You can find the card here, and just enter the code "EMCMLNL47" to get the sale price.
I gave in and ordered one.
I gave in and ordered one.
Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1 PCI for $49.99 at Newegg
- Thread starter digitalwanderer
- Start date
So these things really help with sound quality?
I wonder why doing the same effects in software isn't good enough. It shouldn't use anything more than minuscule on modern CPU's.
Primarily, "offboard" audio devices typically have far better electrical shielding, noise suppression, and better DACs to allow for higher quality audio signal with less noise and a more linear output across the entire frequency range. That's where you get the big sound quality gain above an integrated solution.
Creative also has a proprietary way of "downmixing" 5.1 audio into a pair of headphones while retaining the audio positioning. It's supposed to be a pretty good effect.
However, all the really fancy stuff (high quality audio positioning in horizontal and vertical planes, environmental audio occlusion, yadda yadda) all requires very specific programming on the part of the developer. These can't be magically added to a game that doesn't already have the support built-in.
A good example would be Crysis / Warhead. The game natively supports 5.1 audio of any variety, and audio positioning will be the same regardless of your 5.1 vendor. The bullets that you hear whizzing by your head with your onboard 5.1 audio will sound the same and have the same positioning accuracy as that with your new $100 Creative solution. But in BF2 that directly supports EAX 5, the positioning should be better since it is coded directly for the hardware. (EAX 5 is where the cool stuff comes in; EAX 4 was almost never used, and EAX3 and below is almost entirely based on a programmable reverb engine.)
So, if you're using the analog outputs for output and want excellent S/N ratios, this is a great deal. If you play a lot of games that support the EAX 5 extensions, this is also a great deal. And if you do a lot of 5.1 gaming with headphones, it's also a great deal.
Otherwise, it's a bit of a coin toss IMO. For $50, it's actually still a great deal. I'm not going to buy one, but I'll tell you the truth -- this is really the price range where "offboard" audio finally becomes interesting enough to me to strongly consider it.
Way back in the day, I really loved my SBPro and later my SB AWE/32 setups. But by the time I moved to the P4 era, onboard audio was "good enough" for what I do.
Actually, if I were going to build a whole new computer today (Core i7 / pair of 5850's / 6Gb of ram / blah blah) then I'd probably pick this up too. It would really nicely round out a top-notch system IMO
Actually, if I were going to build a whole new computer today (Core i7 / pair of 5850's / 6Gb of ram / blah blah) then I'd probably pick this up too. It would really nicely round out a top-notch system IMO
Sort of that combined with I've finally found a decent X-fi for under $50, I've wanted one since I had to ditch my Audigy2 for Vista but I couldn't justify the price. Too much mentally for me I guess, but $50 seems a magic sweet spot that I can't resist!Finally someone slapped that silly idea that "onboard is good enough" out of your head
I heard the Win 7 64 drivers aren't bad, that was what decided me....that and I just want to see the difference again for myself. That happens a lot.
Silent_Buddha
Legend
EAX doesn't really have much to do with position of sounds as much as environmental sound effects. Things such as accurate (or semi-accurate) reverb, echo, material's effects on sounds, sound reflection off multiple surfaces, etc...
Basically things that are generally processing heavy to accurately (or semi-accurately) model the way sounds interact with objects, materials, occlusion, etc...
In it's heyday it was quite impressive, but it's been steadily losing steam ever since it went proprietary with version 3.0. And now days not many devs bother to put in the work to leverage EAX 3.0-5.0 (or even the open standard 1.0-2.0).
So we still have positional sound. But we don't have all the accurate sound modeling and environmental effects that we used to. Basically, ever since EAX went proprietary, sound has degraded in games.
A shame as some games had some really nice accoustics back in the heyday of EAX and Aureal.
Regards,
SB
Basically things that are generally processing heavy to accurately (or semi-accurately) model the way sounds interact with objects, materials, occlusion, etc...
In it's heyday it was quite impressive, but it's been steadily losing steam ever since it went proprietary with version 3.0. And now days not many devs bother to put in the work to leverage EAX 3.0-5.0 (or even the open standard 1.0-2.0).
So we still have positional sound. But we don't have all the accurate sound modeling and environmental effects that we used to. Basically, ever since EAX went proprietary, sound has degraded in games.
A shame as some games had some really nice accoustics back in the heyday of EAX and Aureal.
Regards,
SB
I got a X-Fi Elite Pro w/ fairly decent headset for $85 a year ago or so Gave the headset to my bro cuz he's the online gamer nut. MIDI synth is great with DosBox. I've had no problems with the card. Of course, there are few games that use EAX5 so you can almost without exception get the "best" EAX experience from a very cheap Audigy 2/4 too. There are actually quite a few OpenAL games out there. OTOH, all UE3 games use it.
I've built up a rather full collection of Creative junk over the years. Old purchases (always cheap lol) and freebies from friends. You can even use a old Live! and get superb analog audio if you run the kx drivers. I'd rather run a Live! like that than any onboard audio, especially if headphones are involved.
It is great. X-Fi takes it a bit further than Audigy did, which was actually good too. It's called binaural synthesis.
Gave the headset to my bro cuz he's the online gamer nut. MIDI synth is great with DosBox. I've had no problems with the card. Of course, there are few games that use EAX5 so you can almost without exception get the "best" EAX experience from a very cheap Audigy 2/4 too. There are actually quite a few OpenAL games out there. OTOH, all UE3 games use it.I've built up a rather full collection of Creative junk over the years. Old purchases (always cheap lol) and freebies from friends. You can even use a old Live! and get superb analog audio if you run the kx drivers. I'd rather run a Live! like that than any onboard audio, especially if headphones are involved.
It is great. X-Fi takes it a bit further than Audigy did, which was actually good too. It's called binaural synthesis.
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Daniel_K has returned the Audigy cards to complete usefulness.
http://nomoregoatsoup.wordpress.com/audigy-drivers/
Actually Creative's latest drivers are pretty good all by themselves, but the above pack gives you all of the extra features that Creative neglected.
Oh and the kx drivers are now usable in Win7 x64 even.
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Good to know, thanks Swaaye!
I got a X-Fi Elite Pro w/ fairly decent headset for $85 a year ago or so
Man how did you manage that?
Just got mine and got it all installed relatively painlessly, I'm pleased.
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