PCI-E X-Fi is here!
- Thread starter lay-z-boy
- Start date
james.miller said:http://forums.overclockers.co.uk/showthread.php?t=17731115&highlight=x-fi+pci-e
you're right, it is a start, but i cant see the point in a x-fi that doesnt have hardware acceleration. A gaming card.....thats no good for gaming. xtreme music for the loose.
Ah cheers for that, didn't see it, it was sooooooooooooooooooooo old.
My bad, I'll get back to my project logs mmmm k.......................
Ok, tested it in 4 mainboards that i have quick access to; p5k del, dfi lanparty expert, p5wd2e-prem & a biostar tforce 6100. Works flawlessly in all of them.
Creative drivers off the website work a treat, i installed the applications from my elite pro disk over the top for some nice functionality.
Sound quality on my headphones (sony mdr v700) is fantastic on music and a short clip of a film, very close to the elite pro in sound, elite pro does have better dac's than the rest of the xfi range though.
Sound quality with my gigaworks s750's is also excellent, very crisp and no crackles or anything else at all
optical ports work as well as they should too
front audio header i don't think will work with any of my cases as they use the ac97 standard not the intel HD audio standard which the card has pinouts for, will try it anyway later.
going to try some games now;
css
bf2142 (uses eax5)
quake4
fear
+ serious sam2
Creative drivers off the website work a treat, i installed the applications from my elite pro disk over the top for some nice functionality.
Sound quality on my headphones (sony mdr v700) is fantastic on music and a short clip of a film, very close to the elite pro in sound, elite pro does have better dac's than the rest of the xfi range though.
Sound quality with my gigaworks s750's is also excellent, very crisp and no crackles or anything else at all
optical ports work as well as they should too
front audio header i don't think will work with any of my cases as they use the ac97 standard not the intel HD audio standard which the card has pinouts for, will try it anyway later.
going to try some games now;
css
bf2142 (uses eax5)
quake4
fear
+ serious sam2
Ok, back from a loooong session of gaming, gotta admit with headphones i can hardly tell the difference in SS2 and css, fear is a bit more noticeable as is UT2k4 with xfi patch. Quake 4 with OAL patch and 2142 are noticeable though, your surroundings don't sound very realistic, in 2142 if a grenade blows up on your left you hear it though the left speaker very loudly and next to nothing out of the right and it feels artificial.
In css, ss2 and fear sound was very good to the point where i found i had to concentrate to tell the difference between the two, that is probably due to the quality of the card and the games audio engine over crappy on-board audio solutions. When it came to games that were optimised for the xfi's gaming capabilities the gap was noticeable with poor sound-to-location representation in 2142, q4 and party ut(with xfi patch).
With 7.1 speakers it copes rather well, like the headphones, the extra speakers help out the reduced feature list however i am inclined to believe that these card do support some form of eax, the same level that other cards are legally allowed to support (3 or 2?) however this is not advertised.
So a quick low-down. For music, video's and films the card is fantastic and mops the floor with realtek. In games the line between the two is blurred slightly due to the lack of latest and greatest in eax and hardware processing but it is not to any degree bad, working to a close level that my elite pro does in a variety of games on headphones and 7.1 speakers.
Against your on-board stuff this card is miles better, the quality of sound is crisp, detailed and of generally good quality when paired up with some good speakers or headphones.
Against a higher end xfi it begins to loose in the games department with slightly poorer sound representation in games but still beating realtek soundcards in games by a long shot in the quality department.
Audio creation seemed to be ok but it seems to be cpu calculated if you try to do anything that would use the xfi chip to its max.
All in all:
Music = 8/10
Films & video = 8.5/10
Unoptimised games, ie css = 7/10
optimised games, ie. 2142 = 5.5/10
value for money = 8.5/10
problems = none, what so ever!
Good job creative!
In css, ss2 and fear sound was very good to the point where i found i had to concentrate to tell the difference between the two, that is probably due to the quality of the card and the games audio engine over crappy on-board audio solutions. When it came to games that were optimised for the xfi's gaming capabilities the gap was noticeable with poor sound-to-location representation in 2142, q4 and party ut(with xfi patch).
With 7.1 speakers it copes rather well, like the headphones, the extra speakers help out the reduced feature list however i am inclined to believe that these card do support some form of eax, the same level that other cards are legally allowed to support (3 or 2?) however this is not advertised.
So a quick low-down. For music, video's and films the card is fantastic and mops the floor with realtek. In games the line between the two is blurred slightly due to the lack of latest and greatest in eax and hardware processing but it is not to any degree bad, working to a close level that my elite pro does in a variety of games on headphones and 7.1 speakers.
Against your on-board stuff this card is miles better, the quality of sound is crisp, detailed and of generally good quality when paired up with some good speakers or headphones.
Against a higher end xfi it begins to loose in the games department with slightly poorer sound representation in games but still beating realtek soundcards in games by a long shot in the quality department.
Audio creation seemed to be ok but it seems to be cpu calculated if you try to do anything that would use the xfi chip to its max.
All in all:
Music = 8/10
Films & video = 8.5/10
Unoptimised games, ie css = 7/10
optimised games, ie. 2142 = 5.5/10
value for money = 8.5/10
problems = none, what so ever!
Good job creative!
helmutcheese said:
Dude, i just gave the card a good going over and i mentioned nothing of the sort, there is no latency problems or any problems at all.
Xtreme music, will be better in games with eax5 and full hardware apu