Just wondering why no one starts an X-fi thread yet??

Nobody likes creative???

Anyway, just bought an X-Fi XtremeMusic...CNY instinct purchase due to cannot resist good offer...LOL.

Currently only using it with my main rig as in my sig. Speakers are Creative 4.1 speakers.

Haven't much time to do some testing yet.

Initial impression:
X-Fi is definitely >>>>> SB live 5.1. I find my old SB Live 5.1 (recently sold) really crummy and frankly not much better than on-board sound.

Music:
Sounds great. But is it better than my Prodigy LT? Can't say for sure. I'll probably need to take my main rig and plug it into my Yamaha receiver & 5.1 speakers in the living room to do an accurate test.

24-bit crystalizer:
a lot of hoo-hass has been made by Creative over this. I dunno sometimes when i on it, it sounds as though the "Loud" button has been pushed. Sometimes it does sounds better though. I think the improvement is more significant when playing MP3s ripped at 128k (from err...dunno where...ahem).. than when i play high-quality WMA/MP3 rip from my CDs, the improvement is not so significant.

Games:
Not a heavy gamer. Only tested with BFME2 so far. Other than being nice and crisp, nothing really significant. But then again, this is not the kinda game to test this card.

Movies:
Not tested yet.

Installation:
I've sort of screwed up my installation by downloading latest drivers instead of using the installation CDs. Problem is, in order to install all the other apps, u need to use the CD instead. I've tried running the setup manually for each of the app and it won't work. E-mailed Creative with my problem and got a response next day. They just point me to their knowledge base for procedures for a complete installation clean up (not so straightfoward!).

Anyway, solved the problem myself.


VISTA:
Tested in VISTA too. Some of the Creative apps don't run properly with messages keeps popping up saying something. EAX don't work anymore. In BFME2, i tried setting the EAX3 option on (only EAX 3....X-Fi is EAX 5)...it says "EAX 3 is NOT SUPPORTED by your hardware". Thanks VISTA.

No doubt, EAX is dead and gone in VISTA, with OPEN AL as the new library.


X-Fi owners, share ur experience here!

This post has been edited by Matrix: Feb 14 2007, 10:34 AM

For gaming in Vista for X-Fi, have you try out ALchemy:

http://preview.creativelabs.com/alchemy/default.aspx

Wahh...finally got 1 reply. Thanks for the tip.

Looks like people dun like Creative around here wor...

I owned X-fi xtrememusic. Bought for 460 from niclasteoh in june 2006. Pair with logitech z5400 now. compare with Audigy 1se, the sounds great and clarity. but due to lack of vista support it force me to stick with XP.

This post has been edited by swgiant: Feb 15 2007, 09:12 AM

yeah VISTA support is very dodgy. It has beta drivers now but seems to have problems. I've a strange problem, sometimes it refuse to play MP3 in VISTA (using Windows Media player/ MCE), after reboot it'll work. If it doesn't, then need to reboot again!!!!

That's why i've dual boot currenty. Currently VISTA have not much use...only use it to surf net!!!

Congratulation for all the X-FI owner ... i am one myself and owning it for almost a year long..

this is indeed the best sound card i used up to date and does not fail me when comes to performance. Basically this card is meant to be paired with a THX supported speaker as normal speaker just cant squish out the best performance from it ...

i had tried to hook it with other lower end speaker and even my latest SONY headset .... but nth sound as perfect as the THX speaker.

the only down side of the sound card is the driver installation.. it get crash when doing updating sometimes ..
anyway ... happy X-FI thread being formed

anyway few weeks ago i ran through the creative forum, the mod claimed that the vista WHQL driver will be pending till somewhere in March. Hope will fix all the existing problem...

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Added on February 15, 2007, 9:32 ambut one i dislikes is creative monopolize the EAX, it makes no other competitors to compete with him...

This post has been edited by swgiant: Feb 15 2007, 09:32 AM

hello everyone. im here for seeking advices on soundcard and speakers. im not sure how much in stores so yeah pretty unsure about budget yet.

deleted.....found the answer and solved the problem

This post has been edited by cablesguy: Feb 16 2007, 04:07 PM

well.. i used 2 sound cards..
i like xfi when comes to games.. but its basic driver package size is whopping 40MB while my maya driver size is over 100x smaller which is abt 450Kb. (yup... its less than half megabyte.. its that small)

A lot of the stuff can be disabled...there's one DLLML.EXE is sucking 50% of my CPU resource!!! I disabled all the stuff...it's not needed anyway. Creative drivers are not very good me thinks. Loads of junk that hogs resources for no good reasons.

i owned xtreme music bought at rm390 exactly 1 year ago b4 CNY.
and yeah, creative installer installed a lot of things unnessasary for normal users which hogs the pc.

just got my fatal1ty today . Dunno how to use...hehe...

vista support from creative sucks big time, i recon stick with xp instead

Iz it X-Fi xtreme music got any difference with the Audiotrack Prodigy 192? Quite noob at here!!! Thx!!!

Actually Creative drivers sucks big time. It has known problem with Nforce mobo till today also cannot resolve.

My X-fi occasionall got hiss sound when boot up (XP) and it'll be gone after re-start. Luckily it's not very often, just encountered once or twice. VISTA support is even more horrible. Most of the software that comes with the card don't even run at all.

Is there any Intel X-Fi user here with hiss sound problem?

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Added on March 3, 2007, 12:55 pmQuite hard to say. I've both Prodigy LT and X-fi in different rigs. Can't do fare comparison coz my Prodigy got the better receiver and speakers. But i can say both are good. The X-fi crystalizer is pretty good sometimes, depending on the source.

Still if you want to use HTPC rig, i'll still prefer my Prodigy LT due to it's multitude of connectors including optical and coaxial connectors. One of the biggest drawback of the X-fi is the "3 in 1 Flexi jack" which acts as mic/line/in and digital out all in one. If you intend to use the digital out, there's no where u can plug in a MIC at the same time. Creative should be shot for being such a cheapskate and cutting cost on such corners on such an expensive card!!!

This post has been edited by Matrix: Mar 3 2007, 12:55 PM

X-fi crystalizer is gud for normal use!!! Bt nowadays creative is cut cost on x-fi adi!!! I thought the product at before is better!!! Jz my 2 cent only!!!

Semm like many ppl complain bout d vista still cant support all d function of x-fi.

Fatal1ty is good gaming . Is it good for recording Sounds too?

X-fi is good for recording sounds. x-ram provided by x-fi fatal1ty is good for gamers.