Sound Blaster X-Fi Xtreme Audio vs. X-Fi Xtreme Music
Discussion
OK, I want to upgrade the onboard sound on my computer....mainly because Nvidia kindly dropped sound support for Vista and only supplied drivers that work with software acceleration. As you imagine this slows the computer down quite significantly when using Media Center or any games for that matter.
I've not got a huge lump of cash to play with and since most shops have run out of the Sound Blaster Audigy SE, I'm going to go for this X-Fi series malarky.
I do like good quality sound on my PC, but i'm not interested in the slightest with 7.1 or even 5.1. 2 channel stereo is fine by me as I have a lovely set of VideoLogic Sirocco studio speakers.
So, I'm wondering if the X-Fi Xtreme Audio is good enough for my needs (the odd game, music, movies and MCE). I've heard it's simply a rebadged Audigy SE and not a genuine X-Fi processor. Or should I double what I spend and go for an Xtreme Music. There are stacks of professional reviews on the Xtreme Music saying how wonderful it is, but next to nothing regarding the XtremeAudio apart from that it's a bit of a con since it's a rebadged Audigy. And the new features actually slow down your computer as they are software based and not hardware.
Has anyone got any experience with the X-Fi Xtreme Audio and what is their opinion?
Ta!
BB
I've not got a huge lump of cash to play with and since most shops have run out of the Sound Blaster Audigy SE, I'm going to go for this X-Fi series malarky.
I do like good quality sound on my PC, but i'm not interested in the slightest with 7.1 or even 5.1. 2 channel stereo is fine by me as I have a lovely set of VideoLogic Sirocco studio speakers.
So, I'm wondering if the X-Fi Xtreme Audio is good enough for my needs (the odd game, music, movies and MCE). I've heard it's simply a rebadged Audigy SE and not a genuine X-Fi processor. Or should I double what I spend and go for an Xtreme Music. There are stacks of professional reviews on the Xtreme Music saying how wonderful it is, but next to nothing regarding the XtremeAudio apart from that it's a bit of a con since it's a rebadged Audigy. And the new features actually slow down your computer as they are software based and not hardware.
Has anyone got any experience with the X-Fi Xtreme Audio and what is their opinion?
Ta!
BB
At the moment the ONLY way to get hardware accelleration under Vista is to use an X-Fi card (EDIT: AFAIK).
MS has moved directSound to a software only environment under Vista (can't remember the technical wordings
). However Creative have a wrapper (currently beta) which intercepts the directSound calls and converts them to OpenAL and thus enabling hardware support for the X-Fi cards. There is also rumours that they will add Audigy support when the X-Fi wrapper is complete.
As for the X-Fi Extreme Audio, I have only heard about this recently on forums and it appears to be much cheaper than any X-F i cards (about half the price of the XtremeMusic or XtremeGamer). I have also read that it uses emulation rather than a real X-Fi chip, so it may well be just and Audigy underneath.
BTW I have an XtremeMusic and it has made a considerable difference to playing games, it sounds great and it causes less slowdown (of games).
I have not tried the Vista wrapper though as I'm happy with XP
MS has moved directSound to a software only environment under Vista (can't remember the technical wordings
). However Creative have a wrapper (currently beta) which intercepts the directSound calls and converts them to OpenAL and thus enabling hardware support for the X-Fi cards. There is also rumours that they will add Audigy support when the X-Fi wrapper is complete. As for the X-Fi Extreme Audio, I have only heard about this recently on forums and it appears to be much cheaper than any X-F i cards (about half the price of the XtremeMusic or XtremeGamer). I have also read that it uses emulation rather than a real X-Fi chip, so it may well be just and Audigy underneath.
BTW I have an XtremeMusic and it has made a considerable difference to playing games, it sounds great and it causes less slowdown (of games).
I have not tried the Vista wrapper though as I'm happy with XP
Edited by mr_yogi on Wednesday 4th April 15:23
Zod said:
Eh? THe nvidia drivers have the audio driver in the Vista version.
Yup, they do, but it's a modified XP driver more or less. It has zero hardware capability as it did under XP which is crap since I get major slow-downs with Media Center.
I think for now I'll get an Audigy. It's just £15 and you can't go wrong with that. When I do a major upgrade at the end of this year, I'll get a nice X-Fi Fatal1ty or whatever tops the pile then.
P.S. What's this M-Audio range thing?
Plotloss said:
And they're not too expensive either. That revolution 5.1 is ideal. Shame there are no suppliers in stock here in Vienna....
Btw....i've gone against all advice and bought the X-Fi XtremeAudio. If it's crap, I'll get the XtremeMusic. The guy in the shop said I could try it and exchange the card if it was no good.
Let's see how it goes....time to shutdown
My tuppence worth:
If you primarily want the soundcard to make music these cards are good (have sold a few over the years with studio and high end media pc's).
If you primarily want the soundcard to play games with and use 192kbit audio as well, then the X-Fi is the best option IMO, but go for the Elite as it has more memory onboard and comes wiht a high quality break-out box.
The X-Fi has the equivalent of a Pentium 4 3;0 GHz CPU on board and will improve your framerate as it doesn't draw cpu cycles and memory resources like other soundcards do. It also has Burr Brown digi chips so it is an audiophile device.
I have it running in Vista Ultimate 32bit with no problems now, although it was only with the recent driver release in Feb 2007.
If you primarily want the soundcard to make music these cards are good (have sold a few over the years with studio and high end media pc's).
If you primarily want the soundcard to play games with and use 192kbit audio as well, then the X-Fi is the best option IMO, but go for the Elite as it has more memory onboard and comes wiht a high quality break-out box.
The X-Fi has the equivalent of a Pentium 4 3;0 GHz CPU on board and will improve your framerate as it doesn't draw cpu cycles and memory resources like other soundcards do. It also has Burr Brown digi chips so it is an audiophile device.
I have it running in Vista Ultimate 32bit with no problems now, although it was only with the recent driver release in Feb 2007.
beanbag said:
Plotloss said:
And they're not too expensive either. That revolution 5.1 is ideal. Shame there are no suppliers in stock here in Vienna....
Btw....i've gone against all advice and bought the X-Fi XtremeAudio. If it's crap, I'll get the XtremeMusic. The guy in the shop said I could try it and exchange the card if it was no good.
Let's see how it goes....time to shutdown
OK, after a days evaluating....the quality is ten-fold that of my nvidia onboard sound. It also works much better with Media Center and I've not experienced any slow-down in my games. I guess this may be because they hardly work at full speed with my antique AMD Athlon XP 3200+
Still...for just €40 or 25 quid, it's a bargain. I'll stick with this and when I do my massive upgrade at the end of the year like I plan, I'll go for the top end X-Fi and stick this one in my HTPC box.
Ta for all the help chaps.
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