Creative X-Fi or 4GB of RAM?

X-Fi or 4GB RAM?

  • X-Fi

    Votes: 10 15.6%

  • 4GB RAM

    Votes: 49 76.6%

  • New sound card (please specify)

    Votes: 5 7.8%
  • Total voters
    64
G

General Crespin

2[H]4U
Joined
Jan 13, 2006
Messages
3,260
I switched to Vista Ultimate x64 a couple days ago, and also added another 2GB of RAM to my system, so now I have 4GB. And then, I discovered that Creative's drivers apparently do not like 4GB of RAM.

You know what really pisses me off? That sometimes there are no SCP issues. I read a couple tidbits on people who aren't having issues, and I myself didn't have any issues upon two reboots. That, more than anything, makes me want to join the club and ditch Creative.

Right now I'm running off of my mobo's (A8N-SLI Premium) onboard sound, but I'm wondering what others in my same position have done?
 
I chose 4GB, but don't really know your specifics.

Are you picky about your sound? Do you work with sound mediums and need to output high quality (Not sure why an Xi-fi is your choice if so, but..)?

If you answer No to either of the above, than onboard should suit. The last year or so(maybe more) onboard sound has come very, very far. I ditched my creative last year, and have been using the sound off my D975xbx (Sigma Tel) since; with nary an issue or dissatisfaction..

And I jam to about 200+ GB's of music and radio when ever I'm designing, coding or just messing around. I like my tunes crisp. I also watch DVD's and movies via Vongo every once in a while on here, no issue. Crisp and clear.
 
4GB ram an switch to the onboard sound, I have no issues and much better the crapware creative puts out..
 
Just this morning I pulled my Creative X-Fi ExtremeMusic from my 32 bit Vista box. Abysmal. Shocking in fact. I understand I purchased the sound card before Vista but I had similar problems in XP. (Random loss of sound requiring reinstallation of drivers.) Creative should be subject to investigation. I pledge *never* to buy Creative again. My $0.02 worth.
 
gixser said:
Just this morning I pulled my Creative X-Fi ExtremeMusic from my 32 bit Vista box. Abysmal. Shocking in fact. I understand I purchased the sound card before Vista but I had similar problems in XP. (Random loss of sound requiring reinstallation of drivers.) Creative should be subject to investigation. I pledge *never* to buy Creative again. My $0.02 worth.
Click to expand...

At least you get proper drivers. Us audigy owners will have to pay for them when they come out later this year. Thanks for making sure I will never buy another one of your products again Creative.
 
I just upgraded to 4GB with Vista x64 and I use the on-board ALC882D sound chip. It's not bad and even supports Dolby Digital Live under Vista.

Creative does have an exclusive on many games that require DS3D hardware acceleration to run multi-channel sound under Vista. I wish other chip makers had projects similar to ALchemy, or that MS should have made it an easier transition when it was writing the new audio stack. It is possible to have native hardware acceleration under Vista but the entire task of supporting it is left up to individual chip makers.
 
pxc said:
I just upgraded to 4GB with Vista x64 and I use the on-board ALC882D sound chip. It's not bad and even supports Dolby Digital Live under Vista.

Creative does have an exclusive on many games that require DS3D hardware acceleration to run multi-channel sound under Vista. I wish other chip makers had projects similar to ALchemy, or that MS should have made it an easier transition when it was writing the new audio stack. It is possible to have native hardware acceleration under Vista but the entire task of supporting it is left up to individual chip makers.
Click to expand...

I have an AUDIGY 2 ZS Platinum, and in MCE2005 it works fine not perfect but good.
Especially in Call Of Duty2, i play a lot of online games but am afraid to use the onboard sound cos i feel it's going to sound really bad in games, cos my Audigy is crap in vista, i keep losing sound every now and then, so had to uninstall Vista cos of it.
I'm soon to Build an SLI System and i'm in two minds now as to weather i should buy an XFi card again, because it would certainly help the airflow with the SLI cards, it would be easier to keep them from running hot with the card missing anyway.
 
I do notice a sound difference, that's the issue. :-\ It's annoying, not horrible, but still quite noticeable to me.
 
I would personally go with the RAM because because that is more or less essential with VISTA...I do want to mention though that I recently re-installed my x-fi gamer...(It had been in the closet for a while because my last build was a sff and I didn't have room in the case.),, anyway I have been quite happy with it using the latest VISTA drivers and Creative Audio Console...no problems in VISTA, sounds great in 5 channel with desktop, windows media, games...interestingly enough I have no sound in XP since switching back to the x-fi and nothing I do seems to work..new drivers, old drivers, blah blah

Good Luck
 
Or you can get the 4gb and make a small stretch towards an Audigy 2 EX, really good board. Should be more affordable.
 
Definitely go for the ram and whatever sound card (integrated or not) that you feel you might need, as long as is NOT Creative.

Creative fanboys blame MS for Creative's driver problems. What I would like them to answer (other than MS sucks), is why other sound card makers have working Vista drivers/apps and Creative does not.

And "barely" functional does not mean working drivers.

FWIW, I dumped my Audigy 2 ZS for my Realtek onboard. Sounds good enough for me. Or at least better the the POS Creative product.
 
Excuse my ignorance on the subject but whats the problem with 4gb/Vista/X-Fi??Im not having any issues ATM on my sig rig..Should I be on the look out?:confused:
 
g1xx3r said:
Excuse my ignorance on the subject but whats the problem with 4gb/Vista/X-Fi??Im not having any issues ATM on my sig rig..Should I be on the look out?:confused:
Click to expand...

There is currently a sound issue with Vista, X-fi, and 4gigs of ram.. Some people have the problem, others don't.. And plenty of finger pointing going around..
If you are not having a problem don't worry about it.. Currently the only guaranteed fix is to remove the x-fi or the extra ram..
 
ellover009 said:
Or you can get the 4gb and make a small stretch towards an Audigy 2 EX, really good board. Should be more affordable.
Click to expand...

Sounds to me like he already has the X-Fi, just that it doesn't work with the 4 gigs. Also, what's the point of getting an Audigy for Vista? It's worthless.
 
Well, as a musician, I enjoy the sound quality of my Audigy 4 just fine. the X-Fi is nice to be sure but mainly for HD audio which for the average person is never used. I use my Audigy in 64-bit vista to pull sound off old LPs I have found and enjoy. I re master them with software that makes them sound better without the on-the-fly processing that an audio card does. I've not had any issues with the sound card or vista from Beta 2 to RTM. There was a moment when the 64-bit beta drivers were not digitally signed but I wanted to be sure that my move to vista would not hinder my hobby. I say it depends on what you do with the sound or the memory. My 2GB is plenty.
 
Hm. The issue that started all this is specific to Vista/x64, right, not XP/x64? I'm thinking about picking up an extra 2GB myself...
 
I had been boycotting Creative forever because of drivers.... I finally broke down and bought an X-Fi for my XP box. Sounds pretty good.

However, I have Vista Ultimate, and have read all the problems, and I use Ubuntu, and X-Fi does not work at all.

Shame on me for buying creative when I knew better. I hope the company goes bankrupt.
 
Indeed.

What a wonderful surprise it was when I discovered this Creative+Nvidia chipset+Vista64+4gb bug.

I've tried all the workarounds, reinstalled several times and nothing works. I really did not want to go with the onboard sound because of the CPU overhead. (not to mention the money spent on the X-FI) Sure it's easy to blame creative, but who's fault is it REALLY?

heh, welcome to Vista.
 
I don't know where you've heard that but I've never had any problem with my X-Fi and 4 gigs. Granted it's only been a couple months since I added the 4 gigs, but still... besides Creative just released brand new WHQL Vista drivers two weeks ago, maybe it's been fixed?
 
Huh, I (up until last week when I swapped mobo's) ran X-FI, 4gig, Vista64 and nVidia chipset and never had an issue either. There are alot of people that don't have issues. You should ammend your poll to include that option. You might be suprised.

Oh, and before I get flamed for it, it was an Abit IN9 32X MAX motherboard, which is a nVidia 680 motherboard.
 
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