X-Fi I/O Bay Titanium Now Available from Auzentech

[malware]

Auzentech announced today the immediately availability of the X-Fi Titanium I/O Drive for purchase from the Auzentech Online Store. According to the Auzentech website, the X-Fi Titanium I/O Drive is "the ideal way to harness the power of connectivity for select Auzentech PCI Express X-Fi Sound Cards. With the ability to go straight to gaming mode with the push of a button, Headset Connectivity, volume controls and the ability to record your own music, the I/O drive expands your system with a wealth of options."




"We received many requests for the X-Fi Titanium I/O Drive after releasing the X-Fi Forte Sound Card earlier this year," said Auzentech President Stephane Bae. "It greatly expands the connectivity of compatible PCI Express® sound cards, so we are pleased to offer it to our customers."

Manufactured by Creative Labs, the X-Fi Titanium I/O Drive is compatible with the Auzentch X-Fi Forte Sound Card sound card, the soon-to-be-released Auzentech X-Fi HomeTheater HD sound card, and certain Creative sound cards.

The X-Fi Titanium I/O Drive upgrade kit will sell at $79.99 alone, or it can be purchased with the Auzentch X-Fi Forte Sound Card sound card for a combined total price at $199.99.


For more information, visit the links below.

X-Fi Titanium I/O Drive
http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/xfi_iodrive.php
X-Fi Forte PCI Express Sound Card
http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/x-fi_forte.php

Source: Auzentech

[siLc]

I think this is rather poor compared to Creative`s old X-Fi I/O Drive. It at least has SPDIF and Optical In/Out and 6,3mm analogue in/out`s.

[Kitkat]

so its just a rebrand?

[Sihastru]

Yeah it's from Creative, they say that on the product page. Anyway, a very poor design and not that functional.

I only see gamers buying it just to show of the "Fatal1ty" branding.

There's no way an audiophile would buy this. First because of the extremely poor connectivity options and then because of the "Fatal1ty" branding...

Off topic: I miss the old Creative, they had products very few had and they were very good products. Today Creative it's but a shadow of its old self. I wish they would bring back the 550D and the 250D. Especially the 250D...

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by Sihastru

Off topic: I miss the old Creative, they had products very few had and they were very good products. Today Creative it's but a shadow of its old self. I wish they would bring back the 550D and the 250D. Especially the 250D...

Blame Microsoft and Intel, for standardizing PC audio with the inferior gay UART, Azalia standards, and stripping DirectX 10+ of hardware sampling/mixing for DirectSound.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by btarunr

Blame Microsoft and Intel, for standardizing PC audio with the inferior gay UART, Azalia standards, and stripping DirectX 10+ of hardware sampling/mixing for DirectSound.

i for one am glad they did. it killed a proprietary format. Since vista came out, i havent had audio issues in any games, thanks to them ditching the buggy, error prone EAX.

On the flip side, i know creative users are crapping themselves - you should see the raging on the killing floor forums, if you have an x-fi you cant use surround sound in the game without a BSOD.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by Mussels

i for one am glad they did. it killed a proprietary format.

It killed competition, nothing else. Development in PC audio pretty-much stagnated since 2005.

X-Fi isn't a bad product, Vista made it bad, by not letting it function like it should. Before Vista and X-Fi, didn't we like Audigy, and want one of those in our gaming PCs? Heard of "buggy" going with Audigy and its Windows XP drivers? I think not.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by btarunr

It killed competition, nothing else. Development in PC audio pretty-much stagnated since 2005.

X-Fi isn't a bad product, Vista made it bad, by not letting it function like it should. Before Vista and X-Fi, didn't we like Audigy, and want one of those in our gaming PCs? Heard of "buggy" going with Audigy and its Windows XP drivers? I think not.

STAGNATED?

hmm, pre vista.. . creative, creative, creative.

Post vista: auzentech, and asus have constantly released new cards, with better and better features. Creative is still releasing (re-releasing) the same crap, with poor driver support as always.

If you're a creative fanboy things arent looking too good... but they never did.

[craigo]

well put mussels.
bta if by killing competition you mean providing a set of open specs and opening the market to competition from a wide and varied array of manufactures i agree...wait.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by Mussels

STAGNATED?

hmm, pre vista.. . creative, creative, creative.

Post vista: auzentech, and asus have constantly released new cards, with better and better features. Creative is still releasing (re-releasing) the same crap, with poor driver support as always.

If you're a creative fanboy things arent looking too good... but they never did.

Wait, how is Auzentech and ASUS throwing up new sound cards every now and then tied to development of PC audio?

ASUS uses the same AV100/AV200 chips in every sound card it makes, and qualifies for "is still releasing (re-releasing) the same crap" as much as Creative does.

Have we moved along from 24-bit/192kHz since 2005? Have we been able to make games sound more immersive with this "new" standard Microsoft laid out? Have we been able to let hardware acceleration improve (processing 100s of different voices, leaving the CPU alone?) Have we made connecting peripherals for HD audio any easier? The answer is no, hence it's stagnated.

[Mussels]

you said development was stagnated thanks to vistas audio. its not true - its ALWAYS been stagnated. at least now there is more than one company able to join the fray, since EAX got shot down.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by Mussels

you said development was stagnated thanks to vistas audio. its not true - its ALWAYS been stagnated. at least now there is more than one company able to join the fray, since EAX got shot down.

Wrong. PC audio kept developing till Vista prevented DirectSound apps from accessing audio hardware. Just because no other company made audio processors, doesn't mean Creative had to be hunted down like a witch. To make things open, Creative funded development of OpenAL, which allowed anyone to make apps talk directly to hardware. Did anyone man up, and make an audio processor? No, because they can instead stick to dated standards laid out by Intel and Microsoft, and crawl along. It's like telling DirectX 9.0c looks good enough, and we don't need any more development in the field of graphics. UART makes sure there's very little to compete on, so everyone in the hardware industry could make money selling the same dated crap repackaged, and the consumers wouldn't bother.

More companies to choose from isn't a bad thing per say, but companies selling things that are not much better than the others', is a dangerous precedent. Both ASUS and Auzentech sell you sound cards that offer the same features., neither of which make games sound better, or improve realism. At least for 10 years, Creative kept developing EAX, which genuinely improved realism.

[Mussels]

creative, open? lol until vista, no one was allowed past EAX 2.0! there was no backwards compatibility either, so unless you had Xfi, you had 2.0 sound.

i'm sorry BTA, creative sucked and needed to be shut down. they were choking the market hard.

talking about dated crap, wasnt it creative who had the same audio processor (and 99% the same hardware) from the SB live 5.1 all the way to the audigy 4? i seem to remember very simple driver mods that enabled all those fancy "hardware" features on my audigy 1.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by Mussels

creative, open? lol until vista, no one was allowed past EAX 2.0! there was no backwards compatibility either, so unless you had Xfi, you had 2.0 sound.

i'm sorry BTA, creative sucked and needed to be shut down. they were choking the market hard.

talking about dated crap, wasnt it creative who had the same audio processor (and 99% the same hardware) from the SB live 5.1 all the way to the audigy 4? i seem to remember very simple driver mods that enabled all those fancy "hardware" features on my audigy 1.

Look up OpenAL. Anyone could use it, and make audio processors. Audio effects would be care of the game developer.

Creative didn't choke the market, it stayed ahead of times when it came to PC audio technologies. Nobody could match it, and it's not Creative's problem if they can't. All Microsoft made sure is it axed the "superior", and let the "inferiors" compete in the market. It's like axing Intel, and letting AMD and VIA sell processors.

Yes, Creative used EMU10K for over two generations, but even today nobody other than Creative has an audio processor as powerful as that. NVIDIA SoundStorm came close.

[Mussels]

"nobody could match it" because creative wouldnt let them!

every game that used EAX, immediately ruled out anything that wasnt the latest creative cards from using surround sound. what do you think all those threads were about when people moved to vista, and they lost surround sound in games? EAX didnt work, so no 5.1.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by Mussels

"nobody could match it" because creative wouldnt let them!

every game that used EAX, immediately ruled out anything that wasnt the latest creative cards from using surround sound. what do you think all those threads were about when people moved to vista, and they lost surround sound in games? EAX didnt work, so no 5.1.

No, Creative didn't prevent A3D for competing with EAX, A3D faded away. At least back then, EAX was the Hobson's choice. Today UART made sure you don't even have access to EAX, leaving you with no technology standard that can make games sound immersive and real. Now, didn't it stagnate PC audio, before which Creative kept development of at least one standard in motion?

[Mussels]

creative had EAX, and it won the war vs A3D.

After that, there was nothing. it was buy creative or get F*cked, as far as surround sound gaming was concerned.

EAX works fine in vista... creative released alchemy for a reason, and at the same time this allowed other companies to do the same, finally breaking open EAX to everyone. funny how these 'hardware' features work great, even on onboard audio.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by Mussels

creative had EAX, and it won the war vs A3D.

After that, there was nothing. it was buy creative or get F*cked, as far as surround sound gaming was concerned.

Again, A3D faded away, Creative didn't knock it off. It's like how in the battle between HD-DVD and Blu-Ray, HD-DVD faded away, leaving you only one format to choose from. So now it's "buy blu-ray or get F*cked" as far as HD video publication format goes. With each Blu-Ray player or disc you buy, a portion of your money is going to Sony. The stance Creative had with EAX was similar. But nobody wanted to license it.

Now don't you think it's more convenient if there's just one format to choose from? It's either good quality Creative audio, or archaic standards from UART. Microsoft forced UART upon you with Vista.

ALchemy lets you use EAX, but I don't think the audio is hardware accelerated.

[Mussels]

blu ray won the war, but companies other than sony are allowed to make blu ray devices.
EAX won the war, and creative only allowed their own hardware to use it.

That is the difference.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by Mussels

blu ray won the war, but companies other than sony are allowed to make blu ray devices.

After licensing it.

Originally Posted by Mussels

EAX won the war, and creative only allowed their own hardware to use it.

You could license EAX from Creative. Analog Devices did, so did ASUS, later. Nobody wanted to license EAX in the older days, because nobody had the hardware which could mix dozens of voices (reverberation involves playing multiple similar streams of audio with short time spacing). Newer hardware allowed at least 32 hardware streams, and they started to license it.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by btarunr

After licensing it.



You could license EAX from Creative. Analog Devices did, so did ASUS, later. Nobody wanted to license EAX in the older days, because nobody had the hardware which could mix dozens of voices (reverberation involves playing multiple similar streams of audio with short time spacing). Today's hardware allows at least 32 hardware streams, and today, they're starting to license it.

no you couldnt. creative only allowed upto EAX 2.0. Even today they only allow upto EAX4.0, with the exception of auzentechs X-fi card - which is creative hardware anyway.

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by Mussels

no you couldnt. creative only allowed upto EAX 2.0. Even today they only allow upto EAX4.0, with the exception of auzentechs X-fi card - which is creative hardware anyway.

EAX up to 2.0 was free, with DirectSound 8.0+ it's almost an open code. ASUS' cards allow EAX up to 5.0.

Christ this is intense.

[Mussels]

Originally Posted by kyle2020

Christ this is intense.

TPU's server will catch ablaze from the friction soon.

[btarunr]

"Friction is a necessary evil". My Physics teacher was hot.