X-Fi & Audigy Driver Update Released

[ZapRowsdower]

The guys over at creative have released a new set of beta drivers for their X-Fi and Audigy range. These supposedly offer improve compatibility with Unreal Engine 3 games. You can grab them from here: http://connect.creativelabs.com/beta/default.aspx

Try them out and report back. Hopefully this will fix some of the wide variety of sound-related bugs.

[Hadrian]

So which of those downloads should I use for an Audigy SE 24bit card? I will give them a try and see how they go, even though I have no sound errors.

[shiznit]

Thanks for the heads up. I'm gonna try this with when I get home.

[ZapRowsdower]

Just to clarify, the driver supports both Audigy and X-Fi. The one you want is http://connect.creativelabs.com/beta/Files/Sound%20Blaster%20X-Fi%20Audigy%20BETA%20Driver%2020070827.zip

But you should read the whole page as it has information about the warnings related to beta software.

[texaspledge]

Just tried them. Didn't fix my stuttering issues.

Enough, I just spent another evening trolling the forums and trying various older version of drivers etc. I now remember what pushed me to console land for a few years. PC is the best gaming platform but this is ridiculous. That someone can purchase a latest MB, do completely clean install of Vista and then have his game be the first application to install and STILL have issues is pathetic.

Great game, congrats to those that can play it without issues, wake me up when it's fixed...

[mwinter77]

Just tried them. Didn't fix my stuttering issues.

do completely clean install of Vista ...

And there's your problem - don't you all realize vista is microsoft's latest BETA OS. The will get it right a few years from now (around SP2) and then they will discontinue it and release their next BETA POS which they will force us to take!

[MaW]

I tried it, and it got me sound without stuttering. Hurrah!

However, after a while the sound just stopped when Vista decided to churn the hard drive in the background. I also couldn't get surround to work, and eventually realised that surround wasn't working at all anywhere, not just in Bioshock.

So I'm going back to the released drivers for the sake of everything else.

[iJacks]

And there's your problem - don't you all realize vista is microsoft's latest BETA OS. The will get it right a few years from now (around SP2) and then they will discontinue it and release their next BETA POS which they will force us to take!

Would you kindly stop spouting this crap?

Seriously, Vista ain't perfect (And I know, I am running 64 bit Ultimate edition) but it is NOT the cause of the stuttering sound - if it was the cause why are people on XP also haveing the same problem?

texaspledge have you created a seperate thread for your issues? If so what is the link? If not send me a PM with your system specs and I'll see if I can dig anything up for you.

[Equisilus]

Hmm. I've been running my X-Fi Platinum Fatal1ty Champion Series card on Vista 64-bit and haven't had any issues with sound (on a 7.1 speaker setup). So, I think I'll skip jumping on some beta drivers. Hopefully, though, the update does fix something for those that do have problems. The game definitely deserves good quality hardware/drivers.

[damicatz]

Creative Sound Cards are absolute trash. In their monopoly, Creative has grown to be complacent. They use proprietary protocols and abuse patents in order to maintain their monopoly while releasing subpar hardware with a wide range of compatibility issues.

[Hadrian]

Actually your wrong the creative hardware is great its the drivers and support that sux badly.

[damicatz]

Actually your wrong the creative hardware is great its the drivers and support that sux badly.

Great hardware means nothing if there are no drivers or support. And the audio quality of the X-Fi is subpar (thanks to low grade analog components) compared to other offerings in the same price range such as cards based on the C-Media Oxygen HD Chipset (Auzentech, Razer, etc.)

[Hadrian]

Great hardware means nothing if there are no drivers or support. And the audio quality of the X-Fi is subpar (thanks to low grade analog components) compared to other offerings in the same price range such as cards based on the C-Media Oxygen HD Chipset (Auzentech, Razer, etc.)

The X-Fi series is one of the most over-rated pieces of hardware ever. It's only a sound card, and unlike your eye's with graphics cards ,your ears really cant tell the difference between an X-Fi or an Audigy, or any comparable card. No matter if anyone says the can, you cant the only difference the human ear can discern is in the sample rate. Apart from that , there is no difference in audio. Any card with the same sample rate will sound the same and probably cost a lot less than the creative X-Fi junk.
And yeah I have a C-media HD card in my old rig, and it works perfectly. The only problem however is that many games now are falling for that Advanced HD crap that Creative is shoving out now.

[Korko]

The X-Fi series is one of the most over-rated pieces of hardware ever. It's only a sound card, and unlike your eye's with graphics cards ,your ears really cant tell the difference between an X-Fi or an Audigy, or any comparable card. No matter if anyone says the can, you cant the only difference the human ear can discern is in the sample rate. Apart from that , there is no difference in audio. Any card with the same sample rate will sound the same and probably cost a lot less than the creative X-Fi junk.
And yeah I have a C-media HD card in my old rig, and it works perfectly. The only problem however is that many games now are falling for that Advanced HD crap that Creative is shoving out now.

I'm sure it makes sense to you, but you have no idea what you're talking about. The human ear can most certainly tell the difference, irrespective of the sample rate. There are many many other factors that affect overall sound quality. If you can't tell the difference then you need better headphones/speakers because they're clear as day to me, and no I'm not a sucker for the placebo effect.

Firstly, X-Fi cards are far and away the best sound cards for gaming. The CMSS-3D headphone feature present on the X-Fi is alone enough to justify the purchase price in my opinion. Add to that, best support in the industry for EAX, OpenAL and Alchemy, AND lowest CPU usage and you have yourselves a winner. No other sound card sounds this good in games, period. All these "features" are meaningless anyway, because the X-Fi just sounds considerably crisper and more balanced than any other sound card in games. I've tried them.

Music is another matter, X-Fi isn't the best by any means, but it certainly isn't the worst. The superior DACs on the elite pro make a big difference in my personal opinion, but if you're after music you'd probably be better with an auzentech card. However if you want a card that has outstanding game support AND sounds pretty good with music, X-Fi is the only choice.

[Dragon]

And just to point out that the auzentech x-fi was just released today, x-fi, with high end analogue components.

[Korko]

And just to point out that the auzentech x-fi was just released today, x-fi, with high end analogue components.

Yeah sounds awesome, since it's the best of both worlds. I'm planning on modding my elite pro with a better opamp anyway though.

[damicatz]

I have an nForce 4 based motherboard. The X-Fi sounds like a bowl of rice crispies as a result. The X-Fi sound cards are notorious for not following PCI Specifications (despite bold faced lies by Creative to the contrary), and despite Creative's insistence that the problem is with the nForce 4 (another lie since many people have the problem with other chipsets), every other sound card I've tried works perfectly.

CPU usage is only 1% higher with Oxygen HD based cards. If 1% makes a difference, you are using an outdated CPU anyways. And with multi-core CPUs, it becomes increasingly irrelevant.

The only reason that the X-Fi has better games support is because Creative is a notorious patent troll that uses a combination of proprietary technology, patents and litigation in order to prevent competition. Anyone remember Aureal? They were a company that made sound cards in the late nintes and provided some serious competition to Creative. I still have a Diamond Monster Sound with an Aureal chip and, if it weren't for the lack of driver support on Windows XP/Vista, I'd still be using it.

Aureal had a technology called A3D. Unlike EAX, which is little more than a bunch of overrated reverberation effects, A3D actually used spatial algorithms to simulate various rooms. Creative ended up suing Aureal for patent infringement and even though Aureal ended up winning the case, the litigation was so costly that they were forced to liquidate their assets and sell to Creative. And that's only the tip of the iceberg as far as Creative's anti-competitive behavior goes. They also blackmailed John Carmack into included EAX support in Doom 3 by threatening ID Software with litigation over frivolous patents.

Finally, Creative has the "best support in the industry" for EAX because it's patented. No one can implement anything better than EAX 2 without paying royalties to them. And as I've stated, EAX is a bunch of overrated reverb effects in my opinion. A3D is still lightyears ahead of anything Creative has to offer. OpenAL is an audio API funded and hosted by Creative. So it is in their best interest to make sure it supports their cards best. And Alchemy is a scam to get more money from people who already bought Creative cards. The idea of charging people money to enable features of hardware they already have is outrageous.



I'm sure it makes sense to you, but you have no idea what you're talking about. The human ear can most certainly tell the difference, irrespective of the sample rate. There are many many other factors that affect overall sound quality. If you can't tell the difference then you need better headphones/speakers because they're clear as day to me, and no I'm not a sucker for the placebo effect.

Firstly, X-Fi cards are far and away the best sound cards for gaming. The CMSS-3D headphone feature present on the X-Fi is alone enough to justify the purchase price in my opinion. Add to that, best support in the industry for EAX, OpenAL and Alchemy, AND lowest CPU usage and you have yourselves a winner. No other sound card sounds this good in games, period. All these "features" are meaningless anyway, because the X-Fi just sounds considerably crisper and more balanced than any other sound card in games. I've tried them.

Music is another matter, X-Fi isn't the best by any means, but it certainly isn't the worst. The superior DACs on the elite pro make a big difference in my personal opinion, but if you're after music you'd probably be better with an auzentech card. However if you want a card that has outstanding game support AND sounds pretty good with music, X-Fi is the only choice.

[Hadrian]

I'm sure it makes sense to you, but you have no idea what you're talking about. The human ear can most certainly tell the difference, irrespective of the sample rate. There are many many other factors that affect overall sound quality. If you can't tell the difference then you need better headphones/speakers because they're clear as day to me, and no I'm not a sucker for the placebo effect.

Firstly, X-Fi cards are far and away the best sound cards for gaming. The CMSS-3D headphone feature present on the X-Fi is alone enough to justify the purchase price in my opinion. Add to that, best support in the industry for EAX, OpenAL and Alchemy, AND lowest CPU usage and you have yourselves a winner. No other sound card sounds this good in games, period. All these "features" are meaningless anyway, because the X-Fi just sounds considerably crisper and more balanced than any other sound card in games. I've tried them.

Music is another matter, X-Fi isn't the best by any means, but it certainly isn't the worst. The superior DACs on the elite pro make a big difference in my personal opinion, but if you're after music you'd probably be better with an auzentech card. However if you want a card that has outstanding game support AND sounds pretty good with music, X-Fi is the only choice.

For a start buddy every single creative card made now has CMSS-3d audio, not just the X-Fi. EAX is a crap full stop, OpenAL kicks its ass left right and center. Lowest Cpu usage? C-Media cards have the same usage levels and some are even lower than creative cards. Most of the features on an X-Fi are useless and are almost never used.

Gaming wise my old C-media card gets much better performance in games and has EAX support. The crispness of the audio is also dependant on the speakers used , and I have custom built stereo system I made myself from high end car stereo speakers and a nice big sub-woofer. I get perfectly crisp and rich audio , so to say the X-Fi is better because "its crisper" is a fallacy. Any decent audio card will performance the same and cost much less. Creative just have a very big marketing department, most of the cards made by competitors are of the same technical level and performance at much lower prices.

[Hadrian]

Damicatz I'm with you on that, I couldnt have put it better myself.

[cheese81u812]

For a start buddy every single creative card made now has CMSS-3d audio, not just the X-Fi. EAX is a crap full stop, OpenAL kicks its ass left right and center. Lowest Cpu usage? C-Media cards have the same usage levels and some are even lower than creative cards. Most of the features on an X-Fi are useless and are almost never used.

Gaming wise my old C-media card gets much better performance in games and has EAX support. The crispness of the audio is also dependant on the speakers used , and I have custom built stereo system I made myself from high end car stereo speakers and a nice big sub-woofer. I get perfectly crisp and rich audio , so to say the X-Fi is better because "its crisper" is a fallacy. Any decent audio card will performance the same and cost much less. Creative just have a very big marketing department, most of the cards made by competitors are of the same technical level and performance at much lower prices.

X-Fi has the only CMSS-3D capable of emulating the height of a source, sources close to the ear, and generally gives more accurate positional sound than previous CMSS.

OpenAL is an audio API, and EAX is a set of hardware accelerated audio extensions. One can't kick another's ass, and infact, EAX works with OpenAL (as seen in BioShock and many other games).

The C-Media card do tax the CPU a lot more than X-Fi card do due to the X-Fi's digital components being superior (and the standards the X-Fi supports are ubiquitous--you can find them in almost every AAA game). However, the X-Fi has inferior analog parts than a lot of the higher end C-Media based cards, but those can be bypassed by running the X-Fi's digital out into a good DAC and headphone amp to get the best sound for gaming.

Oh, and X-Fi's are really cheap.

[Equisilus]

I think folks may have missed the point: if you are happy with what you have, then there's no problem. I could tell the difference when I jumped from my Audigy 2 ZS to my current X-Fi mentioned above, and I could tell the difference when I moved from my Turtle Beach Santa Cruz to the Audigy 2 ZS. Just as I could tell the difference when I moved from the Yamaha...oh, well, I'm sure you get the point. Might I be happy with something else? Perhaps, but I've no complaints and no reason to change right now. When a company doesn't provide the quality/service I expect, that's when I scratch them off the list.

[Novastorm]

Aureal had a technology called A3D. Unlike EAX, which is little more than a bunch of overrated reverberation effects, A3D actually used spatial algorithms to simulate various rooms.

Sounds nice....


the litigation was so costly that they were forced to liquidate their assets and sell to Creative.

Too bad...so that means they now have the rights to A3D too if i'm not mistaken?


And as I've stated, EAX is a bunch of overrated reverb effects in my opinion. A3D is still lightyears ahead of anything Creative has to offer.


Sorry if i sound a bit cynical, but i'm thinking that surely they've implemented this technology or similar from Aureal into their newest EAX by now?? Since they've owned it since the nineties? If i got my hands on a product from a competitor which i now own and is better than mine, i'd just use it and rename it EAX5.0 or 6.0 or whatever.

[Hadrian]

I would hardly call £200 for a X-Fi pro cheap, indeed for a sound card that extortionate. Fair enough on the openal / eax bit I dont pay much attention to the crap because I dont need to. Can you honestly say that a game has better performance because of an X-Fi over any other internal sound card?
The only argument here seems to be the supposed quality the X-Fi has and for that you have to wrestle with with the compatability issue it has with some motherboards due to its design and/or drivers. Indeed many cards are labaled as X-Fi but are nothing more than Audigy cards with a new bits tacked on and software emulation of the hardware its supposed to have.
X-fi IMO is over priced junk and I wouldn't have it in any comp I make. Much better to have a sound card at a vastly reduced price that does the same thing without all the hype.

[damicatz]

No the C-Media cards do not tax the CPU "a lot more". At least the Oxygen HD ones don't because I've seen the benchmarks and I've seen it for myself. On average, the C-Media Oxygen HD CMI8788 cards had a difference of no more than 2% from the Creative Counterparts.

http://techgage.com/article/razer_barracuda_ac-1_sound_card/6


X-Fi has the only CMSS-3D capable of emulating the height of a source, sources close to the ear, and generally gives more accurate positional sound than previous CMSS.

OpenAL is an audio API, and EAX is a set of hardware accelerated audio extensions. One can't kick another's ass, and infact, EAX works with OpenAL (as seen in BioShock and many other games).

The C-Media card do tax the CPU a lot more than X-Fi card do due to the X-Fi's digital components being superior (and the standards the X-Fi supports are ubiquitous--you can find them in almost every AAA game). However, the X-Fi has inferior analog parts than a lot of the higher end C-Media based cards, but those can be bypassed by running the X-Fi's digital out into a good DAC and headphone amp to get the best sound for gaming.

Oh, and X-Fi's are really cheap.

[damicatz]

Creative has the rights to A3D but they've yet to fully implement it in any of their soundcards. Creative bought out Aureal to eliminate competition, not to acquire technology.


Sounds nice....



Too bad...so that means they now have the rights to A3D too if i'm not mistaken?




Sorry if i sound a bit cynical, but i'm thinking that surely they've implemented this technology or similar from Aureal into their newest EAX by now?? Since they've owned it since the nineties? If i got my hands on a product from a competitor which i now own and is better than mine, i'd just use it and rename it EAX5.0 or 6.0 or whatever.

[Novastorm]

Sounds silly but oh well, what do i know =)

[cheese81u812]

I would hardly call £200 for a X-Fi pro cheap, indeed for a sound card that extortionate.
Since when does an X-fi cost 200 GBP? The most expensive X-Fi (The Elite Pro) is $260, or approx. 130 GBP. You don't even need the highest end X-Fi to reap it hardware acceleration and gaming benefits--you can get those with the XtremeGamer for 45 GBP or even less when they are on sale.


Can you honestly say that a game has better performance because of an X-Fi over any other internal sound card?
Yes, I can, and published benchmarks verify this.


The only argument here seems to be the supposed quality the X-Fi has and for that you have to wrestle with with the compatability issue it has with some motherboards due to its design and/or drivers.
I've built many different systems with X-Fi's, including an XtremeMusic on an Nforce4 board (but I update the BIOS), and I have had no problems with compatibility. If anything, Creative's cards are more compatible with hardware and software permutaions because of their monopoly over the market, which I admit is probably going to be a bigger problem in the future than it has been in the past.

Indeed many cards are labaled as X-Fi but are nothing more than Audigy cards with a new bits tacked on and software emulation of the hardware its supposed to have.
Unfair marketing by Creative, but you should be careful of what you buy from any company.

[dosbox]

No the C-Media cards do not tax the CPU "a lot more". At least the Oxygen HD ones don't because I've seen the benchmarks and I've seen it for myself. On average, the C-Media Oxygen HD CMI8788 cards had a difference of no more than 2% from the Creative Counterparts.

http://techgage.com/article/razer_barracuda_ac-1_sound_card/6

You might want to take a look at a site that did some more comprehensive tests. Link (http://techreport.com/articles.x/11759/5)

Performance differences in some real games (http://techreport.com/articles.x/11759/8) can be quite significant.

[Deezul]

installed an lost all sound in everything...Bioshock still wont run

[cheese81u812]

No the C-Media cards do not tax the CPU "a lot more". At least the Oxygen HD ones don't because I've seen the benchmarks and I've seen it for myself. On average, the C-Media Oxygen HD CMI8788 cards had a difference of no more than 2% from the Creative Counterparts.

http://techgage.com/article/razer_barracuda_ac-1_sound_card/6
Those are extremely basic tests on a synthetic benchmark on a high-end CPU. They don't account for real-world game FPS or taxing audio effects.

[damicatz]

According to the link you posted, onboard sound outperforms a Soundblaster X-Fi in almost everything. That alone is fishy.


You might want to take a look at a site that did some more comprehensive tests. Link (http://techreport.com/articles.x/11759/5)

Performance differences in some real games (http://techreport.com/articles.x/11759/8) can be quite significant.

[cheese81u812]

And not to mention the AC-1 is much more expensive than comparable Creative products.

[Hadrian]

Since when does an X-fi cost 200 GBP? The most expensive X-Fi (The Elite Pro) is $260, or approx. 130 GBP. You don't even need the highest end X-Fi to reap it hardware acceleration and gaming benefits--you can get those with the XtremeGamer for 45 GBP or even less when they are on sale.

Yes, I can, and published benchmarks verify this.


I've built many different systems with X-Fi's, including an XtremeMusic on an Nforce4 board (but I update the BIOS), and I have had no problems with compatibility. If anything, Creative's cards are more compatible with hardware and software permutaions because of their monopoly over the market, which I admit is probably going to be a bigger problem in the future than it has been in the past.

Unfair marketing by Creative, but you should be careful of what you buy from any company.

For one thing in the UK all purchases have a 17.5% tax added to the price so don't start quoting US/Canadian prices and then use them as reference without knowing the facts. And £200 was me being conservative, X-Fi elite pro are listed at £215 at the local stockist here. Where as the Terratec Aureon 7.1 firewire is listed at almost half the price (£130). They don't even stock the lower grade X-Fi because no-one here will buy them.

LINK (http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/category/category_slc.asp?Recs=10&Nav=|c:365|&Sort=1)

A monopoly is a very bad thing as creative have proven, with there sloppy support and drivers. They have no need to keep customers happy becuase they are a monopoly and so many games are running the "Advanced HD" crap that they spew out.

[cheese81u812]

For one thing in the UK all purchases have a 17.5% tax added to the price so don't start quoting US/Canadian prices and then use them as reference without knowing the facts. And £200 was me being conservative, X-Fi elite pro are listed at £215 at the local stockist here. Where as the Terratec Aureon 7.1 firewire is listed at almost half the price (£130). They don't even stock the lower grade X-Fi because no-one here will buy them.

LINK (http://www.misco.co.uk/applications/category/category_slc.asp?Recs=10&Nav=|c:365|&Sort=1)

A monopoly is a very bad thing as creative have proven, with there sloppy support and drivers. They have no need to keep customers happy becuase they are a monopoly and so many games are running the "Advanced HD" crap that they spew out.
How can you generalize that the X-Fi's are more expensive than the competition if they are only so expensive in the UK? That logic is flawed.

[erk]

No the C-Media cards do not tax the CPU "a lot more". At least the Oxygen HD ones don't because I've seen the benchmarks and I've seen it for myself. On average, the C-Media Oxygen HD CMI8788 cards had a difference of no more than 2% from the Creative Counterparts.

http://techgage.com/article/razer_barracuda_ac-1_sound_card/6

I can't see any X-fi cards in that test, only audigy 4 which is much slower than an X-Fi in games (in CS:S X-Fi can be as much as 10% faster than audigy series cards). IMO the best feature of X-Fi is it's quality downmixing from 7.1 to headphones which can be setup by running headphones in X-Fi drivers and 7.1 speakers in windows settings. The CMSS-3D on audigy cards is pretty much just adding some sound from left chan on right chan and vice versa, while CMSS-3D on X-Fi properly downmixes surround to headphones and gives a pretty much accurate soundpicture in games (as long as you use decent headphones, not some 50$ ones). Basicly CMSS-3D in creative cards prior to X-Fi series was garbage, but in the new cards it's a solid feature that enhances the sound experience. The major speed advantage of X-Fi is when the amount of voices passses 32 or when using OpenAl which it has proper hardware acceleration for.

[Hadrian]

How can you generalize that the X-Fi's are more expensive than the competition if they are only so expensive in the UK? That logic is flawed.

Er its simple logic , It costs that much here, other cards are cheaper and have the same level of performance at lower costs, therefor X-Fi are overpriced . This is a fact not a statement. In any case show me ONE X-Fi that is cheaper and performs better then its nearest rival anywhere in the world. monopoly means they can charge whatever the hell they like and people like yourself will buy it because you believe the hype and think its a good thing it costs more.

[dosbox]

According to the link you posted, onboard sound outperforms a Soundblaster X-Fi in almost everything. That alone is fishy.

Um. Their onboard sound is provided by an Analog Devices chip, a cut above the usual Realtek. However, you're ignoring the point - there can be a noticeable difference in actual games between the C-Media cards and the Creative products.

The problems with the techgage "review" are that it only shows a few synthetic benchmarks involving random noise, and only use an Audigy4 - despite being posted in April 2007. The techreport link might be older, but at least it has up to date hardware.

[damicatz]

I'm going to have to say the results on the link that was posted are crap.

http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/820/bustedtt9.png

[shiznit]

All you creative haters are on crack. They X-FI is the BEST 3d audio solution on the market right now and has NO EQUAL for gaming. No other card until the Azuntech Prelude (also using X-FI) comes out can do EAX 5.0 and OpenAL in hardware. They even went out of their way to make Alchemy to make sure we can still have EAX and harware sound in Vista cause microsoft ☺☺☺☺ed us when they took out the DirectSound 3d HAL. It's not overpriced either, i got my XtremeMusic for $50, and with a free opamp upgrade from National Semiconductor the analog signal quality is almost as good as Azuntech (they still use better DACs but its very hard to tell the difference unless you use world class speakers and amps).

[damicatz]

EAX is nothing but a bunch of gimmicky reverb effects. I don't use it and I don't intend to start. And my Oxygen HD soundcard supports OpenAL in the hardware.

Vista has a rewritten audio stack, built from the ground up. DirectSound will not work with it because DirectSound is designed for the old, Pre-Vista audio stack. It was known for a long time that Vista would not have hardware DirectSound and yet game makers continued to release games that only used DirectSound. Microsoft is working on a new sound API to replace DirectSound known as Xaudio.

As for Alchemy, I see it as charging extra to enable the card you bought to function fully in Vista. And with my Oxygen HD based card, I don't need Opamp Upgrades because it already comes with good opamps unlike the X-Fi.



All you creative haters are on crack. They X-FI is the BEST 3d audio solution on the market right now and has NO EQUAL for gaming. No other card until the Azuntech Prelude (also using X-FI) comes out can do EAX 5.0 and OpenAL in hardware. They even went out of their way to make Alchemy to make sure we can still have EAX and harware sound in Vista cause microsoft ☺☺☺☺ed us when they took out the DirectSound 3d HAL. It's not overpriced either, i got my XtremeMusic for $50, and with a free opamp upgrade from National Semiconductor the analog signal quality is almost as good as Azuntech (they still use better DACs but its very hard to tell the difference unless you use world class speakers and amps).

[Hadrian]

All you creative haters are on crack. They X-FI is the BEST 3d audio solution on the market right now and has NO EQUAL for gaming. No other card until the Azuntech Prelude (also using X-FI) comes out can do EAX 5.0 and OpenAL in hardware. They even went out of their way to make Alchemy to make sure we can still have EAX and harware sound in Vista cause microsoft ☺☺☺☺ed us when they took out the DirectSound 3d HAL. It's not overpriced either, i got my XtremeMusic for $50, and with a free opamp upgrade from National Semiconductor the analog signal quality is almost as good as Azuntech (they still use better DACs but its very hard to tell the difference unless you use world class speakers and amps).

Well there is NO NEED for an X-fi for gaming, its not critical and never will be , unlike a good graphics card. The reasoning behind MS pulling DS 3d HAL as far as I can tell is that OpenAL was better implemented and recieved by devs and card makers. As I said above no-where local here even stocks the low-end X-Fi because no-one will buy them. Even the high end ones are not in stock locally and havent been for some time because they very rarely sell.

With the quality of many onboard soluitons increasing and cheap budget sound cards on the market with good performance vs price , the X-fi is just for the people who like to swing their E-Peen. In short , no need , no want, no point wasting that amount of cash.

No I'm not on crack and it offends me that you would call me a junkie to get a point across.

[Bioshafted]

Never owned an X-Fi, but I know my Audigy 2 ZS has been running fine with everything thus far. I was using the SB Live! 5.1 before and upgraded for no real reason, I just wanted the Audigy. The Live! card was actually running well still too. The wife has it now. Only prob I had with my old Live! card was on my old MB that had a VIA chpset, it had some popping/crackiling issues, but that was fixed with a small fix package I had found online. (made by a third party)

*shrug* I never really had audio issues and with my surround sound system, it sounds great to me.

[shiznit]

well i didnt mean that you were literally on crack, it was a joke lol. i happen to like eax 5.0 and the other features, i use cmss3d headphone and set CS:S ingame to 5.1, it gives me amazing positional sound. i guess many people have problems with creative but i have never had any issues and their drivers XP x64 drivers are rock solid. On vista there is an issue with x-fi + 4gb ram but i dont use vista so it really doesnt bother me. The onboard ADI sound on my asus also supposedly does OpenAL in hardware but it doesn sound nearly as good as the X-FI imo and it tops out at eax 2.0. When the prelude drops down in price a little then the dolby digital live drivers are ready i will switch to that, it comes out of the factory with the same opamps i soldered into my XtremeMusic, they really made a big difference. The only thing that bothers me is that i have to use the analog outputs to connect to the 5.1 receiver and let the x-fi do the decoding, they digital output doesnt always work correctly and it shares the connection with the microphone.

[dosbox]

I'm going to have to say the results on the link that was posted are crap.


On the techgage one? Absolutely. On the techreport one? Feel free to post reasons.

Now, there are very good reasons to buy a C-Media powered card, but don't pretend hardware acceleration for games is one of them.

[damicatz]

On the techgage one? Absolutely. On the techreport one? Feel free to post reasons.

Now, there are very good reasons to buy a C-Media powered card, but don't pretend hardware acceleration for games is one of them.

My screenshot is the reason. I ran the same test they did (substituting DirectSound with OpenAL for obvious reasons) and got drastically different results. And it's the techreport one that I am talking about.

[Korko]

For a start buddy every single creative card made now has CMSS-3d audio, not just the X-Fi

No "buddy." The CMSS-3D on the X-FI is completely different from previous creative cards.

[ahrel]

The X-Fi is really indeed quite an amazing sound card. The sound quality of music is better, the CMSS-3D (CMSS and CMSS 2 are on the Audigy series, at least up to 2, which I have, not CMSS-3D) is more deliberate and seperated per speaker for stereo stuff, everything just seems more crisp. Same audio file, two different computers. I'm pining after one myself, but can't decide if the Xtreme Gamer is worth the extra cash over the Xtreme Audio (since both offer the same audible options like EAX 5.0, OpenAL support, CMSS3D etc...).

[shiznit]

The X-Fi is really indeed quite an amazing sound card. The sound quality of music is better, the CMSS-3D (CMSS and CMSS 2 are on the Audigy series, at least up to 2, which I have, not CMSS-3D) is more deliberate and seperated per speaker for stereo stuff, everything just seems more crisp. Same audio file, two different computers. I'm pining after one myself, but can't decide if the Xtreme Gamer is worth the extra cash over the Xtreme Audio (since both offer the same audible options like EAX 5.0, OpenAL support, CMSS3D etc...).

Get the XtremeMusic and upgrade the opamps, you can find one used in a hardware forum for under $50.

[erk]

The X-Fi is really indeed quite an amazing sound card. The sound quality of music is better, the CMSS-3D (CMSS and CMSS 2 are on the Audigy series, at least up to 2, which I have, not CMSS-3D) is more deliberate and seperated per speaker for stereo stuff, everything just seems more crisp. Same audio file, two different computers. I'm pining after one myself, but can't decide if the Xtreme Gamer is worth the extra cash over the Xtreme Audio (since both offer the same audible options like EAX 5.0, OpenAL support, CMSS3D etc...).

Xtreme Audio is not hardware accelerated, don't confuse it with Xtreme Music. Of the current lineup, the cheapest card with hardware acceleration is Xtreme Gamer.

[Nonymous666]

Indeed many cards are labaled as X-Fi but are nothing more than Audigy cards with a new bits tacked on and software emulation of the hardware its supposed to have.Not "many". Only the XtremeAudio X-Fi which is really just a slightly modified Audigy SE. The other X-Fi models are completely different than it.

[xappie]

This thread seems to be getting off topic... but did anyone actually TRY the new drivers? Any improvement?

People at 2K - have YOU tried these drivers?

[Hadrian]

I tried them, got no performance bonus and went back to release version drivers.

[Zanderat]

This thread seems to be getting off topic... but did anyone actually TRY the new drivers? Any improvement?

People at 2K - have YOU tried these drivers?

Noticeable sound improvement. However, it's causing issues coming out of standby mode. Back to the old release drivers forme. b)

[Hashmiir]

i got a x-fi xtreme gamer and have never had problems with it on the UE3

[Scoty]

i have install this driver but i see only a blue screen :mad: .

[MadZia]

Installed the drivers, but didn´t help with stuttering audio...

[Pandur]

I installed this beta driver and lost all sound.

Removed it and went back to the latest released version and everything is working fine again.

I'm running a Soundblaster X-fi Fatal1ty and Win XP.

To those of you that say the X-fi and any Creative soundcards sucks, have you tested all the cards you're talking crap about? I know I've used Realtek, nForce Soundstorm, C-media, Aureal Vortex 2, Soundblaster Live 5.1, Soundblaster Audigy, Soundblaster Audigy 2, and Soundblaster X-fi Fatal1ty soundcards. And the X-fi is by far the best soundcard I've ever used for gaming. With a good 5.1 setup (in my case the Logitech 5500 set) it produces the best gaming sound I've ever experienced with close to no cpu usage.

And if you do some research on the subject of A3D and EAX you'll see that Aureal functions are slowly trickling into the EAX specs. That's partially why EAX 5.0 can produce much better ingame sound effects than EAX 1.0.

[Antilogic81]

Creative Sound Cards are absolute trash. In their monopoly, Creative has grown to be complacent. They use proprietary protocols and abuse patents in order to maintain their monopoly while releasing subpar hardware with a wide range of compatibility issues.

You haven't researched your opinion well enough to make that claim...for one, a patent should it be created by creative, and is legally documented as their patent; results in a 20 year proprietary contract that is upheld by the federal government, where said company or individual can refuse sharing their patent with anyone. After 20 years the patent is no longer exclusive and any may use it. In technology this allows anyone to maintain sole rights to anything they have patented permanently because tech is always changing and improving. After 20 years no one would bother with an old patent anyway. So there is no abuse in patents.



Last time there was an actual documented abuse of a patent by creative was back in 1998...aureal regarding its 3-d audio technology.

Your anger should be against others who can't seem to find a viable alternative that can compete with Creative...so yeah they are not going to make leaps and bounds...why bother, that costs much more money and is economically unsound when your competition is also producing sub-par solutions to audio hardware that is well beneath your own. Its hard to judge creative's own hardware as subpar when there isn't anything else you could call it's peer. That's economics 101 right there.

proprietary protocols are also used by every other hardware manufacturer...you wanna hate on them too? Nvidia, ATI..lets hate on Nvidia and ATI for we can not put one video card from each into the same motherboard...reason? neither will share their protocols with the other, again its economically unsound.

Your complaint about wide range incompatibility is however sound...but sadly it's no different than with many other technologies...Nvidia's new Nforce 680i also has widespread problems.

[Antilogic81]

proprietary protocols are also used by every other hardware manufacturer...you wanna hate on them too? Nvidia, ATI..lets hate on Nvidia and ATI for we can not put one video card from each into the same motherboard...reason? neither will share their protocols with the other, again its economically unsound.


in context, i am speaking of the architecture as well as the drivers that allow cards to communicate with each other and the mobo, and finally the software to use such hardware properly.

[komihag]

My X-Fi Xtreme Music with the LM4562 op-amp sound really, really good.

Here's a guide for those of you who are interested.

http://www.head-fi.org/forums/showthread.php?t=229350

I managed to do this without any previous soldering experience at all. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone though since it's pretty tricky and probably easy to screw up your card.

[damicatz]

You are either forgetting or conveniently ignoring much of Creative's history. Creative used patents to blackmail (http://techreport.com/discussions.x/7113) John Carmack into including EAX support in the Doom 3 engine. Creative uses patents to prevent anyone from implementing anything above EAX 2 without paying royalties.

I find it ironic and almost laughable that the United States is labeled as having a free market economy when it has one of the most abused patent systems in the world. Patents are the antithesis to a free market and simply exist as a way for large corporations and those with the most lawyers to maintain a monopoly.


You haven't researched your opinion well enough to make that claim...for one, a patent should it be created by creative, and is legally documented as their patent; results in a 20 year proprietary contract that is upheld by the federal government, where said company or individual can refuse sharing their patent with anyone. After 20 years the patent is no longer exclusive and any may use it. In technology this allows anyone to maintain sole rights to anything they have patented permanently because tech is always changing and improving. After 20 years no one would bother with an old patent anyway. So there is no abuse in patents.



Last time there was an actual documented abuse of a patent by creative was back in 1998...aureal regarding its 3-d audio technology.

Your anger should be against others who can't seem to find a viable alternative that can compete with Creative...so yeah they are not going to make leaps and bounds...why bother, that costs much more money and is economically unsound when your competition is also producing sub-par solutions to audio hardware that is well beneath your own. Its hard to judge creative's own hardware as subpar when there isn't anything else you could call it's peer. That's economics 101 right there.

proprietary protocols are also used by every other hardware manufacturer...you wanna hate on them too? Nvidia, ATI..lets hate on Nvidia and ATI for we can not put one video card from each into the same motherboard...reason? neither will share their protocols with the other, again its economically unsound.

Your complaint about wide range incompatibility is however sound...but sadly it's no different than with many other technologies...Nvidia's new Nforce 680i also has widespread problems.

[damicatz]

I work in IT so yes I have quite a bit of experience with Creative cards and on a large scale as well.

Just a small sample of Creative's history :

1.Creative SB Live + VIA Southbridge. Crackling issues. Creative blamed the VIA Southbridge for the issue, I fixed the issue by installing the KXAudio Drivers (built from scratch opensource drivers for some Creative soundcards) instead of using Creative's. Bold faced lie number 1.

2.Audigy Squeal Of Death (http://www.extremetech.com/article2/0,3973,29962,00.asp). Basically there is a high pitched squeal and then the computer locks up. Again, according to Creative, it's not their hardware or their drivers but it's a PCI bridge chip that's causing the problem. Never mind the fact that every other soundcard on the market worked fine on the affected systems.

3.X-Fi crackling issues (http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs/board/message?board.id=soundblaster&message.id=71962), similar to the ones with the Live. Again, according to Creative, it's not their hardware but the Nforce 4 Core-Logic Chipset. Never mind the fact that every other non-Creative soundcard on the market works fine with the Nforce4 and nevermind the fact that people who are not using the Nforce 4 are also experiencing the crackling issues.

4.I hope you didn't beleive Creative when they said the Soundblaster Augidy has full 24-bit sound. Because it doesn't. (http://techreport.com/articles.x/4577/7)

5.I also hope you don't believe the lie about the X-Fi's crystalizer where Creative claims it can restore the sound quality of audio that has been compressed. With lossey audio compression, restoring lost sound is mathematically impossible.

6.Can't have any competition can we? 1 (http://techreport.com/discussions.x/1216) 2 (http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=13027)

7.Let's blackmail game developers (http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20040728-4048.html) into supporting proprietary Creative technology.


I installed this beta driver and lost all sound.

Removed it and went back to the latest released version and everything is working fine again.

I'm running a Soundblaster X-fi Fatal1ty and Win XP.

To those of you that say the X-fi and any Creative soundcards sucks, have you tested all the cards you're talking crap about? I know I've used Realtek, nForce Soundstorm, C-media, Aureal Vortex 2, Soundblaster Live 5.1, Soundblaster Audigy, Soundblaster Audigy 2, and Soundblaster X-fi Fatal1ty soundcards. And the X-fi is by far the best soundcard I've ever used for gaming. With a good 5.1 setup (in my case the Logitech 5500 set) it produces the best gaming sound I've ever experienced with close to no cpu usage.

And if you do some research on the subject of A3D and EAX you'll see that Aureal functions are slowly trickling into the EAX specs. That's partially why EAX 5.0 can produce much better ingame sound effects than EAX 1.0.

[Antilogic81]

You are either forgetting or conveniently ignoring much of Creative's history. Creative used patents to blackmail (http://techreport.com/discussions.x/7113) John Carmack into including EAX support in the Doom 3 engine. Creative uses patents to prevent anyone from implementing anything above EAX 2 without paying royalties.

I find it ironic and almost laughable that the United States is labeled as having a free market economy when it has one of the most abused patent systems in the world. Patents are the antithesis to a free market and simply exist as a way for large corporations and those with the most lawyers to maintain a monopoly.

You put anyone under the microscope and you'll find something ugly...I wasn't really ignoring it, since every single tech company has done it somewhere, I felt that leveled the playing field...why count this against them and no one else when they should be? This doesn't make it okay...but it also won't stop me from buying from them either.

And yes america isn't a free market...but thats because it never really was, and people have been misled to believe so, a free market, laissez faire, has no government involvement...america hasn't had that kind of market, and should no longer continue to be labeled as such. Economists call it a mixed economy.

[damicatz]

I call it a corporatocracy because corporations basically control economic policy and the government.

And this is not one thing ugly about Creative. It is a consistent pattern of patent abuse, deceptive trade practices and anti-competitive behavior. I haven't bought a Cretive product for personal use since they forced Aureal out of business (though I have experience with all Creative soundcards up to the X-Fi through work). I don't intend to start and I'm not going to support a company that makes Microsoft look like a saint by comparison.


You put anyone under the microscope and you'll find something ugly...I wasn't really ignoring it, since every single tech company has done it somewhere, I felt that leveled the playing field...why count this against them and no one else when they should be? This doesn't make it okay...but it also won't stop me from buying from them either.

And yes america isn't a free market...but thats because it never really was, and people have been misled to believe so, a free market, laissez faire, has no government involvement...america hasn't had that kind of market, and should no longer continue to be labeled as such. Economists call it a mixed economy.

[dosbox]

My screenshot is the reason. I ran the same test they did (substituting DirectSound with OpenAL for obvious reasons) and got drastically different results. And it's the techreport one that I am talking about.

LMAO - you mean this one? link (http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/820/bustedtt9.png)

Techreport tested under XP link (http://techreport.com/articles.x/11759/5) with a full gamut of games and 3D effects tests. Your screenshot only appears to demonstrate 2D performance of the C-Media card - under Vista. :rolleyes:

[cheese81u812]

I installed this beta driver and lost all sound.
Even though it says not to, uninstall the existing X-Fi drivers, then install the betas. Installing the betas over the stables didn't work.

[damicatz]

Techreport tested 2D performance as well. And under that same test, they showed 16% CPU usage at 128 buffers. I repeated that test (yes under Vista) and never got above 1.6% CPU Usage. I might add that I'm using an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ which is the exact same CPU they used.

I don't have 3D sound set up yet because I'm using a 64-bit version of Vista with beta drivers from C-Media and I haven't gotten around to updating them to the newer ones with OpenAL 3D support. When I do, I'll be sure to post the CPU usage scores for those as well.


LMAO - you mean this one? link (http://img212.imageshack.us/img212/820/bustedtt9.png)

Techreport tested under XP link (http://techreport.com/articles.x/11759/5) with a full gamut of games and 3D effects tests. Your screenshot only appears to demonstrate 2D performance of the C-Media card - under Vista. :rolleyes:

[dosbox]

Techreport tested 2D performance as well. And under that same test, they showed 16% CPU usage at 128 buffers. I repeated that test (yes under Vista) and never got above 1.6% CPU Usage. I might add that I'm using an Athlon 64 X2 3800+ which is the exact same CPU they used.

I don't have 3D sound set up yet because I'm using a 64-bit version of Vista with beta drivers from C-Media and I haven't gotten around to updating them to the newer ones with OpenAL 3D support. When I do, I'll be sure to post the CPU usage scores for those as well.

Feel free to waste your time, but it won't be comparable unless you're running the same motherboard, operating system and drivers. And even then, you'd need to bench it with another sound card to determine the performance delta.

It must kill you that anyone still buys Creative cards, but the reality is that they ARE the only game in town for hardware acceleration in games. That shouldn't be the only reason to buy a soundcard, but the reality is that most people don't care about better sound quality. If they did, MP3 would not be the dominant digital format for music.

[damicatz]

The only thing that would account for that much variance between tests would be a faulty setup, faulty configuration or a rigged test. You can try and dismiss my test results all you want but that doesn't change anything.

1.5% CPU usage is such an insignificant amount, especially in a multi-core system, that even if the X-Fi did lower my CPU usage, it wouldn't make a difference. Since I'm not about to give money to Creative, I'm not going to be able to test an X-Fi. But I can tell you that my Sound Blaster Live actually used more CPU (probably due to the buggy drivers for it that come bundled with Vista).

My actual configuration and how it differs from theirs is of no relevance. The argument is that the C-Media Oxygen HD Cards use so much more CPU time than the X-Fi that they lower the performance of games compared to the X-Fi. My Oxygen HD card uses almost no CPU time at all with OpenAL 2D, so clearly it is not the Oxygen HD that causes the performance degradation.

To be fair, I use a RAZER Barracuda and not an Azuentech or Sondigo. But it uses the Oxygen HD 8788 just like the two cards reviewed. So either RAZER has added additional hardware processing to the Barracuda compared to the other Oxygen HD boards or it was a configuration glitch/anomaly on the part of TechReport. Or it could have been less refined drivers (something Creative users should know plenty about) which have now been optimized. But again, none of those facts change the point that I had little to no CPU usage on the the same test they did.


Feel free to waste your time, but it won't be comparable unless you're running the same motherboard, operating system and drivers. And even then, you'd need to bench it with another sound card to determine the performance delta.

It must kill you that anyone still buys Creative cards, but the reality is that they ARE the only game in town for hardware acceleration in games. That shouldn't be the only reason to buy a soundcard, but the reality is that most people don't care about better sound quality. If they did, MP3 would not be the dominant digital format for music.

[dosbox]

The only thing that would account for that much variance between tests would be a faulty setup, faulty configuration or a rigged test. You can try and dismiss my test results all you want but that doesn't change anything.


Oh please, it's well known Vista has significantly higher performance overhead. Any gamer interested in extracting maximum performance is going to stick with XP - for now at least.



1.5% CPU usage is such an insignificant amount, especially in a multi-core system, that even if the X-Fi did lower my CPU usage0 it wouldn't make a difference.


Except that the benches in actual games show there can be a noticeable difference. In addition, Creative owners get the "benefit" of EAX. That's obviously irrelevant to you, but it certainly matters to anyone who wants to play an EAX enhanced game.



My actual configuration and how it differs from theirs is of no relevance.


It is relevant when you're trying to pass off your results as comparable to theirs. Saying one car is faster than another is ridiculous when one of them has the hand-brake on.



The argument is that the C-Media Oxygen HD Cards use so much more CPU time than the X-Fi that they lower the performance of games compared to the X-Fi. My Oxygen HD card uses almost no CPU time at all with OpenAL 2D, so clearly it is not the Oxygen HD that causes the performance degradation.


Except that the performance difference we're talking about is for 3D sound in games - something you have not tested, and which techreport demonstrated is significant (in some cases).

[damicatz]

You are ignoring my point. Techreport tested 2D sound as well as 3D sound. My results showed 1.5% CPU usage where theirs showed 15%+ on the 2D benchmark. Since my results were so different, and since I am using the same Oxygen HD chipset, it is not unreasonable to assume that perhaps the high CPU usage was not caused by the Oxygen HD but by something in the configuration or an incompatibility.

Because my results were so different from theirs, it is also not unreasonable to think that my 3D results will be as well. And for that matter, the game benchmarks.

As for Vista having a significantly higher performance overhead, that's rubbish. The majority of performance issues have been caused by crappy driver support, not the operating system itself. The blame for that rests solely on the hardware vendors who waited until the last minute to work on Vista drivers. In fact, in a lot of areas, Vista is significantly faster than XP for me. And, even if there was a *significantly* higher performance overhead, taking that into account would only further cast doubt on the results of Techreport because that would mean that my CPU usage should have been higher than theirs, not lower.

As for EAX, even though I think it's irrelevant, it will soon be obsoleted by Microsoft's Xaudio 2 API (https://connect.microsoft.com/XAudio2Beta/content/content.aspx?ContentID=5127) which will provide a cross-platform hardware-agnostic interface for doing the various DSP effects that EAX provides.


Oh please, it's well known Vista has significantly higher performance overhead. Any gamer interested in extracting maximum performance is going to stick with XP - for now at least.



Except that the benches in actual games show there can be a noticeable difference. In addition, Creative owners get the "benefit" of EAX. That's obviously irrelevant to you, but it certainly matters to anyone who wants to play an EAX enhanced game.



It is relevant when you're trying to pass off your results as comparable to theirs. Saying one car is faster than another is ridiculous when one of them has the hand-brake on.



Except that the performance difference we're talking about is for 3D sound in games - something you have not tested, and which techreport demonstrated is significant (in some cases).

[dosbox]

I don't have 3D sound set up yet because I'm using a 64-bit version of Vista with beta drivers from C-Media and I haven't gotten around to updating them to the newer ones with OpenAL 3D support.

LOL - I just noticed this. You're trying to compare tests run under 64-bit Vista against 32-bit XP Pro. And with beta drivers that don't even support OpenAL 3D!

[dosbox]

[quote]
As for Vista having a significantly higher performance overhead, that's rubbish. The majority of performance issues have been caused by crappy driver support, not the operating system itself.


Point the finger at whoever you like. The reality is that one will need to install Vista drivers, and that performance is currently sub-par compared to XP.



You are ignoring my point. Techreport tested 2D sound as well as 3D sound. My results showed 1.5% CPU usage where theirs showed 15%+ on the 2D benchmark. Since my results were so different, and since I am using the same Oxygen HD chipset, it is not unreasonable to assume that perhaps the high CPU usage was not caused by the Oxygen HD but by something in the configuration or an incompatibility.

Because my results were so different from theirs, it is also not unreasonable to think that my 3D results will be as well. And for that matter, the game benchmarks.


You don't consider the fact that you're running a 64-bit OS (with it's improved memory management and additional register support) relevant? We have nothing more to discuss.

[damicatz]

What I run is irrelevant to the argument that Oxygen HD Cards slow down games or use a lot of CPU time.

The arguement was that the Creative X-Fi is better than the Oxygen HD because it has better hardware acceleration and therefore less CPU usage which means faster games. The argument was not that the Creative X-Fi was better on Setup X or Y or vice versa. The argument was a generalized statement that made no reference to hardware or configuration. Your attempts to bring that up are little more than ignoratio elenchi and have no relevance to the argument at hand.


[QUOTE=damicatz;177906]

Point the finger at whoever you like. The reality is that one will need to install Vista drivers, and that performance is currently sub-par compared to XP.



You don't consider the fact that you're running a 64-bit OS (with it's improved memory management and additional register support) relevant? We have nothing more to discuss.

[{BZII}Commando]

I tried the beta drivers earlier today but had to revert back to the Windows XP default drivers.

The beta drivers cause Bioshock to crash less than 2 minutes into a game. I think the windows was griping about a released api or an api that wasn't released. I'll try reinstalling the beta drivers to see if it works without previous drivers.

I'll try these drivers again since I am using the Windows default drivers atm. The latest official drivers produce no sound at all, even in Windows Media player.

[dosbox]

What I run is irrelevant to the argument that Oxygen HD Cards slow down games or use a lot of CPU time.


It is most certainly relevant when you present your configuration as a counter to benchmarks that demonstrate a slow down in games.



The arguement was that the Creative X-Fi is better than the Oxygen HD because it has better hardware acceleration and therefore less CPU usage which means faster games. The argument was not that the Creative X-Fi was better on Setup X or Y or vice versa. The argument was a generalized statement that made no reference to hardware or configuration. Your attempts to bring that up are little more than ignoratio elenchi and have no relevance to the argument at hand.


LOL - what's ironic is that you attempted to use 2D results from a 64-bit OS to discount benchmarks that demonstrated there can be a performance difference in games run on a 32-bit OS. Now that's an irrelevant thesis! :D

[fiik]

I would just disable EAX for the time being. See my post on this thread (http://forums.2kgames.com/forums/showthread.php?t=7778&page=13) for more details.

Creative Labs has their work cut out for them.

[damicatz]

Updated my drivers and I think we can safely put this myth to rest. Sorry to disappoint the Creative fanboys.

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/9610/3dbustedid2.png

Even with the spike caused by Superfetch deciding to start loading things into memory, it never rose above 8% which is a far cry from the 17% CPU usage that Tech Report showed.

[UKJonny]

Well those drivers are absolutely useless - caused my soundcard to not work what-so-ever and all my settings to be lost. Understandable as its a beta but unfortunatly no help towards the ongoing X-Fi issues on BioShock.

At least they've recognised the issue and are doing *something* about it, pretty poor of Creative and very dissapointing that this wasnt done earlier though.

Take a look at what the developer staff @ Creative Labs have said in reply to angry comments from gamers regarding these issues...LoL.

http://digg.com/pc_games/Angry_Bioshock_Gamers_Vs_Stressed_Creative_Labs_St aff (thought it was Digg worthy =p)

[damicatz]

That's pretty typical of Creative Labs. If there is an issue, they always blame it on the user or the user's other hardware. It's never their problem and they never accept responsibility for anything.


Well those drivers are absolutely useless - caused my soundcard to not work what-so-ever and all my settings to be lost. Understandable as its a beta but unfortunatly no help towards the ongoing X-Fi issues on BioShock.

At least they've recognised the issue and are doing *something* about it, pretty poor of Creative and very dissapointing that this wasnt done earlier though.

Take a look at what the developer staff @ Creative Labs have said in reply to angry comments from gamers regarding these issues...LoL.

http://digg.com/pc_games/Angry_Bioshock_Gamers_Vs_Stressed_Creative_Labs_St aff (thought it was Digg worthy =p)

[CreepyD]

I don't think it's anything to do with the X-fi tbh, I have the same crackling, stuttering, low frame rates due to sound (all fine with -nosound used).
However it does it on my X-Fi AND my onboard AC97 - exactly the same problems.
Imo it's the game, not the drivers.. hopefuly a patch will fix it shortly.
Play something else for a few days :)
back to civ4 for me.

[UKJonny]

my particular problems are with EAX enabled only and involve the game not getting passed the splash screen / freezing, nothing to do with crackling etc. Altho this appears to be the most common issue there is quite a variety of sound related problems, some of which are driver related.

And just as a warning to anyone before they try those drivers, when i attempted to install the latest stable drivers after installing the beta drivers, i was welcomed with a lovely BSOD and since then i cant load up windows as during load @ boot im getting yet again BSOD.

Trying to sort it in safe mode now, think it goes without saying that this beta driver is not worth the hassle yet and I dont trust the Creative Labs team who's dealing with it either.

[dosbox]

Updated my drivers and I think we can safely put this myth to rest. Sorry to disappoint the Creative fanboys.

http://img371.imageshack.us/img371/9610/3dbustedid2.png

Even with the spike caused by Superfetch deciding to start loading things into memory, it never rose above 8% which is a far cry from the 17% CPU usage that Tech Report showed.

Once again with the irrelevancy. Vista 64 + OpenAL <> XP Pro + DirectSound. What matters is the relative performance. There could any number of reasons why you're getting different numbers, and the fact that you're running a different OS isn't helping your case.

If you want a valid test, borrow a Creative card and stick it in the same machine. Run the test then and note whether there is a difference. Repeat for an actual game.

But then, that would mean having to apply rigour to your test, and why bother with that when you can continue your FUD campaign.

[damicatz]

I must commend you on your sophistry skills. You would make Protagoras proud.

Considering that DirectSound is obsolete, it is of little relevance to someone building a computer for the future. And considering that XAudio 2, which is DirectSound's replacement, has no hardware acceleration support whatsoever, by design, whatever features the Creative cards have over competitors is of little relevance.

Furthermore, considering that XAudio 2 is both easier to use than OpenAL, provides the same kind of effects that EAX does on all setups with a minimal of CPU usage and is also on the XBox 360 and integrated into DirectX, there is no reason to believe that OpenAL will ever become dominant outside of a select few PC games. It is very likely that XAudio 2 will become the dominant API. And unlike DirectSound, Creative can't just tack on EAX; they'd have to make a wrapper like Alchemy which would redirect XAudio 2 calls to OpenAL, which would add performance overhead negating the advantages of having full hardware audio acceleration.

But since you insist on using an obsolete API as a performance counter, I point you again to the Techgage article detailing CPU usage. They preformed the same test that I preformed and the same test that Techreport preformed using RightMark 3DSound CPU Analyzer and their results are consistent with mine, not Techreport, using Direct3D and Windows XP.

For benchmarking games, I would glady do it, when nVidia decides to fix the texture eviction bug (http://www.theinquirer.net/default.aspx?article=41351) in the drivers. Until then, any benchmarks would be skewed by nVidia's crappy drivers and would mean nothing.


Once again with the irrelevancy. Vista 64 + OpenAL <> XP Pro + DirectSound. What matters is the relative performance. There could any number of reasons why you're getting different numbers, and the fact that you're running a different OS isn't helping your case.

If you want a valid test, borrow a Creative card and stick it in the same machine. Run the test then and note whether there is a difference. Repeat for an actual game.

But then, that would mean having to apply rigour to your test, and why bother with that when you can continue your FUD campaign.

[dosbox]

Another comparison between C-Media cards and Creative: Link (http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=282&Itemid=27&limit=1&limitstart=4)

The absolute CPU % is different from techreports due to their using an E6600, but the performance difference in a CPU limited situation is still there:

Auzentech X-Meridian 82 FPS
HDA X-Plosion 85.97 FPS
Bluegears b-Ensipirer 89.14 FPS
Creative X-Fi 92.2

Those are the EAX numbers. The Hardware 3D numbers also show a 5 FPS difference.

[damicatz]

The FPS difference is insignificant. Even they said that at the end. Your eyes are not going to notice a difference between 82 FPS and 92.2 FPS. I might also add that those results also are more in line with mine and Techgage's than Techreports.



Despite its poor showing in our theoretical tests using 3D audio, I didn't notice any particular loss in performance using either game title during my subjective testing of the X-Meridian in real-world scenarios, although having said that neither game made use of EAX. Both Doom 3 and F.E.A.R. play heavily on their immersiveness in drawing the user into a terrifying world, and it has to be said that playing these games in 5.1 Dolby Digital or DTS really does add an extra dimension to that immersion. Personally, I think the use of full multi-channel surround in these particular games does more for them the use of advanced EAX features, although of course your mileage may vary. This board may not be aimed at gamers, but some of its benefits are good news indeed for just that very part of the market.



Another comparison between C-Media cards and Creative: Link (http://www.elitebastards.com/cms/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=282&Itemid=27&limit=1&limitstart=4)

The absolute CPU % is different from techreports due to their using an E6600, but the performance difference in a CPU limited situation is still there:

Auzentech X-Meridian 82 FPS
HDA X-Plosion 85.97 FPS
Bluegears b-Ensipirer 89.14 FPS
Creative X-Fi 92.2

Those are the EAX numbers. The Hardware 3D numbers also show a 5 FPS difference.

[dosbox]

I must commend you on your sophistry skills. You would make Protagoras proud.


Oh please. The discussion was around whether Creative cards offered any performance benefits. In currently available games they do. I've provided two links that support this thesis. You've provided a single synthetic test result on a different operating system.



Considering that DirectSound is obsolete, it is of little relevance to someone building a computer for the future. And considering that XAudio 2, which is DirectSound's replacement, has no hardware acceleration support whatsoever, by design, whatever features the Creative cards have over competitors is of little relevance.


How many games support XAudio 2? Oh what was that? It hasn't made it to an actual released operating system? Huh.

[damicatz]

Oh please. The discussion was around whether Creative cards offered any performance benefits. In currently available games they do. I've provided two links that support this thesis. You've provided a single synthetic test result on a different operating system.



How many games support XAudio 2? Oh what was that? It hasn't made it to an actual released operating system? Huh.

And I don't consider 5 FPS when you are already well above 50 FPS to be a performance benefit. If you want to argue semantics, having no sound at all offers a performance benefit over both the X-Fi and the Oxygen HD.

XAudio 2 isn't out yet. I've already stated that, numerous times. But when it is, you can bet that it will become the dominant API, if for nothing else, because it works on both the 360 and the PC without having to make two separate audio paths. Why make a separate EAX audio path when you can use one audio path for both platforms and get the same kind of DSP effects?

[dosbox]

The FPS difference is insignificant. Even they said that at the end. Your eyes are not going to notice a difference between 82 FPS and 92.2 FPS. I might also add that those results also are more in line with mine and Techgage's than Techreports.

Um. You did notice that they used an E6600 right? That is a significantly faster CPU than the X2 3800.

Also note that this was on a 3-year old game, so the average framerates are fairly high. 5% at 90 FPS might not matter, but it'll certainly be noticeable at 30 FPS.

[damicatz]

Um. You did notice that they used an E6600 right? That is a significantly faster CPU than the X2 3800.

Also note that this was on a 3-year old game, so the average framerates are fairly high. 5% at 90 FPS might not matter, but it'll certainly be noticeable at 30 FPS.

Unreal Tournament 2004 also happens to be much more CPU dependent than modern games. Games are becoming less and less CPU dependent as GPUs become more and more powerful. With DirectX 10, the CPU usage will become even more irrelevant as physics calculations are offloaded from the CPU to the GPU.

[dosbox]

And I don't consider 5 FPS when you are already well above 50 FPS to be a performance benefit. If you want to argue semantics, having no sound at all offers a performance benefit over both the X-Fi and the Oxygen HD.

XAudio 2 isn't out yet.

Yet you're still bringing it up when:



The argument is that the C-Media Oxygen HD Cards use so much more CPU time than the X-Fi that they lower the performance of games compared to the X-Fi.


From the techreport GRAW2 results (http://techreport.com/articles.x/11759/8)



Creative X-Fi 56.3
Creative X-Fi (EAX Advanced HD) 53.8
Auzentech X-Meridian 45.4


Provide some other benchmarks that show a different story and I'll continue this discussion. Until then, adios.

[damicatz]

And considering how far off the Techreport CPU usage reports were from everyone else, including your own link, I wouldn't trust the rest of their benchmarking.


Yet you're still bringing it up when:



From the techreport GRAW2 results (http://techreport.com/articles.x/11759/8)



Provide some other benchmarks that show a different story and I'll continue this discussion. Until then, adios.

[callmecheez]

Sorry to take this off-topic but is anyone getting a weird 'cough and splutter' for all aspects of this game, with an X-Fi Xtreme audio card?

Mine sounds like this:
http://rapidshare.com/files/52574009/bumshock.mp3

Its really annoying; and only happens if I set it to 5.1 / eax.
Any suggestions?

Thanks! :)

[callmecheez]

p.s to listen to that recording you just need to click the link and press 'free'