Xfi enhanced games?

[ShadowFold]

I just got a Creative Xfi card and I was wondering what Xfi is.. I thought it was something that helped in games and stuff. Also mine has Hynix memory on it, whats that for?

EDIT: This is what I have

 

[hat]

Ihave no idea what xfi actually does. However the memory is for sound.

 

[ShadowFold]

I found out its X-RAM. There are only like 2 games that use it tho lol

 

[Damian^]

It's an audio chipet
Creative and Azuntech use the Xfi chip and other cards like the asus xonar use the ASUS AV100

 

[Braveheart]

the X ram is said to give you about 5-4% increase in FPS in most games.

 

[MadClown]

i was thinking about getting that, but i herd it had alot of crackleing issues, but i love the front port station thingy and the remote

 

[ShogoXT]

Ive used creative for a while. Before CPUs became powerful enough to do the massive multitasking they do now, the Sound Blasters were very popular for doing its sound through hardware. With windows xp alot of games had used directsound3d plus EAX to give some nice audio candies. So in some games you could have full simulated 6.1 surround sound with properly simulated directional audio effects. For example hearing a water droplet echo through a sewer and you knowing exactly where it came from.

With windows vista, they killed Directsound3d. Creatives new Alchemy converts the games Directsound3d calls to OpenAL which still works and allows surround sound and features, but some people dont want to go through that trouble.

So with Vista, powerful CPUs, and Creatives terrible driver support, their audio cards have gotten less popular and people tend to just use integrated sound. Dont get me wrong Sound Blasters are still nice, but they are trouble to get working now.

 

[Deleted member 24505]

I would not have bought an x-fail for vista,i ditched mine in the end.I am waiting till i can afford a xonar as i want proper 5.1 sound from my digi out.

Good luck with it though.

X-fail=fine on xp,crap on vista.

 

[Kursah]

Not necessarily true...my X-Fi is a champ on Vista x64...I use the last of the modded drivers, but I could care less about EAX or any of that junk...I wanted something that sounds great and at the time was affordable...I think $60 for an Xtreme Music last year was OK imo.

Sure Vista loses some features that MOST don't use or NOTICE, but it's still a decent card...I see more people focusing on the downsides of anything, look at what it still CAN do, it provides better than integrated sound quality, which for some is important...now if there is another product at a better price point that is as capable or better, then go for it! X-Fi isn't the end-all sound card out there by any means, but if you have one, don't ditch it becuase of a few features here and there...I enjoy 5.1 just fine in Vista, the drivers are much better than a year ago. I don't use the digital out, and 99% of the time I listen through my TB HPA2's anyways, they sound great and are loud as hell.

Really for most I see no sense in spending money in this area unless they're an audiophile that "wants" the best sound quality they can achieve. On-board is pretty damn good anymore, and is more than most need in the first place. With modern CPU's, getting more performance due to an add-in sound card is more of a joke or gimmick, but if you feel you want crisper highs, deeper lows and a more well-rounded sound, an add-in card is the way to go...but in the end like I said on-board is plenty for most.

 

[SK-1]

I have the exact model and love it. The drivers have some issues sometimes, but a reinstall fixes it. The tech support seemed horrible to me and I found my answers to problems on the net.
The best thing to me is how incredible the EAX works with a decent set of headphones
Sounds literally come from ALL directions,much better than any multi speaker 5.1 headphones I have used, and it gets me extra kills in my games.

 

[pagalms]

Yea, X-Fi + Vista64 + Daniel_K modded drivers = FTW. No bugs, no lags, sounds great (much better than with original ones). PM if you need them