Audiocards

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deadly

WEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!
Feb 6, 2002
10,380
0
I'm going to buy a new audiocard in the near future. I'v been looking for some cards and basically saw that there arent many to choose from - maybe i'm a retard, and can only find a few in dutch stores.

I basically want the card to have DTS/Dolby and HD sound channels, remote control, good specs, etc. The cheapest card i have seen is the Creative X-Fi Platinum (around 150 EU.). I find it pretty expensive tho. Do you guys know cards with nice specs for a good price? Does anyone of you have experience with the X-Fi Platinum one?

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Alright, I'm pissed off at Creative.

Today I bought a "Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio", it's the cheapest from the X-Fi series.
I bought it for 70e which isnt that bad.. plugged it all in and as a test I started BF2142.
I picked BF2142 because that has some X-Fi logo/icon in the audio section n all that.. I enabled X-Fi and BF bitched that my hardware isn't good enough and switched X-Fi off. Same with trying more channels/voices.

I updated all drivers but no change.

So I googled a bit and found out that the "Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio" isn't really part of the X-Fi series.. from wiki
The entry-level model of the X-Fi series, the Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio, does not actually have the EMU20K1 chip but is actually a rebranded Audigy SE, using the same family of chips (CA0106-WBTLF), and even the same drivers. Thus, not only is all of the X-Fi related processing done in software, but it also lacks basic hardware acceleration just the like SB Live! 24 bit, the Audigy SE and other budget Soundblaster models. This is further confirmed by its not using the same drivers as the rest of the X-Fi family, its not being recognized as X-Fi capable hardware by some modern games, and even in the similarity of the card's profile to the older Live! and value Audigy series, as well as user reports of it slowing down applications and games. [5][6][7]. The card is not explicitly marketed as supporting the "X-Fi gaming mode", and there are no official implicit or explicit statements regarding its having hardware acceleration or not.
Click to expand...

So obviously I'm pissed off, they just renamed older cards and gave em a fancy X-Fi name.

I'm deffo returning this card.. might buy a "Soundblaster X-Fi Xtreme Gamer", not sure though as I'm quite pissed off at Creative.
 
Also I suddenly have "hardware lag" in BF2142.. even the mouse is all jittery and slow.
Probably because the card doesnt have a proper chipset so its all software emulation.. so the CPU has more work instead of less.
 
#1 research the product before you buy

#2 you get what you pay for

I've got an X-Fi Fatality edition (woulda gone for the platinum but i wanted a internal breakoutbox, instead of the external one with the platinum one). Can't fault it tbh.. great for all sounds - even makes my shitty hi-fi I output to (which was ~100 quid like 8 years ago) sound great ;)
 
It was somewhat of an impulse buy. I just didnt expect that Creative would pull something off like this.. take an older chipset and slap a new name on it. Sounds very dodgy if you ask me.
 
i got a couple of old sb live! cards lying around.. if i chuck an x-fi sticker on them, you interested? :lol:

but yeah, i see ur point - which is why you should do your research ;)
 
So I've bought an X-Fi Xtreme Gamer.

Sounds is deffo great! :thumb:

Before in BF my soundcard couldnt really handle all the different sounds, it was just too much.
Now I've got twice as much channels/voices and it's perfect.

Also the EAX is way better, I guess my previous soundcard had some older EAX thing going on.. and it sounded just horrible, like everything had an echo.. for the sake of echos. But now with this card EAX sounds as it should be, not over-done or so.
 
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