Creative X-Fi

[Googer]

Originally posted by: jonmcguffin
I never thought the integrated IEEE 1394 made a whole lot of sense anyhow. As far as I was concerned, it just took up space and if I wanted IEEE 1394, I'd buy a $20 add in card that would give me 3-4 internal connectors as well as 2-3 external connectors.

The Creative bashing is getting old, though I sympathise with the guy who's got the $65 coupon they aren't honoring. I've never been a huge fan of the company, but I respect their place in the marketplace and can certainly see no reason why their latest products should be bashed.

Jon

The intergrated 1394 was intended to operate with creative's line (and IPOD) of MP3 players. 5 or 6 years ago the only way to connect one was through firewire (1394). USB 2.0 had not yet arrived. Also Creative's marketing said that 1394 networks were a great way for a bunch of friends to play mulitplayer games (instead of using ethernet).

If anyone remembers the nomad jukebox then you will know what I mean. It was the 1394 MP3 player that got all of the attention before the iPOD.
http://creative.com/products/product.as...tegory=213&subcategory=216&product=296

 

[Gooberlx2]

Originally posted by: Acanthus

Originally posted by: Gooberlx2
Seriously....that part is true for sure. 24-bit sounds great.....or atleast much much better than it did with onboard sound or even the sblive! 24-bit (makes sense huh ).

So youre saying the same song, on 24 bit, sounds better? becuase its upsampling, you cant get better sound from the same sample on higher bandwidth, it doesnt magically "make" the missing data.

Actually.....if you read the details about it in THG's review....that's EXACTLY what it's doing. It uses an algorithm to figure out (or guess if you prefer) where the missing data should be. I'd relate it to PAR files (no not analogous, but it illustrates the point). Atleast that's what I got out of the article.

Yes, the same song file sounds better (to me, on my equipment) at 24-bit than at 16-bit. And no it's not just a tweaking of the treble and bass like so many people have been claiming, it sounds fuller....not just more dynamic.

 

[Jisi]

Will there be any offering of the x-fi in notebook form through a PC card?

 

[Some1ne]

It makes a great instant high speed peer to peer network for when you do not have any infrastructure around. Just attach a cable and transfer at 400MB/s! Perfect for laptops.

Are you sure you don't mean 400 Mbits/second? I don't recall firewire offering 400 MBytes/second, and even if it did, the devices/HDD's involved in the file transfer wouldn't be able to keep up with it (and if you were using a PCI-based firewire solution, like firewire integrated into a sound card, it would be limited to 133 MB/sec max anyways). At any rate, this is what I use my second GbE port for...the first one goes to my Internet connection, and the second one goes to a cable that I attach to my laptop when I need to do fast file transfers (for things that are small/not time-critical I just send over the wireless network), and I can transfer at up to 1000 Mbits/second. Plus I don't think my laptop has a firewire port.

Creative became the market leader, because they were better/more compatible than any other card at a time when a lot of other were putting out crap for more money that ppl who had no idea how to use a computer could not figure out how to make it work for their game, and sometimes it just plain wouldn't work no matter what you did. I wouldn't call that unfair business practices.

I don't entirely agree...Creative didn't become the market leader because they were necessarily better...they just got there first, and after that they were the ones with brand-name recognition (which many times is all it takes to cement a position as market leader). They had widespread and highly visible products before any major competitors showed up, and although some companies did introduce consumer cards that arguably were superior to anything Creative had at the time, they were just never able to get the name recognition necessary to compete with Creative. It has a lot less to do with Creative being "better" or offering an exceptional product line than it does to do with the fact that Creative got there first, and stumbled onto a clever name-brand in "SoundBlaster", which sounds far more appealing than things like "Adlib" or "Montego". I don't hate Creative, and I'll probably get an X-Fi to replace my Audigy 1 at some point (after prices drop a bit), but they (and their products) aren't without flaws, and at least some of the criticism that has been directed at them is valid.

 

[AiponGkooja]

I don't understand why people are complaining that it doesn't reduce system load by much (or any in some cases) more than the Audigy 2's. So they did it right the first time, and have added more features and better quality sound in their next wave. I fail to see the problem in this. If it bothers you that much, get an Audigy 2?

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

Creative is one of the worst companies in all of computing.

Creative supplies the best gaming cards in the business. If that's the "worst company in all of computing" then you need to check the definition of "worst" in your dictionary.

Horrible business practices that lead them to no competition

If other companies aren't making money how is that Creative's fault? Was nVidia's buyout of 3dfx a "horrible business practice"?

Now they have stagnated the market and release these margainal upgrade steaming piles of sound cards for exhorbitant prices, and everyones drooling like they did something amazing.

For gaming they are amazing because they're the best. They have the lowest CPU cycles and the highest level of compatibility around. If you actually stopped to play games with their cards you might start to understand this.

If you're happy with your POS average joe onboard solution that's great and all, but the rest of us want something better.

Do you think nvidia or ati would get away with a card that has 5% more image quality, 5% more performance, and no DVI for a generation?

So Creative should be shipping DVI on their sound cards too? Maybe you should take off that tin-foil hat of yours.

After so long in the video forums with your non-sensical and almost always self-defeating arguments, id just like to take a moment to say, i hate you BFG.

Now back to what i was saying.

Other companies were profitable, and had far better techonology, then creative buried them in frivilous lawsuits and steamrolled the company to the brink of bankruptcy and bought them out. You know this, youve been here long enough to see the threads, youre just arguing because thats what you do BFG.

They are the best at gaming because they are the ONLY gaming solution.

And the DVI comment was referring to something all video cards should have, and omitting it would clearly be a massive mistake, and a dealbreaker for everyone with DVI-I LCDs (a tangent to everyone with $1000+ stereos with optical that would take advantage of their rediculous SNR). Creative chose the stupid path.

But again, think you understood the general idea, and argued because thats what you do, BFG.

 

[LED]

Firewire was a great selling point for me on the Audigy and AIW ATI 8500 back when but nowadays I use 1394b and anything via PCI Bus would bottle neck...BTW WTF are the PCI-e X-Fi's?

 

[BFG10K]

id just like to take a moment to say, i hate you BFG.

Well, aren't you a clever little fellow?

Other companies were profitable, and had far better techonology, then creative buried them in frivilous lawsuits and steamrolled the company to the brink of bankruptcy and bought them out.

There's no way Creative could've buried them financially unless you accept Creative were more profitable than said companies which then begs the question of why, given you claim these companies were superior.

You know this, youve been here long enough to see the threads, youre just arguing because thats what you do BFG.

I know Creative had lawsuits but I also know those companies were already hurting to begin with.

What's next, claiming nVidia caused the downfall of 3dfx? I'd like to see you put that claim forward, Mr nVidia fan. Tell me, did nVidia "stifle competition" and are they "the worst company in computing"?

And the DVI comment was referring to something all video cards should have, and omitting it would clearly be a massive mistake,

It wouldn't make a shred of difference to most hardcore gamers - the sorts of people who buy high-end video cards - given they don't use DVI or LCDs. In any case comparing DVI on a video card to 1394 on a sound card is really reaching at best.

Creative chose the stupid path.

Right...except I don't remember you praising Creative when they did supply 1394 so why is it such a deal-breaker for you now? For that matter what 1394 devices do you run? And does your current sound card (which I assume is non-Creative) even have 1394 on it?

But again, think you understood the general idea, and argued because thats what you do, BFG.

I understand perfectly. Creative = devil, nVidia = good, and don't let facts or reason get in the way of that.

 

[bozack]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

A lot of people use 1394.

I have no doubts people use 1394. The point is that given X-Fi has only just come out that suggests these people have been getting 1394 from elsewhere.

Many folks would call this an upgrade from A1/A2 and may be using the 1394 because they don't have this onboard and pci slots are becoming a rarity with dual slot video boards, etc

I highly doubt it's (m)any; more likely most of them have PCI or integrated mobo solutions.

Also in all of the Creative bashing I've seen I've never come across somebody who defended Creative on the basis of their 1394.

I will admit that part of my draw to the A2 ZS was the internal firewire port, my mainboard only has two firewire headers that are connected to the external plate supplied whereas my case also has a firewire connection on thr front, I was going to get the ZS to utilitze this front connection and also get better sound for gaming. I held out for the X-Fi to see what was what yet am surprised and somewhat disappointed that there is no firewire header like on the ZS...

No matter though as the chances of my noticing a difference in sound between the two is slight and I will save a boatload of money going with the ZS.

 

[Acanthus]

Originally posted by: BFG10K

id just like to take a moment to say, i hate you BFG.

Well, aren't you a clever little fellow?

Other companies were profitable, and had far better techonology, then creative buried them in frivilous lawsuits and steamrolled the company to the brink of bankruptcy and bought them out.

There's no way Creative could've buried them financially unless you accept Creative were more profitable than said companies which then begs the question of why, given you claim these companies were superior.

You know this, youve been here long enough to see the threads, youre just arguing because thats what you do BFG.

I know Creative had lawsuits but I also know those companies were already hurting to begin with.

What's next, claiming nVidia caused the downfall of 3dfx? I'd like to see you put that claim forward, Mr nVidia fan. Tell me, did nVidia "stifle competition" and are they "the worst company in computing"?

And the DVI comment was referring to something all video cards should have, and omitting it would clearly be a massive mistake,

It wouldn't make a shred of difference to most hardcore gamers - the sorts of people who buy high-end video cards - given they don't use DVI or LCDs. In any case comparing DVI on a video card to 1394 on a sound card is really reaching at best.

Creative chose the stupid path.

Right...except I don't remember you praising Creative when they did supply 1394 so why is it such a deal-breaker for you now? For that matter what 1394 devices do you run? And does your current sound card (which I assume is non-Creative) even have 1394 on it?

But again, think you understood the general idea, and argued because thats what you do, BFG.

I understand perfectly. Creative = devil, nVidia = good, and don't let facts or reason get in the way of that.

Again, you skew the answers, either you have weird ass reasoning that defies all logic, or you just dont get it. I wasnt talking about firewire, i dont give a flying fvck about firewire.

I was talking about dolby. Had you read my post, you would know that OPTICAL refers to digital sound, not firewire.

At no point did i say nforce audio was the end all of sound.

 

[AiponGkooja]

So here's a question for people that like the new X-Fi cards. I have already ordered a new Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro for about $100AR from buy.com. I then quickly found out that buy.com sucks a big one and am thinking about just cancelling that order and finding another Audigy 2 ZS (whatever edition) for around the same price. Since X-Fi is around though, would it be worth it to just get one of the lower end X-Fi cards instead of a mid-range 2 ZS? I'm upgrading from onboard sound, so either one would be an improvement, and I was wondering which would be best for the price.

Thanks,
Aip

 

[jonmcguffin]

Oh, I think flat out that you should buy one of the new X-Fi cards for $130. It's a no brainer.

 

[Pariah]

Other companies were profitable, and had far better techonology, then creative buried them in frivilous lawsuits and steamrolled the company to the brink of bankruptcy and bought them out. You know this, youve been here long enough to see the threads, youre just arguing because thats what you do BFG.

If you're talking about Aureal, you may want to stop your revisionist history. Aureal was NEVER a profitable company and was in financial distress before Creative ever filed any lawsuits. Creative filed a lawsuit against them in November of '98. Aureal's year to date financial results announced in October of that year for the first three quarters were a loss of $15 million on $14.6 million in sales. So they were in the red by more money than they were actually pulling in. Though some how, in the eyes of the dellusional Creative bashers, such dreadful results are a shining beacon of success that was about the rule the audio market until big bad Creative came and wiped them out financially and then killed their kids and ate their pets.

It doesn't matter what Creative produces, to some people it will always be the worst product ever. Why some of you continue to troll around in these threads is beyond me. OK, you don't like Creative products, we get it. You're not going to change anyone's opinion, and quite frankly, most of your reasons are either flat out inaccurate or frivilous. So why continue wasting board space and people's time by continually posting about it? No one cares that you don't want to spend $400 on Creative's highest end card.

 

[AiponGkooja]

Originally posted by: Pariah

Other companies were profitable, and had far better techonology, then creative buried them in frivilous lawsuits and steamrolled the company to the brink of bankruptcy and bought them out. You know this, youve been here long enough to see the threads, youre just arguing because thats what you do BFG.

If you're talking about Aureal, you may want to stop your revisionist history. Aureal was NEVER a profitable company and was in financial distress before Creative ever filed any lawsuits. Creative filed a lawsuit against them in November of '98. Aureal's year to date financial results announced in October of that year for the first three quarters were a loss of $15 million on $14.6 million in sales. So they were in the red by more money than they were actually pulling in. Though some how, in the eyes of the dellusional Creative bashers, such dreadful results are a shining beacon of success that was about the rule the audio market until big bad Creative came and wiped them out financially and then killed their kids and ate their pets.

It doesn't matter what Creative produces, to some people it will always be the worst product ever. Why some of you continue to troll around in these threads is beyond me. OK, you don't like Creative products, we get it. You're not going to change anyone's opinion, and quite frankly, most of your reasons are either flat out inaccurate or frivilous. So why continue wasting board space and people's time by continually posting about it? No one cares that you don't want to spend $400 on Creative's highest end card.

Stop responding to them and they'll give up and go away. Kind of like when a dog begs for food. Why some people continue to egg them on is beyond me. Either have an intelligent conversation, giving proper arguments for both sides, and leaving out the insults, or just ignore them. How hard is that?

Besides, it's more important that I get more answers to my question above

Edit: Hell yes, I'm a Senior Memeber!

Edit2: And yes, I do notice the hypocrisy of my post, but others might not, so shhhh.

 

[remagavon]

I'm probably going to get the $130 one just for the headphone effects; I'll wait for anand's review but if that's good then I'm going to spring for it. Gotta get a tube amp still for my headphones but the klipsch one does decent enough for me now (headphone port in the control box).

I can't wait to try one out with my HD600s

 

[biostud]

Originally posted by: AiponGkooja
So here's a question for people that like the new X-Fi cards. I have already ordered a new Audigy 2 ZS Platinum Pro for about $100AR from buy.com. I then quickly found out that buy.com sucks a big one and am thinking about just cancelling that order and finding another Audigy 2 ZS (whatever edition) for around the same price. Since X-Fi is around though, would it be worth it to just get one of the lower end X-Fi cards instead of a mid-range 2 ZS? I'm upgrading from onboard sound, so either one would be an improvement, and I was wondering which would be best for the price.

Thanks,
Aip

I would definately buy the X-fi over the midrange A2ZS.

 

[AiponGkooja]

Originally posted by: remagavon
I'm probably going to get the $130 one just for the headphone effects; I'll wait for anand's review but if that's good then I'm going to spring for it. Gotta get a tube amp still for my headphones but the klipsch one does decent enough for me now (headphone port in the control box).

I can't wait to try one out with my HD600s

When reading about that feature, I remember it saying that you would need some "good quality" headphones, or something along those lines, in order to enjoy it. I was wondering what qualifies as "good quality." Probably not the $30 ones that I got from Best Buy? Another thing I saw somewhere (might have been in this very thread) was that the x-fi models that don't come with the drive-bay add-on don't have anywhere to port your case headphone/microphone plugs to the sound card? Does that just mean I have to run the headphone cable from the back of my case then (which is no big deal)?

 

[sharkeeper]

I'd buy a notebook version of this in a heartbeat. The A2 notebook card is nice on its own. The drivers now let you play it right through the lappy speakers (I know practically useless as tits on a bull you say but if you do GM work at least you can hear it without cans.)

 

[blurredvision]

Just got home with my X-Fi Platinum card from Best Buy. Why is this important? Because I'm a complete audio noob who has been listening to motherboard audio for about 5 years now. The last time I bought a soundcard was way back in 1998 I think, it was a Creatve that came with a nice set of speakers. I have no idea what all these technical terms mean, and I couldn't even begin to get into a discussion on why or why not this is a good upgrade. However, I want better sounding audio, and I for one wasn't afraid to pay $200 for it.

So for those of you like me who aren't audiophiles, but are still looking at this card, stay tuned for my completey unbiased, amatuerish review.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Originally posted by: blurredvision
Just got home with my X-Fi Platinum card from Best Buy. Why is this important? Because I'm a complete audio noob who has been listening to motherboard audio for about 5 years now. The last time I bought a soundcard was way back in 1998 I think, it was a Creatve that came with a nice set of speakers. I have no idea what all these technical terms mean, and I couldn't even begin to get into a discussion on why or why not this is a good upgrade. However, I want better sounding audio, and I for one wasn't afraid to pay $200 for it.

So for those of you like me who aren't audiophiles, but are still looking at this card, stay tuned for my completey unbiased, amatuerish review.

I was in a pretty similar boat as you, figured that plenty of people would be, and that's why I've been posting my opinions/experiences with it the last two days.

I'm probably going to get the $130 one just for the headphone effects; I'll wait for anand's review but if that's good then I'm going to spring for it. .....

.....When reading about that feature, I remember it saying that you would need some "good quality" headphones, or something along those lines, in order to enjoy it. I was wondering what qualifies as "good quality." Probably not the $30 ones that I got from Best Buy?

I was trying that feature out last night with my $20 "Audiophase" headphones I bought from BB a long time ago. Seemed to work perfectly fine, pretty impressive even, though I'm sure it would benefit even more with higher quality headphones.

Another thing I saw somewhere (might have been in this very thread) was that the x-fi models that don't come with the drive-bay add-on don't have anywhere to port your case headphone/microphone plugs to the sound card? Does that just mean I have to run the headphone cable from the back of my case then (which is no big deal)?

I don't know what's on your case but the little headphone-jack-connector-cable-thing inside the front of my Dell 8400 case that used to fit on the SBLive! 24-bit (that came installed in the comp) also fit on a connector for the onboard sound (Adi SoundMax), and also fit on a connector on the X-fi. Seems to work perfectly fine, so I'd assume it's a pretty standardized thing.

The X-fi Audio console has check boxes for "automatically turn on headphone settings" and "automatically mute speakers" when headphones are connected. When I plug my headphones in the speakers do mute....but I find I still have to go and select "Headphones" from the speaker setup so I can enable the CMSS-3D headphone HRTF surround stuff. Dunno if that's a driver/software thing or if I haven't set something up correctly, or if that's only for the drive-bay. I certainly would like the speaker setup to turn to heapdhones and the Virtual Headphone Surround to turn on automatically when I connect them, and then to turn back to 5.1 speakers when I disconnect them.

 

[AiponGkooja]

Originally posted by: Gooberlx2
I don't know what's on your case but the little headphone-jack-connector-cable-thing inside the front of my Dell 8400 case that used to fit on the SBLive! 24-bit (that came installed in the comp) also fit on a connector for the onboard sound (Adi SoundMax), and also fit on a connector on the X-fi. Seems to work perfectly fine, so I'd assume it's a pretty standardized thing.

Oh, I was under the impression that the card didn't HAVE a connector for it. Thanks for clearing that up.

 

[Sureshot324]

Originally posted by: sharkeeper
Wow no 1394.

That's gonna piss some folks off.

I've never really understood the point of putting a firewire port on a sound card. Sure it's a nice bonus if you need firewire and your system doesn't have it, but what does it have to do with audio? Most audio device don't need much bandwidth and just use usb.

 

[Bona Fide]

My Audigy 2 ZS is good enough for my 2.1/headphones setup.

 

[Googer]

Originally posted by: ArneBjarne

Originally posted by: YOyoYOhowsDAjello

Originally posted by: mattburk
Performance increases, are YOU NUTS?
HIFI guys do not spend $400 on a card because of 1 more fps or 1% less cpu usage. It's all about the SOUND.
That?s why we put 10k+ into our HT speaker systems. I think the key point to the card is increased fidelity.
I do hope it sends a digital signal out that an AVR can understand and decode. Does anyone know if that is supported?

If you're talking about surround sound in digital format, then no, it doesn't have that.

Which is rather stupid especially since they make an external dts-encoder which takes 6 analogue inputs. How about putting the encoder on the card (or using uncompressed digital transfer to the external encoder eg. HDMI) so you don't have to go through a DA conversion immediately followed by an AD conversion?

They make another one too, just under the creative and not the soundblaster name.
http://creative.com/products/product.asp?category=4&subcategory=136&product=9468

Also you can use an old USB extigy as an external converter. No PC needed.

 

[blurredvision]

A couple of questions:

I have an analog 5.1 setup, with green/black/orange cables hooked in. Is it in my best interest to just leave CMSS off when using my 5.1 speaker setup? It's my understanding that CMSS is just a technology to enhance headphones and 2/2.1 setups. I have it set to turn on automatically when I plug in headphones, which works great, but I'm not really sure if I even need it turned on when not using headphones.

Also, 24-bit Crystalizer is turned on by default at 50%. Is this something that would sound best at 100%? Or is it akin to a bass or treble knob, just depends on where I like the sound the best?

EDIT: Also, any word on upcoming games supporting 3D VoIP? I'm really, really interested in this feature of EAX 5.0, and would love to put it to the test.