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I think this is the problem with my Xfi - not working nicely with MB/RAM etc.
Thanks for the info
XFI vs Xonar : WTF?
- Thread starter FatRakoon
- Start date
I think this is the problem with my Xfi - not working nicely with MB/RAM etc.
Thanks for the info
I think this is the problem with my Xfi - not working nicely with MB/RAM etc.
Thanks for the info
I can remember the joys i had when i first installed my Audigy 2ZS. Absolute driver nightmare with XP. With my Xonar Essence ST and Windows 7, i didnt even need the CD. In fact, I didnt need the CD for anything - motherboard, graphics card, sound card, monitor, everything just got downloaded and installed
Soldato
I had a Xonar DX which I modded slightly...changed out the main 2 channel opamp and put some power filter caps on the aux power input. It sounded good, but then I sold it and got an XtremeGamer, and even in totally stock form it's miles better in pretty much every way in my opinion.
My first venture into sound cards was years back with a XFI XtremeMusic which I changed the opamp on...would like to go back to that setup as I think I'll be able to appreciate it more since I've been through a few DAC and soundcard setups since then...and the XtremeGamer can't be modded the same way.
I am using the PAX Prelude drivers which are modded Auzentech drivers I believe....no problems here and it sounds great.
My first venture into sound cards was years back with a XFI XtremeMusic which I changed the opamp on...would like to go back to that setup as I think I'll be able to appreciate it more since I've been through a few DAC and soundcard setups since then...and the XtremeGamer can't be modded the same way.
I am using the PAX Prelude drivers which are modded Auzentech drivers I believe....no problems here and it sounds great.
I think that this is all relative.
I mean, I have never had a single issue with Creative cards, I am the very proud owner of a number of PCs and they all have various flavours of creative cards, I have had quite possibly every type of creative card there is, ok no I have not, but every major one yes I have, I still have in use right now, the following :-
1 x Audigy 1 - With a Live Drive from a SBLive!
2 x Audigy 2 ZS - one with a Live Drive and one without
2 x XFI Gamers - one is a generic and one is a Dell with Oiptical I/O
1 x XFI Fatality
I dont know how they fare with Bog standad XP but I know the Audigy 1 played fine with it, I have not used a 32 Bit O/S for quite some years, and with XP64 they ran just fine and never gave me any problems.
I will however contradict myself here, but, the Audigy 2 ZS on my Gigabyte DS4 Motherboard, with the Q9550 and 4x1GB GEIL RAM, did on occasion make a silly sound. However, this was ONLY during playing WarHammer Dawn Of War, and NEVER any other time. I never had this issue with any other Setup or when I swapped the A2ZS for an XFI.
Another issue that I have had, was when I tried to swap from the A2ZS to the XFI, it would completely lose the plot and often failed to find any soundcard at all... I had to made fully sure that any and all traces of the drivers were goen before I tried to put in the other card.
Again, this only happened on the DS4 but never on any other system.
I have 8 Pcs that I currently use almost every day on my LAN and a furthre 5 that I use on occasion and for only one PC to be a problem out of those, I am perfectly happy... Sure it was my main PC and thats been a pain in the butt, but still, I cannot complain at all about Creative cards because for that to be my only issue in all these years and on all these PCs, its pathetic of me if I moaned.
I have now also got an Asus Xonar and, like my XFI, I am very happy indeed with it, however, I am still using the XFI as my main PCs Audio of choice.
Oh, one other issue that I have had with the XFI Fatality is that when I trioed to use the drivers, I did indeed get some issues. I am now running Windows own drivers and its fine. ( Windows 7 - 64Bit Like I said I dont use any form of 32Bit O/S )
I mean, I have never had a single issue with Creative cards, I am the very proud owner of a number of PCs and they all have various flavours of creative cards, I have had quite possibly every type of creative card there is, ok no I have not, but every major one yes I have, I still have in use right now, the following :-
1 x Audigy 1 - With a Live Drive from a SBLive!
2 x Audigy 2 ZS - one with a Live Drive and one without
2 x XFI Gamers - one is a generic and one is a Dell with Oiptical I/O
1 x XFI Fatality
I dont know how they fare with Bog standad XP but I know the Audigy 1 played fine with it, I have not used a 32 Bit O/S for quite some years, and with XP64 they ran just fine and never gave me any problems.
I will however contradict myself here, but, the Audigy 2 ZS on my Gigabyte DS4 Motherboard, with the Q9550 and 4x1GB GEIL RAM, did on occasion make a silly sound. However, this was ONLY during playing WarHammer Dawn Of War, and NEVER any other time. I never had this issue with any other Setup or when I swapped the A2ZS for an XFI.
Another issue that I have had, was when I tried to swap from the A2ZS to the XFI, it would completely lose the plot and often failed to find any soundcard at all... I had to made fully sure that any and all traces of the drivers were goen before I tried to put in the other card.
Again, this only happened on the DS4 but never on any other system.
I have 8 Pcs that I currently use almost every day on my LAN and a furthre 5 that I use on occasion and for only one PC to be a problem out of those, I am perfectly happy... Sure it was my main PC and thats been a pain in the butt, but still, I cannot complain at all about Creative cards because for that to be my only issue in all these years and on all these PCs, its pathetic of me if I moaned.
I have now also got an Asus Xonar and, like my XFI, I am very happy indeed with it, however, I am still using the XFI as my main PCs Audio of choice.
Oh, one other issue that I have had with the XFI Fatality is that when I trioed to use the drivers, I did indeed get some issues. I am now running Windows own drivers and its fine. ( Windows 7 - 64Bit Like I said I dont use any form of 32Bit O/S )
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I took my XFI card out of my system about 2 -4 weeks ago now and my systems crashes have stopped. So considering nothing else has changed its definitely the card. Ive been using on-board atm but really don't know if I should go for the D2X.
I didn't really want to get another Creative card as my past 2 have had the same issue.
I didn't really want to get another Creative card as my past 2 have had the same issue.
Did they stop straight away or did they fade out over the past few weeks?
Its clear by every post abotu the Creative cards that I have seen, not just here, but over time, that some people have issues and some do not, and I think that its down to certain component mixes.
The biggest single cause seems to almost definitely be the NVIDIA GFX + 4GB + CREATIVE
I would add to that and say that I have been running that on 3 of my setups and I have had next to ZERO issues
My setups that are closest to that are :-
Gigabyte DS4 / Intel Q9550 / 4x1GB KingstonX / Palit 250 GTS / XFI Fatal1ty
Gigabyte DS3 / AMD 9550x4 / 4x1GB Geil / Asus 280GTX / XFI Gamer ( With optical I/O )
Asus A8NSLI / Opteron175 / 4x1GB Corsair / 2x7800GTX / XFI Gamer
Now those setups are 100% flawless except the DS4 used to be running the Audigy 2 ZS and on occasion would mess about and only when playing Dawn Of War... Never any other time.
I have now swapped the Audiogy 2 ZS for the XFI and all is well.
I guess I have been very lucky, but I have never had an issue with creative cards that cannot be resolved in one way or another and I suppose as I have many other PCs, I guess that when I have real issues, I always have something that I can put it in and use something else instead, but OTTOMH I cannot think of a time that I have had to do that???
Its clear by every post abotu the Creative cards that I have seen, not just here, but over time, that some people have issues and some do not, and I think that its down to certain component mixes.
The biggest single cause seems to almost definitely be the NVIDIA GFX + 4GB + CREATIVE
I would add to that and say that I have been running that on 3 of my setups and I have had next to ZERO issues
My setups that are closest to that are :-
Gigabyte DS4 / Intel Q9550 / 4x1GB KingstonX / Palit 250 GTS / XFI Fatal1ty
Gigabyte DS3 / AMD 9550x4 / 4x1GB Geil / Asus 280GTX / XFI Gamer ( With optical I/O )
Asus A8NSLI / Opteron175 / 4x1GB Corsair / 2x7800GTX / XFI Gamer
Now those setups are 100% flawless except the DS4 used to be running the Audigy 2 ZS and on occasion would mess about and only when playing Dawn Of War... Never any other time.
I have now swapped the Audiogy 2 ZS for the XFI and all is well.
I guess I have been very lucky, but I have never had an issue with creative cards that cannot be resolved in one way or another and I suppose as I have many other PCs, I guess that when I have real issues, I always have something that I can put it in and use something else instead, but OTTOMH I cannot think of a time that I have had to do that???
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Well the crashes were mostly random - mainly in games though.
But they have completely stopped. If the past 2-4 weeks I were using my XFi card I expect I would have had about 3 crashes or so.
Typically thats the combo I had setup - only real difference to the 3 setups you posted is that my RAM is 2 sticks of 2GB.
Soldato
I've had 4GB issues with Creative cards on ULi (produced before nVIDIa bought them) chipset with both ATI and nVIDIA GPUs.
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Can anyone with a Xonar D2/X bring some light on surround sound setups with the latest games and how its working?
Or should I just get the damn card? Im hoping to order today
Or should I just get the damn card? Im hoping to order today
Dont get me wrong a fair few people have issues with many various setups. Im not saying that everyone with the 4GB / Creative / nVidia combo will have issues and no one else, but it seems that most of the users who do have this issue have had it with them.
Can anyone with a Xonar D2/X bring some light on surround sound setups with the latest games and how its working?
Or should I just get the damn card? Im hoping to order today
You said it yourself...
Just get the damn card
The Asus, while not game oriented like the XFI, does have the power to handle all your games needs... and some.
So, Shut up and buy one... You wont regret it
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Soldato
You know what can solve this debate?
If Creative actually released there long rumoured
Xfi-2 soundcard
I think it was rumoured to have come out 2008 then 2009 lol and nothing, someone definatly needs to create a new soundcard to take advance of windows 7+
If Creative actually released there long rumoured
Xfi-2 soundcard
I think it was rumoured to have come out 2008 then 2009 lol and nothing, someone definatly needs to create a new soundcard to take advance of windows 7+
LOL that will only make things worse I recon.
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I can't compare an X-Fi era Creative card with the Xonar, as I haven't had a Creative since the Audigy 2ZS Platinum Pro but I don't miss their poor drivers/support and I love my Xonar.
My Audigy is still in service but every wee while it forgets it's installed and I have to take it out and put it in another PCI slot to remind it. Very odd indeed! Nothing much to do with sound quality though I suppose... I do miss the break-out box of the Creative, but not much else. Xonar for me.
My Audigy is still in service but every wee while it forgets it's installed and I have to take it out and put it in another PCI slot to remind it. Very odd indeed! Nothing much to do with sound quality though I suppose... I do miss the break-out box of the Creative, but not much else. Xonar for me.
My audigy used to have that very same issue.. Forgetting its there and a PCI slot rotation cured it great.
Im sure that was on the Gigabyte 965P DS3, and I am also sure that I cured that issue with a BIOS update... in fact, no, thats exactly how I cured it, so... Something for you to check out there.
As for the breakout boxes, yes, I still call them Live Drives. But my speakers ( Altec Lansing 995 ) have no volume control or headphone socket, and so I am pretty much forced to use some for of Drive bay for the headphones and the keyboards need a volume control too.
I prefer it this way anyway.
But the Live Drive issue can I suppose be cured with Front I/O Panels however none of them give me the stuff that I get on the creative bays.
I recently bought the ASUS thingy fron OCUK and it was utter rubbish and I got a refund ( minus postage ) and in the end I bought the Fatal1ty... Thats a total waste of money if you ask me.
My main PC and my kids PCs all have Creative cards with teh Live Drives.
My No2 PC has a xonar however, but no live drive ( Doesnt need it, but I will still find somehting for it cos thats how I like my PCs )
Plus I just like the front end to look "Busy". I hate bare systems they bore me.
Go for it.
The better your AMP / Speaker setup, the better you will see the Xonar is.
Although to be completely honest, the XFI has a very wide range on its EQ settings and that crystaliser is a bit funky. They are a lot closer than many people seem to make out, but the xonar definitely is better.
Soldato
I would not bother. The xtrememusic is really very good and I think it sounds much better than the Xonar.
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I was planning to buy a Xonar DX2 and a set of Z5500's in the next week or so but reading this thread has kinda put me off both :/
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Annoyed I found this thread so late.
I am really glad people are starting to wake up to how crap these gaming cards are for listening to music. I really cant see how anybody could justify the huge mark up on some of the more expensive Essence/Fatal1ty models when you are paying through the teeth for features which are irrelevant/buying into a brand or purely aesthetic.
It's great to hear that some of you guys are buying hi-fi seperates as well and CARE about your sound quality.
We live in a time where, for people like myself, we are having to mix our music to the lowest common denominator the whole time (with 128kbps MP3s on iPods for people who don't care about sound quality) redirecting the emphasis of our production away from capturing audio that drips with sonic fidelity.
It doesn't help when half the reviews on the internet are waxing lyrical about these Xonars and X-Fis (I PERSONALLY prefer the latter) so that we all think we are making an informed decision when we buy a soundcard. But, this is simply not the case.
To put it into context - I recently bought a Mesa Boogie 4x12 cab off ebay. I simply assumed it was going to sound good because of the brand. I was sorely dissapointed and now I have to sell it on. Point being? We need to actually HEAR these products before jumping in the deep end!
I mean, even if you don't have overclockers near you physically (and I am unsure what their store facilities are like). Surely there's no harm in going to a high street retailer and asking to hear some of these soundcards 'in the flesh. At the end of the day, music is SO personal to every one of us.
Irrespective of this, I would strongly recommend that if you are in need of a decent soundcard you have a look at the M-Audio Audiophile 2496. It's cheap as chips for what it is (is cheaper than the inferior Xonar) and I am still blown away by the sound quality. Don't be put off by the drivers - it may seem complicated at first but you might actually LEARN something about audio whilst using it. And we all know, the only thing you'll learn about audio from the Xonar's conotrol panel is how to turn all of it off.
Permenantly.
I am really glad people are starting to wake up to how crap these gaming cards are for listening to music. I really cant see how anybody could justify the huge mark up on some of the more expensive Essence/Fatal1ty models when you are paying through the teeth for features which are irrelevant/buying into a brand or purely aesthetic.
It's great to hear that some of you guys are buying hi-fi seperates as well and CARE about your sound quality.
We live in a time where, for people like myself, we are having to mix our music to the lowest common denominator the whole time (with 128kbps MP3s on iPods for people who don't care about sound quality) redirecting the emphasis of our production away from capturing audio that drips with sonic fidelity.
It doesn't help when half the reviews on the internet are waxing lyrical about these Xonars and X-Fis (I PERSONALLY prefer the latter) so that we all think we are making an informed decision when we buy a soundcard. But, this is simply not the case.
To put it into context - I recently bought a Mesa Boogie 4x12 cab off ebay. I simply assumed it was going to sound good because of the brand. I was sorely dissapointed and now I have to sell it on. Point being? We need to actually HEAR these products before jumping in the deep end!
I mean, even if you don't have overclockers near you physically (and I am unsure what their store facilities are like). Surely there's no harm in going to a high street retailer and asking to hear some of these soundcards 'in the flesh. At the end of the day, music is SO personal to every one of us.
Irrespective of this, I would strongly recommend that if you are in need of a decent soundcard you have a look at the M-Audio Audiophile 2496. It's cheap as chips for what it is (is cheaper than the inferior Xonar) and I am still blown away by the sound quality. Don't be put off by the drivers - it may seem complicated at first but you might actually LEARN something about audio whilst using it. And we all know, the only thing you'll learn about audio from the Xonar's conotrol panel is how to turn all of it off.
Permenantly.
Soldato
I think the X-Fi works great for music. Provided you don't use any of the stupid crystalizer or other bells and whistles....and it does improve greatly when you ditch the crappy JRC opamps for something better.
The fact is that the XtremeMusic can be had between 20 and 30 quid and that, I think, is what makes it such good value.
I'd be interested to try the Audiophile 2496 though as I've read lots of good things about it....I had an Emu 0404 briefly but didn't like it all, despite people saying it was better than the X-Fi and Xonar for musical reproduction :/ But would like to take a look at some more pro-audio cards again.
The fact is that the XtremeMusic can be had between 20 and 30 quid and that, I think, is what makes it such good value.
I'd be interested to try the Audiophile 2496 though as I've read lots of good things about it....I had an Emu 0404 briefly but didn't like it all, despite people saying it was better than the X-Fi and Xonar for musical reproduction :/ But would like to take a look at some more pro-audio cards again.