[thuantran]

FYI, any game that uses OpenAL has XRAM support by default through the API layer, e.g. games based on Unreal engine (that's a lot).

 

[windcar]

Quote:

X-Fi HD is the Creative USB solution to go for, as long as SQ is in mind, not gaming, as it doesn't support gaming and entertainment features, focusing more on audio itself.
 
On the other hand, if someone plans on getting the X-Fi Surround 5.1 Pro, do yourself a favor and get the non-Pro version, as the regular version is indeed superior.

It does supports gaming feature such as THX trustudio surround, EAX 5, positional audio and Creative alchemy. It does not have XRam though but with today's cheap quad core/hex core, who needs XRam and hardware acceleration for SC anyway?

 

[Roller]

Lol. X-Ram serves not only to lower the overhead, which might not matter for people with 448-core cpus, but matters and its impact happens on every single machine. Then there's the thing that some games only enable certain extra sounds when the hardware is present. And finally, none of those two USB soundcards support EAX.

 

[LukaTCE]

So i see you all recomennd X-fi titanium or titanium HD over xonar d1/dx or d2x or any asus in that price range for gaming
Also is better to go with mixamp, ear force dss or pc sound card ? i will mostly play on pc but i also have xbox 360 (but don't play it so much)
Probably i will go with HD 598 (or PC 360 maybe)

 

[eriktheg]

But keep in mind that the customer service and driver support for Creative Sucks!!You gotta pick "Excellent products with crappy support"(creative) or "Good/nice products with fair support"(asus).

 

[Roller]

I'm not very familiar with the Astro Mixamp, but from both personal experience and reviews around, X-Fi soundcards just play along nicer with games. Creative's customer support is bad indeed, and their drivers just work, nothing out of this world. Luckily, there are two modders who create modded drivers for a very wide range of Creative soundcards, which is why I'm not that concerned, driver wise.
 
For the price of both X-Fi Titanium and X-Fi Titanium Fatal1ty can be bought, I hardly think you could go wrong, specially since you also have digital I/O and decoding of both Dolby and DTS.

 

[QuietKungFu]

Devil's advocate here to counter the Creative rush.  I've owned Audigy and X-fi cards, and I doubt I will use another.  The drivers are bloated, and install a large amount of useless programs on your system unless you carefully weed out what you don't want.  My Xonar has a 15meg install file for drivers and software, and that's all it needs.  Creative's support is bad, just look around on their forums to see the amount of people having issues.  Granted, that comes from being the largest soundcard maker. 
 
Also, Xram is pure marketing, it does nothing for current games.  The only games that took advantage of it are Battlefield 2, Doom 3, and Quake 4.  If those games are heavy in your rotation, then having xram does allow more channels of sound for those particular games. 
 
After testing X-Fi and Xonar cards with my Sennheiser HD555 and PC360 headphones, I found that the Xonar's Dolby Headphone positional audio was more convincing than the Creative CMSS-3D.  For my Xonar DX, I set it to 8 channel audio in Windows, turn on the Dolby Headphone, and it just works.  I'd honestly steer you towards a Xonar card.  I have had no cracks, pops or sound strangeness.  But, as always with audio, things are subjective, and this is only my experience.

 

[eriktheg]

Hey Roller, Wanna share who the modders are? I'm really interested in checking out some of the modded drivers. I'm hoping I will find the Titanium HD driver modded to have a feature to switch between headphones and speakers.

 

[Roller]

When installing any Creative driver package (legacy, Live!, Audigy, X-Fi) there is always a custom install option where you can install just the bare drivers if you wish.
 
X-Ram is a set amount (64MB) of low latency onboard memory for use of Soundfonts,and for more and better sound effects and voices. id Tech engines use it extensively, along with Battlefield series and F.E.A.R. But sure, I don't find X-Ram to be a selling point, only something nice to have along with the rest of the hardware.
 
Gaming wise, I just find Xonar DX and D2X very lacking, and I won't even go on about the higher overhead. The sound isn't as clear, as I've seen many instances where Xonar's Dolby Heaphone entirely destroys positional audio cues.
 
That's why I keep saying that for gaming and the occasional audio get something with a X-Fi chipset in it (preferrably an Auzentech), and for everything else get a Xonar (D2X and above, if possible).

 

[Roller]

Quote:

Hey Roller, Wanna share who the modders are? I'm really interested in checking out some of the modded drivers. I'm hoping I will find the Titanium HD driver modded to have a feature to switch between headphones and speakers.

 
I might be mistaken but I think there aren't modded drivers for the Titanium HD yet

 
Right now the only modders I know kinda have severe issues between each other. This all started in 2008 when a brazillian guy got fed up with all the bs that Creative was doing to its customers, like charging people for a piece of software that enabled 3D audio and hardware acceleration in Vista, as well as charging for Dolby/DTS decoders. So this guy started modding both drivers and apps that were locked to certain hardware, which led to Creative putting a lawsuit on his hands. The whole thing went on for more than a year, until Creative realized the not so smart move they were doing, so they withdrew the lawsuit and hired the guy

The other fella is a young australian guy who seemingly started modding Creative drivers at the same time as Daniel K, but they had a severe falling out, each claiming that the work the other does with drivers is worth next to nothing.
 
The australian guy is called Robert McClelland, and can be found on hardwareheaven.com. Daniel K on the other hand can be found on Creative's own forums. Both have sets of drivers for many different devices.
 
But about switching between headphones and speakers, why don't you just open Audio Control Panel and select it there?

 

[QuietKungFu]

I agree, when using Creative drivers, if you scale back on what is installed, you can get down to barebone drivers.  In fact, just installing the latest drivers from Creative's website is the way to go.  That being said, that is still 50 megs X-Fi base install vs. 15 megs for installing all the Xonar software.  As for in game overhead, I didn't check memory overhead/usage of my X-fi, but my Xonar didn't use much (8megs).  If it is regards to cpu usage, anyone playing with a modern dual core or faster computer doesn't need to worry about it.
 
Regarding X-Ram, it is indeed used in the old id tech engine games, Doom 3 and Quake 4.  No other games other than those and Battlefield 2 take advantage of it.  Also, unless I am mistaken, Soundfont support is purely for music creation and midi synth playback, but I'll admit to not knowing much about it.
 
As for Dolby Headphone, I found when playing Bad Company 2, Crysis, Bioshock 2 and Metro 2033 it gave a more convincing positional audio with my HD555 and PC360 headphones.  I found the CMSS-3D to be good, but seemed to blend positional audio together.  Some people like the "smoother" audio that CMSS-3D gives, it seemed to blend channels together and flow around the head more.  But I personally liked the pinpoint positioning Dolby Headphone gave.  Again though, those were on my particular headphones.  Other headphones may different, and speakers are something entirely different. 
 
My recommendation is again for a Xonar card.  If you end up going that route, look for the Unified drivers if you run across any issues, or want to use drivers specially tweaked for low DPC latency.  If you are intent upon an X-Fi card, Auzentech has their stuff together on the driver side more than Creative does.  Though modded drivers from Daniel K and others kind of levels the playing field if you want to mess around with hunting down driver packages.

 

[Roller]

You're missing the point, those 50MB you talk about also contain the software package that comes with the drivers. Drivers are no longer a standalone download, which is why if you strip a Creative driver package to drivers only, it gets much smaller. The whole "if you use a modern dual core cpu..." thing is a huge misconception. People seem to forget that just like with high video detail settings so does memory and cpu usage goes significantly higher, audio also follows that path, even if on a different scale.
 
Like I wrote before, there are a few games that use X-Ram, more than what you stated. And like I also said, it's not a selling point, just something nice that Creative has and Asus don't.
 
While Xonar drivers did improve since their launch, they still show random artifacts on games. Dolby Headphone sounds noticeably worse with both a pair of cheap Philips SHP-2000 as well as with a pair of Audio-Technica ATH-M40fs.
 
So, for gaming X-Fi chipsets do beat the competition, and even for audio alone they're not bad, with a slightly less balanced sound when compared to E-MU solutions.

 

[LukaTCE]

Driver file size isn't realy importen   is importen this they work
About X-Fi CMSS-3D for example x-fi titanium HD and x-fi forte don't have it   is X-Fi CMSS-3D so old and useless they will not use it with new product or they don't have it coz isn't gaming sound card ? and how is sound without X-Fi CMSS-3D  also is x-fi prelude good ? or better to take cheaper x-fi titanium ?

 

[supremor]

If I'm not mistaken the Titanium HD does have CMSS-3D but only while in game mode as opposed to in all modes like previous X-Fi cards.
 
Also ended up getting the Titanium Fatal1ty, got it up and running with no issues whatsoever. No crackling, no popping, no driver issues or BSODs (then again I never had an issue in the 5 or so years I had an XtremeMusic) and I'm very happy with the card so far.

 

[Siyfion]

I'm going to throw in my advice; in my experience the Xonar cards driver support in Windows 7 x64 is awful. Worse than Creative bad. You want examples, take a look in my blog (link in sig) I've had nothing but endless problems with my Xonar.
 
Dolby Headphone I consider to be better than CMSS-3D but only marginally, they both have their positives and negatives. SQ-wise the Xonars are better, but again I wouldn't say by leaps and bounds.
 
If you want to mostly use it for gaming, go for the Titanium.