Friday, May 10th 2024

Creative Announces Super X-Fi Gen 4 Audio Profile

Press Release by
GFreeman
 Discuss (39 Comments)
Building on the foundation of its award-winning Super X-Fi Headphone Holography, Creative Technology will be unveiling the all-new Super X-Fi Gen 4 audio profile. This latest release boasts significant enhancements in dynamic range, clarity, and spatial awareness. The Super X-Fi Gen 4 isn't just raising the bar; it's redefining the standard for immersive audio experiences. With this latest update, users can enjoy an expanded dynamic range, delivering richer, more detailed audio reproduction. Coupled with improved clarity, users can indulge in crystal-clear sound that captures every subtle nuance, while the refined sense of space offers a more expansive and lifelike soundstage.

Super X-Fi technology elevates the audio experience for users by recreating the immersive soundstage of high-end surround speaker systems within headphones, further personalized by the power of Artificial Intelligence (AI) for a remarkably natural listening experience. Since its debut at CES 2019, users and critics have been impressed by the realism of personalized audio, which is tailored according to their anthropometric profiles. From immersing in the heart-pounding action of a blockbuster movie to feeling the raw energy of a live concert or delving into the captivating world of gaming, Super X-Fi can bring it all to life with breath-taking detail and precision.
Super X-Fi For Speakers
Originally engineered for headphones, Super X-Fi has elevated personal audio to new heights with its personalized spatial holographic experience. Now, this innovative technology is poised to transform the home entertainment landscape by bringing the same revolutionary experience to speaker systems. The debut of Super X-Fi for speakers brings a new dimension to home entertainment, effortlessly turning any living space into a vibrant concert hall or theatre. With every note, beat, and sound resonating with captivating realism and depth, users can expect an immersive listening journey, mirroring the satisfaction long enjoyed by Super X-Fi headphone users.

Super X-Fi Gen 4 will be rolled out worldwide in June, with users simply needing to configure and download their new profiles through the SXFI APP.

Expanding Super X-Fi Ecosystem
Soon, Creative Technology will unveil the integration of Super X-Fi technology across its upcoming product line-up, spanning from True Wireless Stereo (TWS) earbuds to premium headphones and speakers. This expansion will enable users to seamlessly tap into the world of Super X-Fi across their preferred streaming platforms like Netflix, YouTube, and Spotify, even on compact earbuds and speakers—a pioneering feat for Super X-Fi technology.

"Our user community has played a pivotal role in shaping the evolution of Super X-Fi, providing valuable insights and data that have refined our AI engine. With Super X-Fi Gen 4, we're advancing further, delivering an even more immersive listening experience that breaks free from the limitations of flat and lacklustre audio. Moreover, we are also thrilled to announce the upcoming integration of Super X-Fi technology across our product line-up, offering users seamless access to spatial audio no matter where they are," said Lee Teck Chee, Chief Technology Officer at Creative and inventor of Super X-Fi.
Source: Creative Super X-Fi

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39 Comments on Creative Announces Super X-Fi Gen 4 Audio Profile

#1
natr0n
I remember when x-fi use to mean hw accelerated audio once upon a time.
Posted on Reply
#2
Onasi
This is a press release that says basically nothing. Come on, Creative.
natr0nI remember when x-fi use to mean hw accelerated audio once upon a time.
That’s one of the things Microsoft can definitively be blamed for. Re-writing the entire Windows audio stack in Vista so that HW acceleration of audio is basically not viable sure was a move.
Posted on Reply
#3
FreedomEclipse
~Technological Technocrat~
natr0nI remember when x-fi use to mean hw accelerated audio once upon a time.
Yeah its amazing how long theyve held onto the X-Fi branding when its diverged so far from its original concept and meaning.

With that said. It being a Creative product used to mean something too. Now it means nothing and the brand is more or less a walking corpse.
Posted on Reply
#4
Kn0xxPT
Creative needs to find his spot on the market, because, "Audio" is getting a bit a niche market.

Considering that Creative was all about gaming experience, mainly audio, don't they want to expand their portfolio like Elgato, HyperX portfolio...
Posted on Reply
#5
evernessince
Kn0xxPTCreative needs to find his spot on the market, because, "Audio" is getting a bit a niche market.

Considering that Creative was all about gaming experience, mainly audio, don't they want to expand their portfolio like Elgato, HyperX portfolio...
Creative shot themselves in the foot decades back when it stamped out competing audio technologies. They tried to pull an Nvidia Gameworks but it completely backfired as creative's features sucked and anything good that did pop up they made sure to kill.

Games to this day still lack decent spatial audio, it's amazing how great a game with HTRFs and spatial audio cues can sound and yet we don't do it.

The days of dedicated sound cards are long gone, you don't need that much space anymore for a state of the art DAC / AMP implementation as evidenced by high end portable DAC AMPs. Perhaps it would have made more sense to have an audio card if creative was providing spatial audio plugins to game engines and a co-processor was enabling ray traced audio (which is actually simulating the propagation of audio waves) but given the increase in CPU core count I don't see any reason why that can't be done on the CPU nowadays.

Creative was always more marketing than substance and that ultimately kept them from effectively doing anything. That they still haven't changed their marketing terms signals to me that they haven't learned even the most basic of lessons over their decades in business.
Posted on Reply
#6
RayneYoruka
natr0nI remember when x-fi use to mean hw accelerated audio once upon a time.
I was about to say this..

Well I guess I keep my upgrade path from the blaster Z to the Ae7., I just hope alchemy works there too for old games with EAX
Posted on Reply
#8
Hakker
My last soundcard was and will always be a Gravis Ultrasound. After that it was always onboard audio.
Posted on Reply
#9
ir_cow
OnasiThat’s one of the things Microsoft can definitively be blamed for. Re-writing the entire Windows audio stack in Vista so that HW acceleration of audio is basically not viable sure was a move.
Is this why my creative audigy 2 became worthless after XP? Never saw driver support and it became $200 e-waste. Never bought from them Creative again because of this. Always figured it was the devs being money hungry.
Posted on Reply
#10
Kaleid
ir_cowIs this why my creative audigy 2 became worthless after XP? Never saw driver support and it became $200 e-waste. Never bought from them Creative again because of this. Always figured it was the devs being money hungry.
Yes. Microsoft killed hardware accelerated audio.
Creative did some things to keep things compatible anyway, they released alchemy which was a software solution to keep EAX active in games that supported it. It worked, and was why I kept using Creative soundcards for years to come. Nothing quite like Thief 2 with Creative's own EAX.

I now use a AE5+ and it's basically better than human hearing, and they still have support for older software.

Creative made the mistake not to work on making proper EAX accessible for other manufacturers. If you bought Asus, M-audio or whatever you basically got a worse simulated version of EAX. I tried them out of curiosity, and it was always worse sounding
Posted on Reply
#11
stimpy88
Aww, they even found a way to out and out lie about using AI! I love creative(ly bankrupt)! But I also do love that Creative Labs was the nGreedia of the PC audio market back in the day, and now look what they are. It couldn't happen to a more deserving company. When the AI bubble bursts, nGreedia will be fighting not to end up just like them!
OnasiThis is a press release that says basically nothing. Come on, Creative.


That’s one of the things Microsoft can definitively be blamed for. Re-writing the entire Windows audio stack in Vista so that HW acceleration of audio is basically not viable sure was a move.
You should find out exactly why Microsoft did that before lamenting Creative Labs.
Posted on Reply
#12
Onasi
stimpy88You should find out exactly why Microsoft did that before lamenting Creative Labs.
Not defending Creative here, not sure why you’d think that. I was there while the whole thing was happening. Their drivers WERE trash, nobody argues that, but MS took a nuclear option in this regard and, more importantly, didn’t even try to create some sort of compromise solution that would allow for HW acceleration of audio while still running the driver in user mode.
But yeah, Creative is to blame too with their awful drivers and stifling competition. I remember back then thinking that maybe MS was angling to create their own solution and implement it in DirectSound, but that obviously didn’t happen.
Posted on Reply
#13
Frick
Fishfaced Nincompoop
ir_cowIs this why my creative audigy 2 became worthless after XP? Never saw driver support and it became $200 e-waste. Never bought from them Creative again because of this. Always figured it was the devs being money hungry.
Pretty sure you can still use those, I used creative sound cards until a few years ago.
Posted on Reply
#14
Drash
FrickPretty sure you can still use those, I used creative sound cards until a few years ago.
Still rocking my Audigy 2ZS in my main w10 Gaming rig - only problem is its PCI so need a compatible mobo
Posted on Reply
#15
Dr. Dro
stimpy88Aww, they even found a way to out and out lie about using AI! I love creative(ly bankrupt)! But I also do love that Creative Labs was the nGreedia of the PC audio market back in the day, and now look what they are. It couldn't happen to a more deserving company. When the AI bubble bursts, nGreedia will be fighting not to end up just like them!


You should find out exactly why Microsoft did that before lamenting Creative Labs.
They were way worse than "nGreedia", imo. At least Nvidia doesn't sue people who try to improve their products, they have enough vision to usually hire them instead.

This pathological hatred of Nvidia weirds me out...
Posted on Reply
#16
Dr_b_
motherboard audio is noticeably inferior to a DAC or addincard, using a creative DAC Soundblaster X5, and its very good
Posted on Reply
#17
ir_cow
FrickPretty sure you can still use those, I used creative sound cards until a few years ago.
Nah, not that one. Drivers only went up to Windows XP. Creative did sell other audio cards afterwards with "vista" support. Basically a big Fu.
Posted on Reply
#18
Dr. Dro
ir_cowNah, not that one. Drivers only went up to Windows XP. Creative did sell other audio cards afterwards with "vista" support. Basically a big Fu.
danielkawakami.blogspot.com/2020/08/sb-audigy-series-support-pack-70.html

Daniel ensured that those cards were well-supported to this day, you can use an Audigy2 ZS on Windows 10/11 with those drivers provided your PC still has a legacy PCI slot or you can adapt it to PCIe somehow. The incident(s) I've mentioned in the thread is that Creative took his initiative very, very poorly. Basically they threw their corporate weight on top of the guy and sent him lots of legal threats and cease and desist letters, with their VP famously saying "If we decided to cripple Vista drivers that's on us - only we have the right to do so"
The answer is the sad one you've probably learned to expect: O'Shaughnessy admits that Creative Labs intentionally crippled its Vista drivers as a business strategy.
www.wired.com/2008/03/creative-fixing/
www.wired.com/2008/04/daniel-k-who-fi/
www.techpowerup.com/62366/creative-software-modder-daniel-k-gone-for-good

Back then Creative were really scum. But they were just about to slip as kings of the hill, courtesy of Microsoft.
Posted on Reply
#19
ir_cow
I remembers those vista drivers... It kinda worked, but the front panel did not anymore. Later the guy was employed by Creative and the drivers were deleted. By that point I moved on I guess and forgot all about it until todya.
Posted on Reply
#20
Suspecto
It is pure nostalgia, nothing else.

Creative audio sucked back then like those fake sw surrounds do currently.

It added nothing but fake echo and reverb, boosted certain frequencies and isolated them to one channel, so if someone was next to you on your right, the sound was often completely isolated to the right channel, so as a kiddo, you were like, woah, muh positional audio. The thing is, the farther you were from the sound source, it completely lost sound precision and sound stage and you couldn't tell how far away the sound source was, because it became completely blunt over time.

And due to strict sound source isolation, the location was often imprecise and pointing to the opposite direction of the sound depending on your angle or when standing still and turning around.


Their latest lineup is a joke, there is a huge issue with the channels swapping in games or when scrolling large PDFs, L to R or L/R to centre and you are completely missing the positional audio on AMD and Intel platforms using pcie4.0+ mobos and PCIe 4.0 gpus.

Heck, it even happens on pcie 3.0 and older platforms such as LGA775 and the previous gens on their products but it is scarce. After all those years, no fix, except running the card in the direct mode, but then it disables all the sw features and it is just like a cheap 10 USD DAC with no additional value. So it is a clear driver issue. On reddit and their forums they still pretend they can't reproduce it, despite it taking about 5 mins to reproduce in plenty of modern games.
Posted on Reply
#21
Drash
ir_cowNah, not that one. Drivers only went up to Windows XP. Creative did sell other audio cards afterwards with "vista" support. Basically a big Fu.
danielkawakami.blogspot.com/ W11 suppport for Audigy 2
Posted on Reply
#22
ir_cow
Official support vs half working is the difference.
Posted on Reply
#23
freeagent
I was more of an Auzentech guy, not that it really mattered after XP.
Posted on Reply
#24
OneMoar
There is Always Moar
OnasiNot defending Creative here, not sure why you’d think that. I was there while the whole thing was happening. Their drivers WERE trash, nobody argues that, but MS took a nuclear option in this regard and, more importantly, didn’t even try to create some sort of compromise solution that would allow for HW acceleration of audio while still running the driver in user mode.
But yeah, Creative is to blame too with their awful drivers and stifling competition. I remember back then thinking that maybe MS was angling to create their own solution and implement it in DirectSound, but that obviously didn’t happen.
creative drivers have been trash since the MSDOS era
and HW acceleration for sound was basicly not required anymore and just encourged properarity breakage
Posted on Reply
#25
stimpy88
OnasiNot defending Creative here, not sure why you’d think that. I was there while the whole thing was happening. Their drivers WERE trash, nobody argues that, but MS took a nuclear option in this regard and, more importantly, didn’t even try to create some sort of compromise solution that would allow for HW acceleration of audio while still running the driver in user mode.
But yeah, Creative is to blame too with their awful drivers and stifling competition. I remember back then thinking that maybe MS was angling to create their own solution and implement it in DirectSound, but that obviously didn’t happen.
I was there too, I also read the reason for MS's decision, that Creative's drivers were the No1 reason for bluescreen crashing in Windows, next to printers and scanners. And yes, MS went nuclear and that was a massive shame that Windows Audio has never recovered from.

MS should lay a framework API for hardware accelerated audio inside Direct-X and design a strict driver foundation to utilise it. But sadly MS has almost no competent coders/devs, so they don't know how to do it, and probably couldn't get the budget for it anyway, even if they wanted to. The interesting thing is that the XBox consoles have had hardware Audio for years now, so there must be an API, MS just refuses to make it public. Maybe Windows 12, but I won't hold my breath.
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