X-Fi minefield

azaniah

azaniah

azaniah

Associate
Joined
11 Dec 2002
Posts
606
Can someone confirm or deny the following please.

1. X-Fi Xtreme Gamer has header connections for front panel, where as the Fatality Pro / Music editions don't as they have the option for the front expansion bay instead.

2. Music Edition is now disconntinued but is still out there as OEM

3. Fatality Pro essentially replaces the Music edition but with not quite the same spec of components, but has the X-Ram stuff (which doesn't do much)?

I had ordered a Music card, but Oc where out of stock. The nearest to it is Fatality Pro as far as I can see. This would be on Vista 64Bit 4Gig of Ram used for games and mp3 listening. (My true music setup runs a MOTU HD192 but thats a whole other kettle of fish). So need good gaming, decent audio and compatibility / stability.

Not paying £100 for one unless there is a very good reason to. (Prelude springs to mind).

Cheers
 
So essentially a choice between Fatality and Music edition then, and as mostly used for gaming all much of a muchness.

I've not really paid much attention to vista, till yesterday when I bought the new rig.

Is it true that EAX is only supported by a translation layer natively in Vista 64bit? I vaguely remember reading something about another codec replacing it in Vista.

Does that effectively mean Creative are dead in water, as EAX was a key gaming / selling point?

Cheers
 
wait wait - Im sure I read on the general forums that the xfi music has problems with 4gb's of ram? but I think thats on an xp machine :p

well I got eax on my xfi music card and it runs fine :p and Im on xp :p
 
Cheers for that Hobgoblin...

Questions remains (although not likely to make much difference to purchase) if EAX is being provided by an interpretation layer, is Creative losing it's grip on the gaming front? Should I be looking elsewhere for a decent gaming card now?
 
its still the company of choice, although some are sick of creatives dodgy drivers and are downloading them from azuntech, which are selling rebranded X-Fi's and tweaking the drivers.
they sell azuntech cards at OCUK. as far as i am aware the Razor cards just arnt up to scratch. ive heard good things about the asus Xonar but havent got one (bit pricey for me), the only down side being no EAX as it uses Dolby digital which some newer games do support (bioshock being the main one)
 
Not really, MS are to blame for messing with the SoundStack in Vista (probably same as many other features missing, they ran out of time after being 2 years late to RTM).

You download Creatives ALchemy and install it, and its only needed for DirectSound Games (old and dying tech), the newer OpenAL Games will work with EAX anyhow in Vista.

Creative ALchemy: http://www.soundblaster.com/alchemy/
 
Gotcha, basically just a different way to tie into the EAX code through a different Layer...

Fatality Pro looks like the one then (or music which was out of stock).

Lots of mention of Auzentech drivers, I assume as they are based on X-Fi cores with some twiddly tweakyness going on that you can apply those drivers to any native X-Fi board?
 
No more Extreme Musics, Just Extreme Gamer and Extreme Audio, you can get a Fatality Gamer, same as mines with no remote or Front Panel though ( I have the Fatality Pro Champion model).
 
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