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Preview of new high end Creative card X-Fi.

post #1 of 51
5/10/05 at 4:39am
Thread Starter 
Sorry if this is a repost, is more of a preview of the tech that will go behind multiple cards at different price points. Looks like it has some pretty good specs, and even though it runs @ 48 khz internal you can switch it or it will resample in hardware lossless.

Oh yeah, it is designed by the guys that designed the EMU series

http://www.extremetech.com/article2/...1813721,00.asp
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post #2 of 51
5/10/05 at 5:08am
It's looks like they're beefing up the processor mostly so that they can improve sample rate conversions. I still think 44.1 native playback support would be a better solution than trying to resample almost everything.

From reading the article, I think this will probably turn out to be a gamers card which, like the current Audigy models, will value hardware processing and effects over audio quality. Though we won't know for sure until we actually have it in our hands wether sound quality is anything to be excited about.
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post #3 of 51
5/10/05 at 5:19am
No native 44.1khz mode, but they'll waste plenty of transistors on Sample Rate Conversion? Basically it's gonna be whooped by the budget champion AV-710 again unless it's decked out with CS4398 DAC like the A4P......
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post #4 of 51
5/10/05 at 6:12am
it's rather fascinating like the increased transistor count is still cheaper for them than using two clocks.. this doesn't look like anything for us, just the gamers.. I'm not saying the SRC would do much harm to the sound, but I'm sure they will kill the card by it's analog section just like they always did.. I'm curious wheter E-MU will release any new drivers for their existing cards with the features requested by many, hardware-supported, but unimplemented in drivers.. it seems to me their crew is small and they're busy developing new things having no time to fine tune the existing ones.. I have strong doubts :-/
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post #5 of 51
5/10/05 at 7:04am
And yet with all that, it still won't output 5.1 digital. PC speakers don't quite cut the mustard compared to even my modest Home Theater setup.

-Ed
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post #6 of 51
5/10/05 at 7:22am
What is it with that THD measurement ? Doesn't look much different from an audigy 1 platinum: http://audio.rightmark.org/test/crea...digy-2496.html

Isn't the author a little too over-enthusiastic ?
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post #7 of 51
5/10/05 at 7:33am
of course, he just can't wait for his 5fps increase over his current Audigy
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post #8 of 51
5/10/05 at 8:28am
What do you mean no native 44.1? Didn't you even read the article? If no effects are used you can simply let the signal bypass the processor. And that means there is native 44/48/96 khz support.
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post #9 of 51
5/10/05 at 9:18am
Exactly and I believe the THD graph was just an example.
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post #10 of 51
5/10/05 at 9:37am
Quote:
The X-Fi's core can run at two internal sampling rates, 44.1 KHz and 48 KHz, although it will only run at 44.1KHz in Creation mode, and if you specifically tell it to do so.
And pray tell, why the need to waste so much transistors on SRC operations, when the Envy24 and derivatives only needs 2 clock crystals and can output both 44.1KHz and 48KHz natively with no resampling?

Quote:
However, the X-Fi still runs its effects engines at either 44.1 KHz or 48 KHz.

To implement native 96 KHz/192KHz support in the effects engines would require more transistors, increase die size, and reduce per-wafer yields.
So basically the effects processor is the same old tired 16bit 48KHz crap from the EMU10k2? I wonder how much exactly is "NEW" in this X-Fi, or should we call it EMU10k2.6?

http://www.3dss-forums.com/cgi-bin/w...=5&o=14&fpart=

Even Chastity, 3DSoundsurge's reviewer for A4P and the other 3DSS forumers spotted the resample part, plus the people who posted here earlier, why can't you 2 be on the same page as the rest of the world?
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post #11 of 51
5/10/05 at 10:57am
Aren't the external dac like the benchmark dac 1 resampling to ?
I never listened to any external dac but I heard they were good on this forum. If resampling was done well on this new chip like they seem to believe in this article maybe it wouldnt be a problem.

Also what is this creation mode they are talking about ? Could we switch to this mode if we used foobar for exemple? Is there something similar on current creative products?
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post #12 of 51
5/10/05 at 2:37pm
Dont diss the card so soon.Creative probably has some one prowling these forums and reporting our opinions on their cards.
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post #13 of 51
5/10/05 at 2:58pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by ]|[ GorE
Dont diss the card so soon.Creative probably has some one prowling these forums and reporting our opinions on their cards.
I wouldn't waste any time and resources on that as a manufacturer. But even if they did, what's the problem? This hasn't been the most Creative-friendly forum in the past, so it's not that I'd expect wonders of any kind.
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post #14 of 51
5/10/05 at 3:59pm
Quote:
I wouldn't waste any time and resources on that as a manufacturer.
Ofcourse you would. Unless you're dumb.

Quote:
why can't you 2 be on the same page as the rest of the world?
3dss forums are now the rest of the world? Besides, even there (where people can't write worth of sith) is no agreement on things.

And you can bypass it completely getting full 44/48/96 khz with no resampling.
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post #15 of 51
5/10/05 at 5:06pm
Quote:
Originally Posted by maarek99
Ofcourse you would. Unless you're dumb.
Why would he if the gaming community was still supporting him by buying his products, and buying his products yet again because of Bose-ism ? "PCI-E means greater sound quality", that statement will sell a lot of cards, especially since PCI *will* be phased out anyway. People like future proof solutions.
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