Sometime that happen to me too, but so far after changing to Windows 7 it doesn't occur as frequently as it did on Windows XP.

About the digital out, I found this on the other forum:
Now here is the scoop with the digital outs on Creative's cards. They WILL do 5.1, 6.1, 7.1 whatever via digital ONLY if the source is encoded in DD or DTS. So that means, DVDs, BDs, HD-DVD and anything encoded with AC3 like the odd Divx the sound card simply passes it through for a reciever to decode.

With games and regular music it will ONLY do stereo.

For 5.1+ in games you MUST use analogue. Which isn't too bad, the X-Fi's have ok DACs and if you use a decent set cables between the PC and your speakers it'll sound just as good as digital.

I am using windows 7 64 bit and the cant change mode thingy keeps happening after I played games.But it doesnt happen all the time.I cant seems to figure out either I didnt quit the game properly(just use alt+f) or there is really an audio process running at the background.I do check at task manager but cant really find anything.

owh,that means if the audio/video file have DD or Dts, It will still transfer 5.1?Thanks.No point to change the sound card then.Is there any huge difference between analogue and digital?I tried listening to music using analogue and digital and it seems when using the digital output,the sound is much more clearer+sharper

Quit the game properly next time then

Analog means using your soundcard DAC while digital is using the speaker DAC to convert digital signal to analog. It depends on which one have higher quality DAC. In theory your soundcard is better but its either the speaker is doing more than just digital conversion or maybe because Creative analog stage use poor components hence the 'better' sound you get when listening through digital out

This is not only X-FI cards lar... All sound cards are like that. They'll pass the compressed digital signal via the optical/coaxial out and let ur AVR decode.
This is why the DTS Connect and DD Live is useful. It can encode non DD/DTS track like 2 channel stereo from whatever source into DD signals. Cards like ASUS XONAR DX do the same (DX can only encode DD Live, DX2 can encode DD Live and DTS connect). Some onboard codec also able to encode DD Live, at the expense of some CPU processing power.

If you want to pass 5.1/7.1 signals via analogue to ur AVR, u still can. Just buy 3 or 4 3.5mmjack->RCA (left and right). Connect these 3 or 4 cables from ur soundcard to ur AVR RCA input. So you get the analogue signal from sound card to AVR for each channel. The decoding will be done by your sound card. I've done that before...and this is the only way if you want to hear EAX effects on your AVR multichannel speaker coz AVRs don't decode EAX....But since EAX is dead now, don't waste your time.

This post has been edited by Matrix: Aug 25 2010, 09:21 AM

I already make a note that I'm quoting from other forum, I never use 5.1 through digital so I don't know.

You still banging about EAX, he never mentions anything regarding it

woo, thanks a lot for this information.

this card launch already?
the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi Titanium HD.

the keyword in the new product :- "HD".
I know some people out there willing to fork their $$$ just because of that word without bother about the full specs.

Lost my xfi extreme music CD some time ago. then d/l the driver but its not like before. its swapping the driver etc...etc...problems. i feel like something is missing. anyone can borrow etc a driver CD?

PM me pls. need help

Try to Google them first, most probably there is an ISO files somewhere around the web

i guess it's launched already..
found it in c-zone price list..
selling @ rm659..

Found X-Fi Titanium HD review at VR-Zone.

Looks mighty impressive and like I guessed it uses Burr Brown DAC judging from SNR and DR spec. But what I don't expect is they uses two single opamp on differential to single ended stage instead of using just one dual opamp. Plus they use LME49710 which regarded even better spec and better sounding than its LME49720 dual-opamp counterparts. Very interesting card to play with

Thanks. I'll try that first.

woo, the price even higher than the asus xonar d2x and asus xonar essence stx.
wonder how it perform against these 2 cards?

and it used solid caps on it. and the pcm1794 dac is quite high end right?
and this card is towards gaming or audiophile?


This post has been edited by saturn85: Aug 28 2010, 05:50 PM

Solid caps isn't as good as any other boutique caps like Panasonic or Rubycon audio grade to be honest. Its good for motherboard because of its reliability and longetivity, but there is also some low quality solid caps that could explode. But it definitely an upgrade from the standard cheap leaky caps they use on old cards

Read the review, they say something about PCM1794A, its basically the same spec as PCM1792 found on Xonar ST/STX but it incorporated hardware control ( I don't know what that means). Quite high end? Its the highest performance DAC Texas Instrument have currently.

wow, it used highest end dac from texas instrument.
want to ask here:
those card like following is categorized as gaming or audiophile?
1) asus xonar dx
2) asus xonar d2x
3) asus xonar essence stx
4) auzentech x-fi prelude 7.1
5) creative sb x-fi titanium hd
6) audiotrak prodigy hd2
7) onkyo se-90pci
8) onkyo se-200pci

I wonder do you need spoonfeeding everytime?

Anything that uses X-Fi CA20K1 or CA20K2 (not the CA0106) is considered as gaming card, and to some extend, the ASUS Xonar lineup (Xonar is more all rounder, music, gaming and entertainment). Other than that, like VIA DSP with good DAC considered as music card, like Onkyo and Audiotrak that have professional driver. Any card that have both X-Fi DSP and good DAC could do double duty as both gaming and music

thank you very much for the information.

just when reading sound card review,
they didn't specify those are gaming card or what else,
but just roughly can guess which category they are.

but now here just want to know what is the exact criteria to categorize the card.

Although I do say that, when people mentioned gaming soundcard, it means it used Creative DSP which could run EAX but since there is no new games that support EAX, making all the cards game-able. Except for some like Audiotrak, which have some problem with games, BSOD and such due to poor driver support also Realtek onboard driver that claimed to support EAX which they weren't, in this case if the game support EAX its best to disable the effct or it will sound horrid

actually if you only want the front panel audio out.. you can just do the left out right out and ground and solder the cable to the pins on the x-fi and the other ends to pins and poke into the holes of the standard realtek front .. it takes only 3 cables very easy process