I just got my X-fi Fatal1ty...Wow!

Concillian said:
I think that's a fair assessment. Anything Creative is pointed towards a primary market of gamers I think. It's basically the only modern sound card with hardware 3D positional audio because they own pretty much ALL of the IP in that arena. Games somewhat equate to toys, so yeah Creative cards = toys.

I don't see too many people other than Creative saying it's pointed towards 'professional' audio. And anybody not doing anything 'professional' or gaming would be a fool to buy an X-Fi, as a MUCH cheaper card likely suits their needs.

The mid to high end X-Fis seem to have better DACs than traditionally seen on gaming cards though, which may give some benefit for those interested in gaming and listening fidelity from one card. You pay for it though, and it still doesn't offer the ultimate flexibility of digitally encoded surround.
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"professional audio".. pffft. You can make stuff on an old 4 track cassette recorder sound great. Guitar, amp, cheap DOD delay box.
 
I want some performance reviews before I even think about shelling out the dough for one. Oh Fatal1ity isn't getting a damn dime from me.
 
At the demo they claimed that there is an average of 40% fps gains in bf2 when the x-fi card is running with 128 voices and quality maxed compared to an Audigy 2 running with less than half the number of voices in high quality.

More fps and better quality at the same time...


Daishi
 
Daishiknyte said:
At the demo they claimed that there is an average of 40% fps gains in bf2 when the x-fi card is running with 128 voices and quality maxed compared to an Audigy 2 running with less than half the number of voices in high quality.

More fps and better quality at the same time...


Daishi
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I'll believe that when I see it.
 
the Fatal1ty isnt much diffrent than the Xtreme Music edition besides the addition of the " X-RAM" .. if only creative fired those people who made the pricing for these cards.

300$ for a card seems bit steep. creative should definately release a card with x-ram and no i/o panel for around 150$
 
I totally agree.......$130.00 should easily cover 64 megs of memory. Other than greed (and no competition) I don't see why they couldn't have come up with a plain gamer card with x-ram.

Personally, I would like to see Realtek or Nvidia come out with onboard sound drivers that you could totally assign to one cpu in a dual core system. That would totally eliminate the performance bottlenecks for most gamers.
 
http://www.ixbt-labs.com/articles2/multimedia/creative-x-fi.html

Another X-fi review, but much more aligned with what I want from a review than some of the other ones posted up. This guy is crapping on hype while at the same time highlighting tangible advantages.

The gist so far:
So far it's looking like there are clear reasons to buy the X-fi: compatibility with latest versions of EAX, and 128 voices. For audio quality, it is now comparable to other existing soundcards from other brands, and definite step up from the hampered Audigy 2 ZS.

However, apparently 24-bit crystallization is BS. It may cause game sound effects to sound better while making music sound worse, so it may be nice to have for toggling between applications.

It seems like those who have Audigy 2 ZS cards can simply buy an E-MU for less money to get equivalent music quality. But they'll have to switch soundcards between applications. If they get an X-Fi gaming audio will be improved a little, but performance probably won't see a substantial change without X-ram, and may not even see a change then.

They're still working on tests to see if that X-Ram is worth anything. The only test done proves a large advantage between having an X-fi in BF2, vs. not having a sound card at all in BF2, so the result was going to be obvious. The only other test is statistics supplied by Creative that is not reproducable by anyone else since UT2k4 w/ X-Fi is not available yet. If results are not yet reproducable then they're of very little value, (Silly extreme example: "My secret independently developed soundcard improves fps by 2000% produced under conditions that I uh, can't show you. But trust me, it works, buy it.")

The review so far bears out my suspicions that the X-fi will give some small but noticable improvements but at a cost that doesn't justify upgrading from an Audigy 2 ZS yet. Many may want to simply wait until lack of support forces them to buy the the only supported gaming soundcards on the market. However, if you want to have the music quality of other soundcards and the gaming advantages of a Creative card on the same piece of hardware, this may be something to pick up.
 
i will pick one up when creative gets its head out of its arse and releases just the card with xram at affordale prices. we are talking about atound 130$ range.

seriously heres what the prices should be

extreme music edition: ~ 80-90$
fatal1ty edition ~ 199$
elite pro - 299-350$

i mean if they decrease the price , x-fi will surely be a hit.
 
Well now I'm curious because I'm using REaltek onboard currently, and I play only BF2. I'm sure my performance and sound quality would be improved. Which model though? I'm not gonna sling a huge amount of dough I don't think.
 
I'm the Dude said:
Well now I'm curious because I'm using REaltek onboard currently, and I play only BF2. I'm sure my performance and sound quality would be improved. Which model though? I'm not gonna sling a huge amount of dough I don't think.
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i think extreme edition should be fine unless you want to wait for creative to release a bare fatal1ty card.
 
Makave7i Tha Don said:
no word on if it has drivers for x64 :( ?
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Sorry young padawan, you are outta luck. A quick search on creative's site for x64 drivers for the x-fi returned nothing and said they are not available ATM.
 
I'm the Dude said:
"professional audio".. pffft. You can make stuff on an old 4 track cassette recorder sound great. Guitar, amp, cheap DOD delay box.
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Umm..... Youre a very silly person. Well, not really. You can make stuff on an old 4 track sound great... for an old 4 track.
 
Yeah, I probably do. I signed up a few months ago, and posted normal forum topics without even mentioning creative at all. Then when the X-fi comes out, bam! My marketing superpowers comes out at full force.


So, I probably don't. :rolleyes:
 
Captain Rehab said:
...............Meh. For 300+ I'd be looking at used MOTU or Focusrite stuff; real "pro" audio stuff. X-fi is a toy.


IMHO, YMMV etc.
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When I said I might pick one up, I meant for games. (SRC still bothers me though.) Just knowing that there are extra steps of conversion going on bothers me enough. :D

I use Creamware Scope for my "Pro" needs. MOTUs are definitely nice. I have an 896HD sitting on my desk right now. (at work) RMEs are nice too. We have a Fireface 800 in the lab. Sounds excellent.

Edit: Just realized after actually reading the previous few posts that you may not have been speaking to me. :D
 
Captain Rehab said:
Umm..... Youre a very silly person. Well, not really. You can make stuff on an old 4 track sound great... for an old 4 track.
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Exactly. You can make music on one, and it may even be extremely cool music, but it's still not going to sound like it would on 2" tape, or recorded on high end converters.
 
I just don't see the point of the "Pro audio stuff rulz!" theme when we're talking about gaming cards. If your making the point that other, elite pro gear is preferable to the Pro version of the X-fi, fine. Point made. Move on. Most people here are interested in the gaming side of this piece of hardware. Perhaps they want to consider some kind of hybrid card since they don't have jobs in the Pro audio business.
 
I'm the Dude said:
Well now I'm curious because I'm using REaltek onboard currently, and I play only BF2. I'm sure my performance and sound quality would be improved. Which model though? I'm not gonna sling a huge amount of dough I don't think.
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Audigy 1 :D
 
Daishiknyte said:
At the demo they claimed that there is an average of 40% fps gains in bf2 when the x-fi card is running with 128 voices and quality maxed compared to an Audigy 2 running with less than half the number of voices in high quality.

More fps and better quality at the same time...
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Meh, most people game at a video card limited resolution and video setting. In this case audio hardware capability will likely make little more than a dent in the FPS. Their improvement was likely at some obscenely CPU limited situation like 640x480 on a P3-1000 while using an x800XT.

IMHO the reason to buy such a card is based on features and not on 'performance', because in my own experience something like this has no noticeable affect on performance at the video settings and resolutions I typically use.
 
I'm the Dude said:
I just don't see the point of the "Pro audio stuff rulz!" theme when we're talking about gaming cards. If your making the point that other, elite pro gear is preferable to the Pro version of the X-fi, fine. Point made. Move on. Most people here are interested in the gaming side of this piece of hardware. Perhaps they want to consider some kind of hybrid card since they don't have jobs in the Pro audio business.
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Or, perhaps we can just keep talking about it. I mentioned in my first reply that it was of little relevance to the topic. I happened upon someone that shares the same interest in pro cards, so we discussed. (As is often the case in a discussion forum.) This topic isn't exactly moving along at break-neck speeds either, so a little semi-off-topic discussion isn't hurting anyone.

I also have very real concerns about X-Fi and its sample rate conversion. Maybe most gamers don't care about this kind of thing, but since I'm a musician AND a gamer, it does matter to me.
 
My point was 1) Pro audio enthusiast calls Creative card "toys" and then extolls the virtue of Pro equipment.
2) hey that's great, you think it's a toy. Other people want to reasonably discuss the card, not bring some Pro audio snobbery into the thread.

Get it yet?
 
I'm the Dude said:
Nah, I'm interested in that surround sound in headphones thing for BF2.
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Have you ever used headphones in games? The things are practically better than surround sound. When I first got my HD590s, I was accused of hacking on a ton of CS servers because I could position people exactly through walls.
 
finalgt said:
Have you ever used headphones in games? The things are practically better than surround sound. When I first got my HD590s, I was accused of hacking on a ton of CS servers because I could position people exactly through walls.
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Word, people accused me of hacking in BF1942 because I could hear planes before I could see them and shoot them down with the AA guns in Coral Sea.
 
finalgt said:
Have you ever used headphones in games? The things are practically better than surround sound. When I first got my HD590s, I was accused of hacking on a ton of CS servers because I could position people exactly through walls.
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Yeah, I'm using headphones, but nothing exotic or pricey. So I hear stuff well, but not really in a 3d way. My onboard sound could be a limitation there.
 
I'm the Dude said:
My point was 1) Pro audio enthusiast calls Creative card "toys" and then extolls the virtue of Pro equipment.
2) hey that's great, you think it's a toy. Other people want to reasonably discuss the card, not bring some Pro audio snobbery into the thread.

Get it yet?
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It is a toy, and it's a toy that I'm seriously considering picking up. The fact is, Creative cards have always been good for gaming. They have always SUCKED for doing any sort of audio recording, composition etc. I'm quite curious if that's changed with this new iteration. I want to know what native sample rates it supports. I kind of get the idea that 44.1-96KHz can be used without SRC, but they don't explicitly say this. (They say digitally matched, but that's a little vague.) Now, my situation is that I have a pro interface, but it isn't the best thing to play games on (though it DOES work.) I'm interested in the X-Fi because obviously it will work well with games, but if it works acceptably under my audio apps, then I will definitely go out an buy it. Not as a replacement though. I'd like it to monitor signals and things. So I have a good reason for discussing both aspects. I just don't care as much about the gaming side as I know that already works well.

Get it yet?
 
That's what they have a computer audio forum for. There's plenty of audio enthusiasts crapping on the card there I'm sure.
 
Someone spoon feed me some info please. Does this card function similar to my old Soundstorm setup? Does it encode everything to 5.1 and offer a spdif out so I can use my extigy as a decoder? If I bought this card would I even need my extigy to use as a dac? Or is the x-fi superior in that regard?
 
Obi_Kwiet said:
279 though. Sounds like something I might get for 100-150. I hope creative comes down in price pretty quick.
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Well, get the just-as-good-but-minus-glowing-F standard X-Fi card
 
i could buy like 7 of my sound blaster live 24 bit pci for what you spent on that.
you know your jealous of my $30 card and $20 headphones.

show off :p
 
J3RK said:
It is a toy, and it's a toy that I'm seriously considering picking up. The fact is, Creative cards have always been good for gaming. They have always SUCKED for doing any sort of audio recording, composition etc. I'm quite curious if that's changed with this new iteration. I want to know what native sample rates it supports. I kind of get the idea that 44.1-96KHz can be used without SRC, but they don't explicitly say this. (They say digitally matched, but that's a little vague.) Now, my situation is that I have a pro interface, but it isn't the best thing to play games on (though it DOES work.) I'm interested in the X-Fi because obviously it will work well with games, but if it works acceptably under my audio apps, then I will definitely go out an buy it. Not as a replacement though. I'd like it to monitor signals and things. So I have a good reason for discussing both aspects. I just don't care as much about the gaming side as I know that already works well.

Get it yet?
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I appreciate the witness. I said in my response to DudeMan's post that if he wants the Fatal1ty he should get it. I'm not really interested in telling people what they should do. I just wanted to point out that for the same 300 bucks you could get some really decent audio hardware. Is it explicitly for gaming? No. I would never rack a manley reference amplifier to a gaming rig. I've got a creative card myself. I'm just pointing out the sheer idiocy of anyone saying that *any* Creative stuff is a "great" audio solution from a purely sonic standpoint. I doubt Creative even plots frequency response graphs for consumers to compare to "real" audio gear. Just as if somebody posted that Xbox is just as good as pc visually you'd be all over 'em - it just ain't true. You can argue that your Yugo is as good as a Porsche, and you can believe it, but it still won't be so. In the world of sportscars, the Yugo is a fuckin' toy.

Sorry if I came off like a snob to anyone, I'm just pointing out that for 300 bones your options for audio are WIDE open. This is the internet afterall, so flame away.
 
I'm the Dude said:
That's what they have a computer audio forum for. There's plenty of audio enthusiasts crapping on the card there I'm sure.
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Chill, dude. I read this thread cause I was interested in finding out people's opinions on this card, not cause I wanted to "crap" on it. Here's some smileys to make it all good:
:) :) :) :D
 
Well since you kind of admit that "real audio gear" isn't optimal for gaming audio, I guess that makes it a "toy" too with regards to gaming. :p
I mean that's the same logic applied.

an aside:
All this audi talk made me curious, so I set my BF2 audio from medium to high and weapons sound a lot better. Wish I woulda tried it before. I just figured it would be a drain on my frame rate with the onboard Realtek, but it has not been.
 
Yeah it seems a little expensive but I'll probably end up getting it anyway. I've put a bunch of money into my new system so how much is a little more going to hurt? :p I'm not too keen on the bass performance of this Audigy2 ZS anyway. :D Anyway as soon as Fry's gets it I'm probably going to pick one up.
 
I'm the Dude said:
Well since you kind of admit that "real audio gear" isn't optimal for gaming audio, I guess that makes it a "toy" too with regards to gaming. :p
I mean that's the same logic applied.
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Yes. The sound won't be as good, but it is going to be an improvement to your gaming experience and, optimally, reduce the load on your cpu.
 
The Creative marketing scheme seems to be working well. Come out with this stuff that might be good, but dangle the stuff you want in your face and tell you it wont be ready for 8 weeks. if you're impulsive you grab up the low price model and then in 8 weeks because you gotta have XRAM you spend more dough. Im not sure what to do here, or if its worth it for game sound anyway. The headphone thing is interesting,though. So I got an email from Creative yesterday and they told me no XRAM models for at least 8 weeks.
 
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