Nothing new here. Creative's shit drivers (and cards). And to a lesser extent, pos vista. People just need to quit buying that crap and let creative go under. They can't make anything worth a shit (and never have in the audio arena).
Hell, I was even stupid enough to buy an X-Fi and it died. They use the cheapest, chinese crap capacitors known to man, but charge top dollar. I hope they all rot in a shallow grave.

That's what I call real xmas spirit, gurustud, thanks for your comment
<sarcasm off>
Actually this ALchemy release supports additional 42 games that were not supported previously, that's according to the release notes anyway.

Fixes:

* Enables the DirectSound3D game audio to be processed by your Sound Blaster X-Fi to deliver EAX effects, 3D audio spatialization, sample rate conversion and hardware audio mixing. Without this, most DirectSound3D games will be reduced to stereo output without any EAX effects.
* Supports an additional 42 DirectSound3D games.

Vista is not great but it is there so I think Creative does the right thing supporting it, or what is your point? ALchemy works fine for me..

That's a lot better.

Only those who own a X-Fi card can judge on whether it's worth it or not. I say it is. For others, piss and moan is the way to go. No Realtek codec can come even close to what a X-Fi can deliver.

Speaking of drivers and people accusing it of being "complicated", well if people are smart enough to "flash their video BIOS" and do volt-mods and over-clock, the Creative X-Fi driver isn't a complicated thing, really.

Point is that it has already taken this long for these particular dirvers, still faulty hardware, XP drivers are STILL very buggy (especially x64), which, all makes a nice, annoying and functionally worthless audio solution at times. I've never had such problems with a card before, and I'm really glad I never owned an audigy. I probably would've killed someone.

P.S. You don't want to see my xmas spirit. It involves dreaming of millions of dead christians.

Very Buggy? Please exemplify using two of the most significant ones? Where are the bugs?

btarunrVery Buggy? Please exemplify using two of the most significant ones? Where are the bugs?

rofl, you have to be kidding me. The internet is chock full of them. When I went searching, I found post after post of the same problems as mine and some really crazy ones. Besides crashing and losing settings on every restart, the inaccurate volume level depending on distance was really annoying. I could hear stuff exploding far away, but could barely hear people shooting at me 20 ft away.

You're talking release-drivers.

That was corrected in the August 2006 driver.

That's the whole problem: People splash mud onto Creative when it rolls out bugs, but nobody takes back their negative remarks when the bugs are fixed. That's why Creative bundled an Auto-Update application that updates drivers. Most people disable this, use old drivers, meet with bugs and piss and moan about the whole thing. ---> indicating bias.

Most people use this "complicated drivers, buggy" as a lame excuse for not spending on X-Fi. Those who own it call it the best piece of audio equipment the PC has ever seen. The positives about X-Fi outweigh the negatives by a loooong way.

btarunrYou're talking release-drivers.

That was corrected in the August 2006 driver.

That's the whole problem: People splash mud onto Creative when it rolls out bugs, but nobody takes back their negative remarks when the bugs are fixed. That's why Creative bundled an Auto-Update application that updates drivers. Most people disable this, use old drivers, meet with bugs and piss and moan about the whole thing. ---> indicating bias.

Most people use this "complicated drivers, buggy" as a lame excuse for not spending on X-Fi. Those who own it call it the best piece of audio equipment the PC has ever seen. The positives about X-Fi outweigh the negatives by a loooong way.

It was not corrected. I was always using the latest betas (after trying the official ones). I don't blame anyone for not spending. I owned it and have regretted it ever since. I'd rather have the card take some of my CPU, but actually work (ie other HQ chipsets).

TheGuruStudPoint is that it has already taken this long for these particular dirvers, still faulty hardware, XP drivers are STILL very buggy (especially x64), which, all makes a nice, annoying and functionally worthless audio solution at times. I've never had such problems with a card before, and I'm really glad I never owned an audigy. I probably would've killed someone.

I think you have some type of hate problem. If I were you I'd see a shrink for a friendly piece of advice.

TheGuruStudP.S. You don't want to see my xmas spirit. It involves dreaming of millions of dead christians.

Christians, or humans in general? Either way - why is that?

btarunrYou're talking release-drivers.

That was corrected in the August 2006 driver.

That's the whole problem: People splash mud onto Creative when it rolls out bugs, but nobody takes back their negative remarks when the bugs are fixed. That's why Creative bundled an Auto-Update application that updates drivers. Most people disable this, use old drivers, meet with bugs and piss and moan about the whole thing. ---> indicating bias.

Most people use this "complicated drivers, buggy" as a lame excuse for not spending on X-Fi. Those who own it call it the best piece of audio equipment the PC has ever seen. The positives about X-Fi outweigh the negatives by a loooong way.

Agreed,..I have had Creative sound cards since their incept. No problems whatsoever.
Keep on top of the driver/bios releases (Just like any power user needs to do with ANY top end hardware) and you will have a great chance of avoiding compatibility issues.

SpecsaverChristians, or humans in general? Either way - why is that?

I hate christians :laugh: seriously.

What are you? Some Islamic fundamentalist? This thread is no room for your anti-Christian views.

Nothing new here. Creative's shit drivers (and cards). And to a lesser extent, pos vista. People just need to quit buying that crap and let creative go under. They can't make anything worth a shit (and never have in the audio arena).
Hell, I was even stupid enough to buy an X-Fi and it died. They use the cheapest, chinese crap capacitors known to man, but charge top dollar. I hope they all rot in a shallow grave.

:shadedshu

Why is it that because DirectSound and audio acceleration doesn't work in Vista, everyone wants to go and blame Creative. It's Microsoft's problem, not Creatives. At least the Alchemy drivers are a means of working around the "flaws" of Vista.

And why is it that it's now currently trendy to hate Creative? I'm sorry, but the X-Fi series was the first set of soundcards that have had a long string of problems, and a lot of it had to do with such a radical new design to their audio processor - then factor in all the other new hardware on the market and the vast number of people that don't know what they're doing and are trying to add a new, powerful sound card to legacy hardware.

I've used Creative's hardware for as long as I can remember, since a Sound Blaster 2.0 all the way up to a Live!. Back then, there was no other company on the market, and even after new companies rolled out, nothing compared to Creative's hardware. Granted, as I said, the first wave of X-Fi's had some issues, especially with capacitors - but I think that can all be attributed to the fact that they didn't realize that the X-Fi audio processor needs a heatsink. The newer revisions are fairly solid, with very little actual hardware issues anymore - the majority of problems tends to be with conflicting drivers and/or conflicting hardware.

Asides - you're not going to find any other company on the market that offers a better sounding audio card for $80 - if you want to compare low-end to low-end. If you want to compare high-end cards . . . sure, the Auzentechs blow Creative away in that arena, but they still use Creative's audio processor - they just opted for higher end components (which is why the price of their audio cards is higher). But Creative's high-end card still sounds amazing compared to all other competitors (aside from Auzen), and if nothing else - they perform blazingly faster than any other competitor (has a lot to do with their design for use in studio audio equipment).

As to Creative needing to go under . . . :laugh: it'll never happen! There's a better chance of nVidia or Intel sinking before Creative does.

btarunrWhat are you? Some Islamic fundamentalist? This thread is no room for your anti-Christian views.

Nope, just an atheist tired of christians ruining everything (especially the US when we live here).

Well then keep it off this thread. Talk about the X-Fi. This is no place for nonsense.

Nope, just an atheist tired of christians ruining everything (especially the US when we live here).

dude . . . I personally can't stand the majority of christians, either - but blaming them for ruining everything is absolutely, completely absurd. Grow up.