Creative x-fi means less fps

Scougar

Scougar

Scougar

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Have been using my on HD audio with my Asrock board since my Live 5.1 didn't seem to work bizarrely. I was more than happy with the output, but saw a good opportunity to buy on MM the fatality FPS (with Xram etc).

I installed it (had to select 2nd pci slot) and had turned off the onboard audio in the bios, but retained the HD audio drivers in case I needed to revert due to crackling etc. I ONLY used the latest drivers from the Creative website and not any of the apps, as I'd heard they were a bit of bloatware (will check them out later).

Note: I only currently have some pathetic 2.1 setup as the HC system is now downstairs with the plasma since my NF2 board (that I bought the HC system to play games with :D) supported DD, but creative don't with games :(

Getting to the point
Anyway, I tried BF2 and couldn't really discern any difference in sound quality even with it on ultra and EAX5, so I tried COD4. What I noticed was that before my fps was hovering just above 60fps in bad situations, and then going to 90+ (had seen 200fps on occasion), but now I was getting on average 50-55fps, and dipping to say 43fps at times.

Have I done something wrong on the installation as I thought that the creative board was meant to speed things up (take some of the strain from the CPU etc). Bit dissappointed at this stage as I was hoping for a slight increase in frames and not a reduction.

Matthew
 
Well as far as i know BF2 and BF2142 are the only games to support the Xram and is ment to speed them games up a little not lower FPS like you are saying. But with suff like COD4 the Xram is not in use and will slow your game down a little because the Xram is not in use but that should not matter too much because we are only talking one or two FPS.:)
 
I realise it doesn't use the xram on COD4, but it is dedicated hardware anyway, so I was assuming it would be faster than integrated solutions, and that's what I have seen in the reviews of the x-fi range.

And when going from 65 to 55 it makes quite a difference :( I don't think a 10fps hit is how its meant to be?

Matthew
 
X-Ram aside its has nothing to do with that, it was proven a Dedi Soundcard gives more FPS in Games over Onboard as its uses less resources as has its own processsor.

The X-FI (non X-Ram) all have 2MB of Ram and was tested against a Gigabytes Onboard sound and beat it hands down.

1 peeps input here does not change that fact, the issue is his end.

X-Ram does actually work but 99% of games aint written to support it, but its also for loading in large Sound files like Midi's if your into making music.

And BTW, a Game that does not support X-Ram does not mean it will run slower on your X-FI fitted with X-Ram, it still uses the default 2MB of Ram as the other cards give.

I have the Bendmark tool to test this and your X-FI uses 2MB of Ram most times while playing music or games, or movies just not 64MB of it.

So by default your X-Fi uses 2MB of its normal Ram and the X-FI's with XRam use 2MB out of the 64MB of X-Ram.
 
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Im on a spare HDD as trying to stablise this Striker II.

All my Archives are on other HDD, I think its one of the "Rightmark" tools.

All Creative cards will have 2MB of Memory in use at any time they make a sound, this inc's the 64MB X-RAM cards, it will use 2MB of the X-RAM in all Music/Movies/Games.

BTW, some games will have sound options missing or act up if you do not set the X-FI to Game mode.
 
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Really? No probs when I just installed the pure drivers with say BF2 with options.

I can't actually find the proper game mode software app on the creative website though, so if you know which app it is for the basic applications install, I'd appreciate it. (I don't have the original disc yet unfortunately).

Matthew
 
Even if you do not install all the Creative App's the Driver comes with the Audio Console, so you must have it on PC.

You should download the X-FI Vista.ISO linked to from the Creative Forums.
 
Strange question but your previous sound card didn't install some sort of EAX emulation driver did it which BF2 could still be picking up on?

Make sure it's cleared up behind it properly because the X-Fi is a very powerful soundcard and will take the strain off the CPU, not add to it when working correctly
 
Well I haven't actually uninstalled the onboard drivers, but other than performance they don't 'seem' to be conflicting. Will give it a shot :)

Helmet> I was curious and wondered if creative had installed any app, so looked in the start menu and found the control panel you mentioned :D Handy. Seems EAX is set to be on? If I don't use it in a game, does it still run (perhaps causing the drop in fps?)

Matthew
 
Are you using Windows Vista?

If you are you might need to install that Creative Alchemy as Vista doesn't support Direct X sound acceleration. Creative released Alchemy to address that :)

But then BF2 might use OpenAL...
Defo uninstall the onboard drivers and then reinstall the Creative drivers from their website.
 
I am running XP mainly (as can't get ATI 3870 drivers to work with vista, I get blue screen of death on boot).

Am using latest creative drivers, and uninstalled the Onboard HD drivers. It made ZERO difference to the fps rate. Hmm... Will recheck with disabling the EAX on the console etc.

Matthew
 
Turned off EAX and CMSS in the audio console and still has not increased my fps to previous levels :( (lacking about 10FPS)

Hmm...

Matthew
 
Hmm.. right. Not positive at the moment, but I think it may be down to settings I chose. In order to 'improve' performance previously, I deselected 'glow' and softshadows. I turned them both back on an it seems to be a bit higher, but would still dip to 40-45fps at times. Will do some more checking, as it may just be a CPU limited situation now, and with the creative card in, the 2.6Ghz may not be able to cope well enough with this modern card?

Matthew
 
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