Regarding Creative's New PCI-E X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Sound Card

[Flava0ne]

Does anybody own this sound card yet? I've been thinking of getting it because it has Digital Optical I/O on it, and I could use the input for my PS3 so that I can use my 5.1 surround sound speakers with it. But I need to know if you have to enable the Digital Optical I/O feature on it. Because I have the X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty with the Digital I/O module connected in the Line-in port and I can't enable Digital I/O on it. I have my PS3 connected to it at the moment, but I can only hear audio through my 5.1 speakers when I play some DVD's and Blu-ray DVD's (not all), and all kinds of music CD's. But no audio when I play games at all. Would getting the new X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty resolve this issue?

 

[Darren]

Does anybody own this sound card yet? I've been thinking of getting it because it has Digital Optical I/O on it, and I could use the input for my PS3 so that I can use my 5.1 surround sound speakers with it. But I need to know if you have to enable the Digital Optical I/O feature on it. Because I have the X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty with the Digital I/O module connected in the Line-in port and I can't enable Digital I/O on it. I have my PS3 connected to it at the moment, but I can only hear audio through my 5.1 speakers when I play some DVD's and Blu-ray DVD's (not all), and all kinds of music CD's. But no audio when I play games at all. Would getting the new X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty resolve this issue?

I wouldn't touch it with a barge poll knowing that Creative don't believe in customer support and don't release drivers suitable for usage. Expect problems.

In order to get 5.1 you'll need to run a digital cable SPDIF (Coaxial/Fibre) from he soundcard to the AV receiver, but you will only get Prologic 5.1 because the X-Fi XtremeGamer Fatal1ty doesn't support Dolby Digital Live or DTS Connect encoding hence you wouldn't get true 5.1 from the card. The best you can expect is an up mix of Prologic from stereo or stereo itself. If you're not interested in Dolby Digital or DTS 5.1 and/or you don't have a AV receiver you should still get unconventional 5.1 with the XtremeGamer Fatal1ty (via line-in) but just not Dolby/DTS encoded streams.

EDIT:

However the new X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty Sound Card supports Dolby encoding (not DTS encoding), unlike the old XtremeGamer. But again as I said before creative is known for its dodgy technical support and driver issues and I recommend you stay away. Also it's unclear whether the card can encode Dolby from the line-In as Creative have gone to huge lengths not to answer this query, either way you will need an AV receiver to make use of any Dolby encoding features.

FlavaOne, why don't you purchase an AV receiver and connect it directly to your PS3 via Coaxial/Fibre? that way you'll get Dolby Digital straight from your Blu-ray DVD's and from your PS3.

 

[Flava0ne]

I understand connecting my PS3 to an AV receiver through Digital Optical Toslink, but how will I be able to connect it to my 5.1 speakers?

 

[Deleted member 24505]

You toslink from the ps3 to the av reciever,then connect your speakers to the reciever.Unless you have an all in one set of speakers?

 

[Flava0ne]

The only available connection on my subwoofer is a line-in.

 

[Darren]

I understand connecting my PS3 to an AV receiver through Digital Optical Toslink, but how will I be able to connect it to my 5.1 speakers?

If you've got a AV receiver you're sound card doesn't need to be involved, so why the need for Creative's new card? You'll have to give us a bit more information. What brand/model/type of speakers do you own and what input's/outputs do these speakers support e.g. analogue 3mm jack/RCA, Coaxial?


Assuming your speakers have 3mm jack connection you could purchase a 3mm to RCA Phono conversion cable and wire it straight to the AV receiver. You'll only get Stereo or Prologic 5.1 if supported by the receiver.

 

[Flava0ne]

I have a Creative GigaWorks ProGamer G500 5.1 Surround Sound System. Besides the speakers connections on my subwoofer, the only available connection is a line-in. I was thinking of getting the new Creative sound card because I want to be able to run my PS3 with my speakers and the only way I could think of doing that is to get a sound card that has Digital I/O, like the new Creative sound card. Because my speakers are meant for PC use.

 

[Flava0ne]

I was just reading the description on the new Creative sound card, they say that it has
"Dobly Digital Live Encoding - Connects directly to your home theater system through a single digital cable for compelling 5.1 surround sound."

 

[Flava0ne]

 

[Darren]

I was just reading the description on the new Creative sound card, they say that it has
"Dobly Digital Live Encoding - Connects directly to your home theater system through a single digital cable for compelling 5.1 surround sound."

So you have a Creative fetish and secretly hope that Creative's chief CEO enter you anally. Seriously Auzentech have been releasing cards that can encode both DD and DTS for years. Research the Auzentech X-Meridian and X-Plosion.

I have a Creative GigaWorks ProGamer G500 5.1 Surround Sound System. Besides the speakers connections on my subwoofer, the only available connection is a line-in. I was thinking of getting the new Creative sound card because I want to be able to run my PS3 with my speakers and the only way I could think of doing that is to get a sound card that has Digital I/O, like the new Creative sound card. Because my speakers are meant for PC use.

GigaWorks ProGamer G500 are not great speakers, cheap plastic junk, excuse me. According to the diagram you posted it can not accept Fibre Optical or Digital Coaxial and doesn't have a built in receiver and hence Dolby Digital or DTS cannot be decoded regardless of sound cards. Alternatively purchase the Logitech Z5500 Speakers because it has built in AV receiver and can be fed directly into a sound card's digital outputs.


Although the X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty has Optical IN my theory is that you're speakers need to support Optical OUT to output sound in DD/DTS. Either way without a receiver it won't be true DD/DTS regardless.

If you're serious about DD/DTS buy a AV receiver with enough digital connections and bookshelf speakers and connect your PC, TV, PS3, DVD/Blu-ray player etc independently to the AV receiver without hassle and restricting your DD/DTS sound fetish.

 

[Flava0ne]

Okay, how about if I get the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude Sound Card or the Asus Xonar D2 Ultra Fidelity Sound Card or the Turtle Beach Montego Dolby Digital Live Surround Sound Card? They all have Digital S/PDIF I/O on it and it comes with optical adapters as well.

 

[Darren]

Okay, how about if I get the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude Sound Card or the Asus Xonar D2 Ultra Fidelity Sound Card or the Turtle Beach Montego Dolby Digital Live Surround Sound Card? They all have Digital S/PDIF I/O on it and it comes with optical adapters as well.

Indeed all off the above cards support DD Live/DTS connect via SPDIF however I would avoid the Prelude as it uses Creative's drivers which usually means problems depite it being an Auzentech soundcard. From personal Experience I can only recommend the Auzentech X-Mederian as it is the card I've been using for almost two years and I've no issues with it and drivers are flawless unfortunately the card's production has stopped but you can still find it on a few sites as well as Ebay. The Auzentech X-Plosion is dirt cheap, one of the cheapest capable DDL/DTS cards around. The Asus Xonar D2 Ultra Fidelity 7.1 is also a cheap card and I've only heard good things about it.

Whichever card above you choose it doesn't alter the fact that you need an AV receiver whether from a dedicated home theatre system or whether it's a speaker system with built in AV such as the logitech z-5500.

 

[imperialreign]

Indeed all off the above cards support DD Live/DTS connect via SPDIF however I would avoid the Prelude as it uses Creative's drivers which usually means problems depite it being an Auzentech soundcard. From personal Experience I can only recommend the Auzentech X-Mederian as it is the card I've been using for almost two years and I've no issues with it and drivers are flawless unfortunately the card's production has stopped but you can still find it on a few sites as well as Ebay. The Auzentech X-Plosion is dirt cheap, one of the cheapest capable DDL/DTS cards around. The Asus Xonar D2 Ultra Fidelity 7.1 is also a cheap card and I've only heard good things about it.

Whichever card above you choose it doesn't alter the fact that you need an AV receiver whether from a dedicated home theatre system or whether it's a speaker system with built in AV such as the logitech z-5500.

Auzentech's drivers are more stable and solid than ASUS' - Creative only supply Auzen with the drivers for the X-Fi APU, everything else Auzen writes and expands off of.

If you want the best audio quality on the market out of the box, combined with the best audio processing performance, the Auzen Prelude is the only choice.

 

[twicksisted]

I have the Asus D2X and have never had better sound... and havent had any driver issues or stability problems from it. Using optical connection to Logitech Z5500 surround speakers

also worth noting is that the D2X Xonar is capable of 24bit 192khz sound on all 7.1 outputs... whereas the Azuntech is only capable of 24bit 192khz on 2 channels and 24bit 96khz on the remaining 6

 

[Flava0ne]

I have the Asus D2X and have never had better sound... and havent had any driver issues or stability problems from it. Using optical connection to Logitech Z5500 surround speakers

also worth noting is that the D2X Xonar is capable of 24bit 192khz sound on all 7.1 outputs... whereas the Azuntech is only capable of 24bit 192khz on 2 channels and 24bit 96khz on the remaining 6

So when you connected your speakers through the Digital Output, did you have to enable DD or DTS to fully use your surround sound system?

Think you can do me a favor? Could you please try and connect something to the Digital Input and see if you can hear audio from your surround speakers without having to enable DD or DTS? Thanks in advanced.

I'll also look into getting the Logitech Z5500 Surround Sound System as well. Because getting an AV receiver is not really an option right now.

 

[twicksisted]

With my speakers (logitech Z-5500) if i connect something to the optical input and select "optical" as the input on the headunit, it will auto sense the input and adjust itself.
If its a stereo, prologic or DTS signal the headunit of the logitechs set it accordingly.

also worth noting is that with the Asus D2X soundcard, you can set different modes of operation such as prologic, dolby live, DTS etc even if its just playing a stereo signal... sending it out as what you have wselected to the speakers through the optical

 

[Flava0ne]

Auzentech's drivers are more stable and solid than ASUS' - Creative only supply Auzen with the drivers for the X-Fi APU, everything else Auzen writes and expands off of.

If you want the best audio quality on the market out of the box, combined with the best audio processing performance, the Auzen Prelude is the only choice.

So are you definately sure that Creative only supplies Auzen with the X-Fi drivers and not the software?

 

[Ketxxx]

If your going to get an Xonar you may as well get the D2X, theres only £20 or so difference and the card has various advantages over the D2 including a PCIE connection, which means no bridge chip.

 

[imperialreign]

I have the Asus D2X and have never had better sound... and havent had any driver issues or stability problems from it. Using optical connection to Logitech Z5500 surround speakers

also worth noting is that the D2X Xonar is capable of 24bit 192khz sound on all 7.1 outputs... whereas the Azuntech is only capable of 24bit 192khz on 2 channels and 24bit 96khz on the remaining 6

The Xonars are solid cards as well, I've only heard of a few driver issues here and there - but it's never been anything major. Although, I can't recall ever hearing of any Auzen driver related issues.

Either way, both card are solid; as are their drivers.

The Prelude is only capable of 24b/192k in 2-channel stereo; if in multi-channel (i.e. 4.1/5.1/7.1,etc) it's only capable of 24b/96k - this is because of the CA201K X-Fi APU, nothing to do with Auzen's hardware. All of Creative's X-Fi lineup are capable of the same 2-channel 24b/192k playback, but only 24b/96k in multichannel.

Which is a bit of a downfall, but not much to be concerned about - if you spend more time gaming, listening to CDs or downloaded audio, or watching streaming video, you don't really need any better than 24b/96k . . . that kind of playback in itself is already pushing the limits of what DVD audio is capable of (24b/192k playback when written to a DVD can only be written in 2-channel mode; DVD can't support multi-channel past 96k), and it's definitely better than CD audio (16b/44.1k). Also worth mentioning, the 24b/192k 2-channel limitation only applies with analogue connections . . .

Although, if you're trying to utilize the best audio playback possible from a DVD; you should really be using optical or SPDI/F connectionso instead of analogue - optical prefered. As such, you'd be able to encode (if your hardware supports it) to 5.1 for the reciever to handle.

So are you definately sure that Creative only supplies Auzen with the X-Fi drivers and not the software?

To the best of my knowledge - the console launcher and mode switcher software are part of the X-Fi APU hardware drivers; which is why Auzen's drivers have the same "look" to them as Creative's . . . with the exception of Auzen's logo on the GUIs.

Those few softwares work directly with the APU drivers to change the APU "mode" (game mode, entertainment mode, audio creation mode) - which regulates which parts of the PCB and hardware are used. The processing and output capabilities differ drastically from one hardware mode to the next.

 

[twicksisted]

The Xonars are solid cards as well, I've only heard of a few driver issues here and there - but it's never been anything major. Although, I can't recall ever hearing of any Auzen driver related issues.

Either way, both card are solid; as are their drivers.

The Prelude is only capable of 24b/192k in 2-channel stereo; if in multi-channel (i.e. 4.1/5.1/7.1,etc) it's only capable of 24b/96k - this is because of the CA201K X-Fi APU, nothing to do with Auzen's hardware. All of Creative's X-Fi lineup are capable of the same 2-channel 24b/192k playback, but only 24b/96k in multichannel.

Which is a bit of a downfall, but not much to be concerned about - if you spend more time gaming, listening to CDs or downloaded audio, or watching streaming video, you don't really need any better than 24b/96k . . . that kind of playback in itself is already pushing the limits of what DVD audio is capable of (24b/192k playback when written to a DVD can only be written in 2-channel mode; DVD can't support multi-channel past 96k), and it's definitely better than CD audio (16b/44.1k). Also worth mentioning, the 24b/192k 2-channel limitation only applies with analogue connections . . .

Although, if you're trying to utilize the best audio playback possible from a DVD; you should really be using optical or SPDI/F connectionso instead of analogue - optical prefered. As such, you'd be able to encode (if your hardware supports it) to 5.1 for the reciever to handle.





To the best of my knowledge - the console launcher and mode switcher software are part of the X-Fi APU hardware drivers; which is why Auzen's drivers have the same "look" to them as Creative's . . . with the exception of Auzen's logo on the GUIs.

Those few softwares work directly with the APU drivers to change the APU "mode" (game mode, entertainment mode, audio creation mode) - which regulates which parts of the PCB and hardware are used. The processing and output capabilities differ drastically from one hardware mode to the next.

I had a real tough choice between the Azuntech & the Xonar... I did also consider the Xfi but gladly stayed away

To be honest I have not heard the Azuntech, and im sure I would be just as happy if I had it. i am glad though with the Xonar that I chose, it looks great with its magnetic shielded cover, amber glow in the case & the LED backlit ports on the back * most importantly brings out the very best in my speakers

 

[imperialreign]

I had a real tough choice between the Azuntech & the Xonar... I did also consider the Xfi but gladly stayed away

To be honest I have not heard the Azuntech, and im sure I would be just as happy if I had it. i am glad though with the Xonar that I chose, it looks great with its magnetic shielded cover, amber glow in the case & the LED backlit ports on the back * most importantly brings out the very best in my speakers

I really wish Auzen would slap some EMI shields on their hardware as well - the Xonars look killer with theirs.

Hell, Creative finally wisened up with the new Titanium and designed an EMI shield!

I have to say as well that if it wasn't for the competitive pricing of the Xonars, the Preludes would still be priced well over $250. The Xonar knocked them down a ton! Considering the close price between all the high end cards now, it can really be hard to make a choice.

As to sound quality - don't worry about it! I doubt anyone would notice the difference between 118dbA (Xonar) and 120dbA (Prelude)! You'd have to have an uber-1337 speaker setup to notice that small fo a difference.

 

[twicksisted]

I love the Xonar D2X card completely.. the only issue that I have with it is that its quite long & I cant put it in my 1X PCI-E slots becuase the length of the card will cover up 2 sticks of my ram.
I have 4X 1GB sticks in My Asus P5K-E board...

Look at pic below to see what I mean:

I see that youre using a similar board (layout wise), so you could have this same issue with your Xonar hitting your ram sticks if in the 1X PCI-E slots:

I solved this by putting my xonar in my 2nd 16X PCI-E slot... but this limits me to not using crossfire on this board. You have three 16X PCI-E slots, so you should be ok
I did put this in a PM to you, but though other people may be interested as it came as a bit of a shock when i realised I couldnt install it on my board without putting it in the PCI-E X16 slot

 

[Flava0ne]

Just a question...
I have a Sony MDRDS1000 5.1 Channel Digital Surround Sound Headphone System:

Which also comes with a Dolby Digital / Dolby Pro Logic II / DTS Decoder:

I was wondering, if I connect my Sony PlayStation 3 to the decoder through a digital optical cable, then connect a 3.5mm cable to one of the headphone ports on the decoder to the Line-in port on the back of my subwoofer, will I then be able to play my Sony PlayStation 3 in full 5.1 surround with my speakers?

 

[Darren]

The MDR-DS1000's specifications says it has 1 x SPDIF input and 1 x SPDIF output so I would suppose you could connect the PS3 direct into the SPDIF input and have digital speakers connected to the SPIDIF output but unfortunately your GigaWorks ProGamer G500's only have analogue connections so this probably can't be done.

I was wondering, if I connect my Sony PlayStation 3 to the decoder through a digital optical cable, then connect a 3.5mm cable to one of the headphone ports on the decoder to the Line-in port on the back of my subwoofer, will I then be able to play my Sony PlayStation 3 in full 5.1 surround with my speakers?

You might get sound but it certiainly will not be Dolby Digital or DTS as Line-IN and headpone ports are anologue connections and can not carry digital signals.

I found these all in one AV systems, the receivers are respectable and the speakers are average, but with AV systems you can upgrade the speakers to better quality bookshelves at a later date. Sound quality should be better than current speakers even the Logitech Z-5500, has lots of inputs/outputs for connectivity to multiple devices and is very cheap.


Hunt around for cheaper deals and better systems.

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882120085

http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16882117255

 

[Flava0ne]

I just solved my situation without the need to spend anymore money.

I was just at the Creative website reading the specifications on my ProGamer G500 5.1 System and it says that on the wired PowerTouch remote there's a CMSS upmix button wich turns stereo to 5.1. I don't know about the quality of the 5.1 but it sounds pretty good.

I'm still considering getting the Logitech Z-5500 and the Asus Xonar D2X though. It's just going to be a while before I do decide to get them for sure.

I just want to thank you guys who helped me out and opened my eyes to the bad customer support that Creative has. Never again will I purchase another Creative product.