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

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

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

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!!!

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.

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

Yeah, Nforce mobo is weird...I sure hope AMD/ATI will come out with a good alternative soon ..or is there one already?? Otherwise, i think i'm gonna ditch the AMD platform in favor of Intel the next time i upgrade.

You're bound to encounter some problems with X-fi/nforce combo. Sometimes i've the hiss sound problem but it doesn't occurs very often, just once in a long while. Previiously also having some other problem but i'm not sure it's the X-fi or something else. Now, it's okay most of the time, but there are many users on the web that reported recurring problems.

btw, DON'T BUY XTREMEGAMER edition unless you have too much money to spend (which in case, i'll not stop you. ) The Xtrememusic performs just as well in gaming.
Don't waste a few hundred bucks just to see 1 possible extra fps which you won't notice anyway. You might as well save the money for a better GPU or CPU.

btw, Extrememusic retails for only RM399 at ALL IT Hypermarket (digital mall)....if u know people, can go lower...


NEWS FLASH:
Latest X-FI VISTA beta drivers released on 15th March 2007.

Oh-oh...my X-Fi is acting bizzarre recently...or is it the speaker?

Sometimes, when i start up my PC (WinXP), i'll get high-scrrech noise from my speakers/headphone.

I'll have to go to the console and select the speakers/headphone and it'll be back to normal again...

Could it be due to me connecting both the speaker and headphones simultaneously (using a Y splitter)? It's been working for 1 month+ fine until now though...Sometime whenever i on the speaker volume when startup...get heart attack by the sudden high pitch noise!!!

I used to have that problem. Try change it to different PCI slot. Now solved already.

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Added on January 7, 2008, 11:42 amThere apps sucks...loads of bloatware...i don't install anything else except the drivers.

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Added on January 7, 2008, 11:44 amMaybe there's no difference...coz BFME2 using only EAX3.0.....X-FI is EAX 5.0

This post has been edited by Matrix: Jan 7 2008, 11:44 AM

There was a furore over the new :

drivers:http://arstechnica.com/journals/hardware.ars/2008/08/01/creative-caves-supports-dolby-digital-dts-in-vista-driver

What does this Dolby Digital Live/DTS Live do? What kind of application that can make use of it? BluRay disc?

I'm running under VISTA, will download and try the drivers tonight.

Ok, i get it. Last time i was doing this test, for EAX, i have to use analog connection to my receiver to get the effects. So now, we can use the digital connection, which saves a lot of hassle and cables.

But does this mean my receiver also have to support DTS Live/ DD Live? But i think i saw some new mobos with built in sound also support DTS/DD live!!! And they're quite cheap!

So what does this "unlock in Vista" means? Is it there or is it not?

Oh yeah, i remember now, i started this thread...didn't realized so many people here already...ha-ha...

U are using the coaxial out i suppose? Or you have that extra dongle to output to optical out?

You can download Daniel-K's driver for free if you know where to look.

This is useful only if you are using the optical out. It's live encoding to DTS/DD regardless of what audio stream you are playing.

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Added on June 30, 2009, 2:34 pmEAX is already dead. Probably doesn't matter anymore as most new games don't support it.

This post has been edited by Matrix: Jun 30 2009, 02:34 PM

EAX is dead. So is OpenAL. There's hardly any new games that support EAX nowadays. Creative card's basically has lose their edge. No point buying Creative cards anymore. Sad, but true.

ASUS is just doing that for marketing gimmick. Assasin Creed a 'new' game? Cmon lar.

All the new games i'm playing the last 1 year+...NONE have EAX. SFIV, DMC4, Red Alert 3, RA3:Uprising, GTAIV, Wolverine, and a whole list of others. Nada. Zilch.

Unlike maybe like 3 years ago, almost most top titles support EAX. Do some research before you start your fanboyism. Here, try this: http://www.soundblaster.com/technology/?gameId=00004

Just how many "new" games(and hot titles) are there on the list? And Mass Effect and BioShock still there....what 2 years old games?

I'm merely stating facts. So you can keep your fanboyism to yourself.

Fine, live in your turtle shell. Whether it's easy for you to mod or not is frankly hardly a selling point. How many people actually go mod their cards?? 0.001%??

Who mentioned EAX??? You got Parkinson disease?? lol.


I highlight this issue to share information with other users, so that they don't buy Creative cards for the wrong reason, expecting EAX and 'best gaming sound card', when the sound has already left the games. And what is your agenda? Nobody buy creative cards and you have no business modding, hmmm???

You can keep yapping here all you want, loser.

This post has been edited by Matrix: Sep 12 2009, 09:17 AM

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