X-Fi Support Syndicate & Owner's Clubhouse

[imperialreign]

Originally Posted by happita

Hello. May I join? I have an X-Fi in my sig. Check it out.

done!

[imperialreign]

not really related to the X-Fi series at all, but I thought I'd mention and point it out here that I had noticed on tweakguides.com:

ALchemy for Audigy
8 May 2008


Creative has announced that shortly they will release the ALchemy for Audigy software - which allows DirectSound games to run with hardware audio support under Vista - as a free download to all users. Existing purchasers are therefore entitled to a Refund of their $9.99 purchase price.

the refund form can be found at Creative's website here: http://us.creative.com/alchemy/welcome.asp

apparantly, this one is coming in under the radar - from what I can tell, Creative have been sending e-mails to users who've already paid for the software in the past, instead of making some kind of official notice or news report.

Audigy users should never have had to pay for the service in the first place, IMO, but at least Creative has had a little sense knocked into them over the last couple of months. Hopefully, this will be a start on re-establishing their customer relations.

[btarunr]

Say hello to the newest sound-card featuring X-Fi technology, the ASUS SupremeFX X-Fi



ASUS would be shipping this with several of its ROG motherboards, notably Maximus II Formula/Extreme, possibly Crosshair II Formula (since it's still not made it to the market and replaced by M3N32 series).

Funny though, is that it's advertised to support EAX 4.0 HD which is supposed to be a hardware accelerated feature. I don't think this features CA20K1 because:

• The presence of CA20K1 would mean there should be a PCI-E bridge chip (that translates PCI-E to PCI)
• Presense of a bridge chip would jack up manufacturing costs significantly, and it would cost ASUS ~$60 for this part alone.
• If there was a CA20K1 in there, the sticker would be screaming 'EAX 5.0 HD'.

That brings us to the next question, how are they accelerating EAX 4.0 on the same chipset that drives the PCI-E X-Fi cards from Creative and MSI ? Software? That could jack up CPU overhead.

[imperialreign]

very interesting, btarunr!

I'm shocked, honestly, that ASUS is now brandishing X-Fi's mini-boards . . . funny, too, how similar it looks to their current offering . . .


damn! I'm itchin to see that PCB without the shield!!!

[btarunr]

Lesson to learn for Creative: "install EMI shields on sound-cards. ASUS SupremeFX cards are well shielded from major interference because it's intended to be installed in a place between the first video-card and the northbridge.



Do you see the ROG badge on the northbridge cooler? That's no sticker. It's a plate which glows, there's a white cold-cathode tube inside (see the wires going out). So cold-cathode = massive EMI.

Next in line to use this chipset is DFI. They're working on a "Bernstein II" audio module that features the same chipset. Expect those top-end LANparty boards to come out with it soon.

[Wile E]

Damn. I wish my Maximus would've came with that. I would've retired the Audigy 2 ZS to the second rig, and just used the card that came with the board, to save the space below my second gfx slot.

[Cold Storm]

My striker II board came with a glowing ROG badge. You can tell when your resetting Cmos because of the light turning off while you are holding down the button. Pretty nice thing Bta!

[btarunr]

Does Striker II come with AMI BIOS? It's unrelated, but my ASUS M3A has a weird way of finalizing any BIOS setting. Suppose I make any settings change, save and exit, the whole system powers down for a second or so, then it starts back up.

A correction, the ROG badge has white LED's not a cold-cat. My bad.

[Cold Storm]

Yeah, my bios is the same as yours. If you do anything different it shuts down then restarts. Then if you have the power turned off for a long period of time you have to hit the reset button after powering it up so it can go threw a test run of everything. It is strange. I'll take a picture of my R.o.G. badge once I get home and post it once I get a computer up and running... I don't have the striker II's sound card because of the fact I bought it open box... Still trying to get Asus to allow me to register the thing so I can get them to send me the parts...

My badge is also just a big white led under it

[btarunr]

Ask them for a SupremeFX X-Fi

[imperialreign]

Originally Posted by Cold Storm

Yeah, my bios is the same as yours. If you do anything different it shuts down then restarts. Then if you have the power turned off for a long period of time you have to hit the reset button after powering it up so it can go threw a test run of everything. It is strange. I'll take a picture of my R.o.G. badge once I get home and post it once I get a computer up and running... I don't have the striker II's sound card because of the fact I bought it open box... Still trying to get Asus to allow me to register the thing so I can get them to send me the parts...

My badge is also just a big white led under it

Same with my P5E3 Deluxe, and my P5W-DH Deluxe did that as well.

For some reason, though, ASUS specifies for this board, after a new BIOS flash, to go into BIOS and load and save defaults and then reset again . . .

[Cold Storm]

I haven't went to do a bios flash yet.. It needs one, I'm like 11 revisions old! lol... But once the board and everything get working again!

[EarlZ]

Originally Posted by imperialreign

They should - entertainment mode utilizes more "software" acceleration for carrying out audio processing, and for playing back a broader audio spectrum as compared to game mode . . . you should also find that audio creation mode should sound very similar to entertainment mode as well.

Game mode puts the card under full hardware acceleration, and combined with the software drivers, it looks for "clues" in the audio calls and within a game engine as to how to play a certain audio file - in regards to it's loudness, occlussion or any other filtering. In general, your run of the mill mp3s, and other compressed audio files don't have any filtering information sent to the driver, so files are played back "as is". Big reason why audio files will sound different in-game, as compared to if you extract them and play them seperately.

I see, so is there a way for game mode to have that kind of sound quality.. switching modes is really a hassle for me..

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by EarlZ

I see, so is there a way for game mode to have that kind of sound quality.. switching modes is really a hassle for me..

Use X-Fi Mode Changer. You can set application profiles, so when you launch a game, it switches to Game mode and when you launch apps like WMP/Winamp/VLC, entertainment mode. You have to set app profiles.

http://www.freewebs.com/spectra9/xfmc.html

[imperialreign]

Originally Posted by btarunr

Use X-Fi Mode Changer. You can set application profiles, so when you launch a game, it switches to Game mode and when you launch apps like WMP/Winamp/VLC, entertainment mode. You have to set app profiles.

http://www.freewebs.com/spectra9/xfmc.html

+1; and if you also use the Creative Volume Control Panel, after installation, you can enable it to start with WIN and load to the taskbar - then, all you need to do is double click the Creative volume control icon in the taskbar and it'll take you right into the audio console/mode switcher

[EarlZ]

Originally Posted by btarunr

Use X-Fi Mode Changer. You can set application profiles, so when you launch a game, it switches to Game mode and when you launch apps like WMP/Winamp/VLC, entertainment mode. You have to set app profiles.

http://www.freewebs.com/spectra9/xfmc.html

I've thought about using that program, Example i launch winamp then warcraft 3 both apps having different profiles.. can i set the mode changer to prioritize winamp profile over war3 ?

[btarunr]

Originally Posted by EarlZ

I've thought about using that program, Example i launch winamp then warcraft 3 both apps having different profiles.. can i set the mode changer to prioritize winamp profile over war3 ?

Change in mode is triggered by application launch, much in the same way NVidia control panel has application profiles. Lets say I have Winamp running (but not giving output), and I start a game that I set to switch to game mode, it will change to game mode. But when say Winamp is giving output and I launch an app that triggers change to game mode, the mode will not change.

[Black Panther]

I can't believe that I have the xtreme music and I just noticed this thread...

I must be really distracted most of the time I'm online, maybe the fault because I'm online late...

Sure I got a lot of reading to do tomorrow, since I just saw this at ~1:00AM

just a quick question. with my new mobo, i was hoping to give my old X-fi a new try. creative doesnt have drivers on their site for my... "soundblaster xfi xtreme gamer fatal1ty pro edition", but they do have drivers for the xtreme gamer. I was wondering if the drivers would work, considering creative wont anser my emails.

[imperialreign]

Originally Posted by bassmasta

just a quick question. with my new mobo, i was hoping to give my old X-fi a new try. creative doesnt have drivers on their site for my... "soundblaster xfi xtreme gamer fatal1ty pro edition", but they do have drivers for the xtreme gamer. I was wondering if the drivers would work, considering creative wont anser my emails.

TBH, I don't think the XG drivers would function correctly with a Fatal1ty card - different PCB architecture and components.

It looks like Creative are trying to reorganize their download section again . . . here, this driver will work: Fatal1ty driver

thanks. I hope I have better luck with the DFI 790 boards than I did with my m2r32 and finally get this thing going.

[imperialreign]

Creative have released a new version of the ALchemy software, version 1.10.01 is now available.

Downloads are now available from their main support site here: http://us.creative.com/support/downloads/

ALchemy for Audigy is now 100% free, and available for download as well.

[imperialreign]

thought I'd mention it here as well:

pics of the new X-Fi Xtreme Gamer Titanium Fatal1ty PCIEx1 card:





as soon as I run across some pics with the EMI shield, I'll post them as well . . . prob won't be until some site has one for a review.

The cards are already up for sale on Creative's website; $150 for the stand-alone card, $299 for the card + the I/O drive

[btarunr]

That EMI shield with pits deflects EMI better. It's the same that's used on communication satellites to shield delicate components from very harmful radio-waves. They've done their homework well this time around, with more people taking to multi-GPU setups.


For current X-Fi owners, there's no reason to upgrade apart from the newer PCI-E bus. If your card is running fine on a PCI slot, stick to it, this card beings with it no significant changes, except for a CMSS-3D upmix. Sources tell that this card could (and I mean could) have compatibility issues with certain motherboard chipsets due to the translation logic used (PCI-E to PCI). Nothing is clear now, that's as far as we know.

[Wile E]

All I want to know is, does it have the DSP?