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Originally Posted by anetode /img/forum/go_quote.gif
I think he was referring to processing potential in general. Current GPUs can perform massive amounts of FPU calculations and with specialized tools like NVidia's CUDA, programmers can use GPUs in any number of non-graphics related capacities (including DSP).
There's no real reason to use any Creative product if you ignore support for the antiquated EAX. Since music generally sounds better with minimal processing, the best soundcard choices include high quality components and little bloatware. Auzentech's take on X-Fi fails the latter criterion as it is plagued by the same incompatibilities and useless "features" inherent in Creative's drivers. CMedia and Envy24 based soundcards are teh win.
Claro Halo is my current favorite, however that may change when the new Asus cards come out.
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well, thats probably the least reasonable arguement I've heard in a long time
again, the poster is asking for an all-rounder, NOT absolute SQ, and simply saying something is "teh win", does not make it so, the X-Fi processor does have more capabilities than anything else on the market, making it a solid all rounder, just because that software isn't compatable in Vista isn't Creative's fault (its the combined problem of a few parties), and the X-Fi still leverages that massive processing power in OpenAL to be very competitive with the Xonar D2's, and they both still run ahead of the VIA Envy24 hardware
for pure SQ, I couldn't agree more that the X-Fi not neccisarily the best choice, however for an all-rounder, the Prelude is probably still the best call, if you just wanna hate creative because they're creative (i know, its popular to hate the big companies), get the Xonar D2 or D2X
as far as "Current GPUs can perform massive amounts of FPU calculations and with specialized tools like NVidia's CUDA, programmers can use GPUs in any number of non-graphics related capacities (including DSP).", the amount of specialized code you'd need implement just to get a G80 or GT200 crunching away at signal processing is obscene, not to mention the price of the board, and the fact that the audio would not be passed through anything the processing board has on it, so you'd still be limited by the D/A board you had elsewhere in the system, yes, ALL GPUs can perform massive amounts of FPU calculations, however getting GPGPU working is far from perfect, and the second you deviate from the few specific things GPUs accelerate at, the 1 TFlop performance that nVidia is currently bragging about drops down lower than what modern COTS CPUs can do (nevermind the high end vector chips with FPGA helpers, specialized MCMs, and elegant multi-core designs that currently exist)
my point is, from a theory perspective, X-Fi is far from perfect, however in real world usage, there isn't much better on the market, in terms of doing everything the X-Fi can do, yeah, some of the Envy24 stuff has better SQ in stereo output, can it do 3D sound in hardware? no, does it have working/stable driver support for a number of operating systems? it varies brand to brand
C-Media is in a different boat, CMI8788 is amazing, but good luck finding one that isn't on an HT Omega card, which means price gouging
then theres the Asus AV200, which I've stated multiple times as being right there with the X-Fi if we're talking about Windows Vista, however, most gamers I know (and basically any software developer I know) are still using Windows XP, because its mature, and its where the majority of the world still is (don't care what Steve Ballmer is currently saying, Vista hasn't been picked up by everyone yet, and it probably never will be, who cares if DirectX 10 has this or that, because DirectX 9 is still the nameo f the game (oh yeah, about those GPUs you're talking about, the majority of the ones in the field are DX9))
and EAX is far from antiquated, its currently maintained and supported by Creative, not to mention that Asus is writing code to implement it on AV200, and, honestly, name something that performs better, or offers better functionality, that isn't entirely proprietary and runs on consumer hardware
just as a closing thought, I know this is a losing battle, like I said, its fun to hate creative, just because creative is big, same reason people love to hate intel, microsoft, GM (the food company and the car company), anything thats mainstream, simply because it is mainstream....ahh the joys of a consumeristic society bred to embrace niche marketing on a wholesale level