Information on x-fi xtreme gamer and xtreme audio!!

[santz]

I was annoyed over the lack of any solid information on the newer additions on the xfi family. I went to the creative website to write them a mail, when i discovered the official creative discussion forum and found this thread. Very useful

http://forums.creative.com/creativelabs...id=78388&view=by_date_ascending&page=1

It seems:
1. x-fi audio is not hardware accelerated at all, all the mixing and effects are done by your cpu which can drop your frame rate instead of raising it. it is even worse than audigy 2 and is essentially the Live Value 24bit / Audigy 2 SE.

2. X-fi gamer on the other hand is hardware accelerated, but read on the creative thread and you will find some interesting things.

After reading the thread, many people complained that xtreme audio should never have been added to the family of X-fi cards, more complaints that creative only included the xtreme audio to fool customers who donot have much information or tech. know how to figure out that x-fi is not hardware accelerated.

I personally was on the brink of buying the card a few days ago from buy.com with google checkout. I cannot tell you how glad I am that i did not make the jump.

Moral of story: Stick with the original series of X-fi cards for now.

 

[dBTelos]

Thanks for the info.

 

[Auric]

meow

 

[Brian48]

I love my XtremeMusic, and would get another, but I really need a stand-alone soundcard with optical out. I'm running WinXP 64-bit and don't have too many options other than the on-board right now. There are no drivers for my Fortissimo III, my AV710 is horrid (and buggy) in games, and the ancient, beta SBLive drivers doesn't seem work right with the Hoontech digital daughter card properly. Ironic as it may sound, the on-board Realtek with my Soltek MB has been the best optical out option I've had yet since going WinXP 64-bit. I may wind up getting the X-Fi gamer by default if it does in fact have on-board optical out.

 

[YOyoYOhowsDAjello]

Originally posted by: Brian48
I love my XtremeMusic, and would get another, but I really need a stand-alone soundcard with optical out. I'm running WinXP 64-bit and don't have too many options other than the on-board right now. There are no drivers for my Fortissimo III, my AV710 is horrid (and buggy) in games, and the ancient, beta SBLive drivers doesn't seem work right with the Hoontech digital daughter card properly. Ironic as it may sound, the on-board Realtek with my Soltek MB has been the best optical out option I've had yet since going WinXP 64-bit. I may wind up getting the X-Fi gamer by default if it does in fact have on-board optical out.

Gaming and digital usually don't mix though

 

[Old Hippie]

Thanks santz. Good read. :thumbsup:

 

[Auric]

Originally posted by: Brian48
I love my XtremeMusic, and would get another, but I really need a stand-alone soundcard with optical out. I'm running WinXP 64-bit and don't have too many options other than the on-board right now. There are no drivers for my Fortissimo III, my AV710 is horrid (and buggy) in games, and the ancient, beta SBLive drivers doesn't seem work right with the Hoontech digital daughter card properly. Ironic as it may sound, the on-board Realtek with my Soltek MB has been the best optical out option I've had yet since going WinXP 64-bit. I may wind up getting the X-Fi gamer by default if it does in fact have on-board optical out.

Dude (may, I call you Dude? ), either the Hoontech or Soltek brackets can likely be used with the X-Fi. It's simply a matter of matching the wires to the SPDIF_IO header on the card.

 

[brikis98]

good post... i guess i'll just be waiting for the original series of x-fi cards to halve in price