and open format.

Oh by the way I'm using a x-plosion and it sounds ok. But for cd play back i will allways turn back to my trusty cd player (Its a rotel). Who cares of all the specs when it sounds like crap at the end.

PS. The sound card industry is selling 'high end' sound cards to an mp3 listening generation, its a lost battle at the start!

Edit: Now this is a soundcard : USB DAC, this will place my x-plosion for music listening, and ill get my self a prelude for movies and gaming but ill have to change my Op-Amps first to some Burr-Brown's


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## Mussels (Mar 4, 2008)

Electric said:


> Ok sorry about that but the thing mussels told was 24bit 192Khz Audigy 4 is better than 24bit 96khz Prelude(Indirectly)......



no... i said that the newer product (according to the website) had inferior specs to the older one. I never stated which was the better card in regards to that.


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## Mussels (Mar 4, 2008)

dj_dn said:


> I wish eax would just die so we can move to a better and open format.
> 
> Oh by the way I'm using a x-plosion and it sounds ok. But for cd play back i will allways turn back to my trusty cd player (Its a rotel). Who cares of all the specs when it sounds like crap at the end.
> 
> ...



imo the x-plosion sounds great as long as you can tweak bass/treble on the speaker end of things. even after all this time, creative still has the best bass/treble boosters in their software... who needs a 10 stage EQ when 2 sliders does it all better?


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## Graogrim (Mar 4, 2008)

> and if in the review/testing world, an audio card is shipped to a reviewer, who then tests and ships to the next reviewer, there will be a major difference between the quality heard by the first reviewer and the quality heard by the last


Maybe I'm misunderstanding what's being said here. It sounds like a claim that a sound card's audio quality will massively deteriorate merely in the course of removing it from one system, shipping it elsewhere, and installing it in a different system. Then repeating that process a few more times. Is that a fair assessment? I'm not really interested in getting involved in the conversation at large here, but my bogometer is tripping extra hard on this particular claim. I mean really, who's putting this kind of voodoo out there for people to take seriously?

Sure I can buy that faulty or *significantly* aged board components can influence sound quality. Maybe even perceptibly. I expect it. But subjective environmental changes aside, as long as it isn't mishandled in the process simply moving a sound card between systems will not change its absolute quality.


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## imperialreign (Mar 4, 2008)

Graogrim said:


> Maybe I'm misunderstanding what's being said here. It sounds like a claim that a sound card's audio quality will massively deteriorate merely in the course of removing it from one system, shipping it elsewhere, and installing it in a different system. Then repeating that process a few more times. Is that a fair assessment? I'm not really interested in getting involved in the conversation at large here, but my bogometer is tripping extra hard on this particular claim. I mean really, who's putting this kind of voodoo out there for people to take seriously?
> 
> Sure I can buy that faulty or *significantly* aged board components can influence sound quality. Maybe even perceptibly. I expect it. But subjective environmental changes aside, as long as it isn't mishandled in the process simply moving a sound card between systems will not change its absolute quality.



and in general - you're 100% correct on this.  But the capacitors that Creative has employed for the X-Fi cards (Jamicons) are notorious for prematurely failing.  That's not say that they're crap components, as they're fairly decent for audio quality use, but they have a nasty reputation for leaking and degrading very quickly.  Some users have complained about the capacitors leaking within a month of ownership, some start leaking within 6 monhts to a year or better.  Leaking isn't as much of a problem now that the APUs come with an installed heat sink on them, which is what aggrivated capacitor failure - but, they still degrade quickly, and if the card is run through an extensive testing session in a hot case packing thermo-nuclear components, they'll degrade even quicker.  Auzentech and ASUS don't have as much of a problem - but there will still be a marginal difference between first review and last, as audio capacitors sound their best before "burn in" time (which can range anywhere from 25 hours or more, depending on the brand of capacitor).


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## Graogrim (Mar 6, 2008)

That sounds like a build flaw (ala PNY's Ti4200 fiasco) by way of defective parts.


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## imperialreign (Mar 6, 2008)

Graogrim said:


> That sounds like a build flaw (ala PNY's Ti4200 fiasco) by way of defective parts.



yes and no - I mean, Creative chose capacitors that do have good quality in use, but the capacitors themselves are cheaply made and therefore age and leak prematurely.

But, considering how massively produced the X-Fis are, Creative, IMO, went with bulk orders of the capacitors for _all_ uses on _all_ of their cards, when, TBH, with audio cards you would want to see a few different brands on the card.  The are capacitors that are meant for filtering audio, and capacitors that are meant for filtering power - and an audio card requires both kinds.


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## btarunr (Mar 7, 2008)

Some believe the capacitors leaked/damaged because of the over-heating of the APU. A heated IC does cause overloading of other components such as the power conditioning circuitry.  This was corrected by the heatsink on the APU which though didn't 'cool' the APU as such, kept it down to acceptable operational conditions.


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