Comparison: X-Fi vs. Realtek

[dnottis]

I picked up an X-FI Titaium recently to replace my ALC 889A onboard.

I've found when using SPIDF it pops alot, ie when opening folders and Windows 7 clicks I just get a pop using SPIDF. But it works fine through headphones. The latest drivers are from 7-2009 which is really disappointing, not seeing a new set of Windows 7 drivers since it was released to the public. The control panel is clunky as hell and having to use the W7 sound control panel to change from Headphones to SPIDF is stupid. CMSS had to be disabled or the mic was not clear to others, was getting some strange digital sound over the top of the mic.

On the other hand, my ALC889A looks even better now. Drivers are better, more organized in layout, updated alot more often so things get fixed. I can change from SPIDF to headphones from the driver control panel itself. Drivers are released all the time from Realtek, last set is from 11-12-2009. I have digital dolby and DTS Audio same as the X-FI.

Overall sound quality is about the same, gaming performance about the same. The Realtek wins just due to the driver state - Creative doesn't seem to have any new drivers on the horizon and every issue with them is "under investigation". The problem is there is never any resolution, its always under investigation which leads me to one of two theories - they don't really know what the hell they are doing - or - they just don't care to fix driver issues.

I think I'm gonna sell the X-FI and just stick with the ALC 889A onboard sound.

[theshadowcult]

Does anyone ever get the feeling that Creative is no longer a full company but just one man...?

[dnottis]

Originally Posted by theshadowcult

Does anyone ever get the feeling that Creative is no longer a full company but just one man...?

LOL, yea.

[forciano]

Originally Posted by dnottis

I picked up an X-FI Titaium recently to replace my ALC 889A onboard.

I've found when using SPIDF it pops alot, ie when opening folders and Windows 7 clicks I just get a pop using SPIDF. But it works fine through headphones. The latest drivers are from 7-2009 which is really disappointing, not seeing a new set of Windows 7 drivers since it was released to the public. The control panel is clunky as hell and having to use the W7 sound control panel to change from Headphones to SPIDF is stupid. CMSS had to be disabled or the mic was not clear to others, was getting some strange digital sound over the top of the mic.

On the other hand, my ALC889A looks even better now. Drivers are better, more organized in layout, updated alot more often so things get fixed. I can change from SPIDF to headphones from the driver control panel itself. Drivers are released all the time from Realtek, last set is from 11-12-2009. I have digital dolby and DTS Audio same as the X-FI.

Overall sound quality is about the same, gaming performance about the same. The Realtek wins just due to the driver state - Creative doesn't seem to have any new drivers on the horizon and every issue with them is "under investigation". The problem is there is never any resolution, its always under investigation which leads me to one of two theories - they don't really know what the hell they are doing - or - they just don't care to fix driver issues.

I think I'm gonna sell the X-FI and just stick with the ALC 889A onboard sound.

You dont notice the difference because you most likely need better speakers/headphones, but if its something you dont care about then you should just sell your x-fi card..

And yeah it sucks that creative hasn't released any new drivers for win7, its probably easier to find modded drivers that might actually work better.

[dnottis]

Originally Posted by forciano

You dont notice the difference because you most likely need better speakers/headphones, but if its something you dont care about then you should just sell your x-fi card..

And yeah it sucks that creative hasn't released any new drivers for win7, its probably easier to find modded drivers that might actually work better.

No, thats not the case. I have Logitech Z-5500's through SPIDF and Razor Gaming Headphones through analog. The ALC889A has all the same features (DTS, DD, EAX 2,3) minus EAX 5 which Vista / Windows 7 pretty much killed. the drivers are updated more frequently and the popping replacing sounds on the X-FI pretty much do it in the for the X-FI. I mean the Windows sounds don't even work through the Z5500s with the X-FI, so its more than just not "hearing the difference". There are sounds that just aren't even played on the X-FI.

Got any links to these modded drivers?

[forciano]

Originally Posted by dnottis

I picked up an X-FI Titaium recently to replace my ALC 889A onboard.

I've found when using SPIDF it pops alot, ie when opening folders and Windows 7 clicks I just get a pop using SPIDF. But it works fine through headphones. The latest drivers are from 7-2009 which is really disappointing, not seeing a new set of Windows 7 drivers since it was released to the public. The control panel is clunky as hell and having to use the W7 sound control panel to change from Headphones to SPIDF is stupid. CMSS had to be disabled or the mic was not clear to others, was getting some strange digital sound over the top of the mic.

On the other hand, my ALC889A looks even better now. Drivers are better, more organized in layout, updated alot more often so things get fixed. I can change from SPIDF to headphones from the driver control panel itself. Drivers are released all the time from Realtek, last set is from 11-12-2009. I have digital dolby and DTS Audio same as the X-FI.

Overall sound quality is about the same, gaming performance about the same. The Realtek wins just due to the driver state - Creative doesn't seem to have any new drivers on the horizon and every issue with them is "under investigation". The problem is there is never any resolution, its always under investigation which leads me to one of two theories - they don't really know what the hell they are doing - or - they just don't care to fix driver issues.

I think I'm gonna sell the X-FI and just stick with the ALC 889A onboard sound.

Originally Posted by dnottis

No, thats not the case. I have Logitech Z-5500's through SPIDF and Razor Gaming Headphones through analog. The ALC889A has all the same features (DTS, DD, EAX 2,3) minus EAX 5 which Vista / Windows 7 pretty much killed. the drivers are updated more frequently and the popping replacing sounds on the X-FI pretty much do it in the for the X-FI. I mean the Windows sounds don't even work through the Z5500s with the X-FI, so its more than just not "hearing the difference". There are sounds that just aren't even played on the X-FI.

Got any links to these modded drivers?

Somebody posted these on another thread http://www.rage3d.com/boar/showthread.php?t=33954714
hope it helps.

[dnottis]

Originally Posted by forciano

Somebody posted these on another thread http://www.rage3d.com/boar/showthread.php?t=33954714
hope it helps.

hrmm links broken - Oops! This link appears to be broken.

Ahh the d is missing in your link for "board".

http://www.rage3d.com/boar/showthread.php?t=33954714

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33954714 - this works though - thanks

Crap these aren't for mine though - I have X-Fi Titanium. The SBXF_PCDRV_LB_2_18_0013 that they are based on are not for my card.

[forciano]

Originally Posted by dnottis

hrmm links broken - Oops! This link appears to be broken.

Ahh the d is missing in your link for "board".

http://www.rage3d.com/boar/showthread.php?t=33954714

http://www.rage3d.com/board/showthread.php?t=33954714 - this works though - thanks

Crap these aren't for mine though - I have X-Fi Titanium. The SBXF_PCDRV_LB_2_18_0013 that they are based on are not for my card.

weird the whole thing didn't get copied correctly, anyways I shouldve made sure what card you had. I guess its better if you sell your card and if you ever want to have something based of an X-FI card just go with auzentech, they update their drivers more often.

[dnottis]

Originally Posted by forciano

weird the whole thing didn't get copied correctly, anyways I shouldve made sure what card you had. I guess its better if you sell your card and if you ever want to have something based of an X-FI card just go with auzentech, they update their drivers more often.

Do the auzentech drivers work on X-FI? Auzentech all use CMEDIA chipsets.

[stormy13]

Originally Posted by dnottis

Do the auzentech drivers work on X-FI? Auzentech all use CMEDIA chipsets.

They do? Guess you haven't heard about the X-Fi Prelude, X-Fi Forte and the X-Fi HomeTheatreHD which all have the X-Fi chip on them. There is also the new X-Studio 5.1 that uses a Via chip.

http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/cards.php

And yes the modded Auzentech drivers work on Creative X-Fi's. Currently using this one on my Xtreme Music,

http://forums.creative.com/t5/Sound-...C4/td-p/535418

over the top over his X-Fi Support Pack 2.0,

http://forums.creative.com/t5/Sound-...09/td-p/527485

with no problems.

[dnottis]

Originally Posted by stormy13

They do? Guess you haven't heard about the X-Fi Prelude, X-Fi Forte and the X-Fi HomeTheatreHD which all have the X-Fi chip on them. There is also the new X-Studio 5.1 that uses a Via chip.

http://www.auzentech.com/site/products/cards.php

And yes the modded Auzentech drivers work on Creative X-Fi's. Currently using this one on my Xtreme Music,

http://forums.creative.com/t5/Sound-...C4/td-p/535418

over the top over his X-Fi Support Pack 2.0,

http://forums.creative.com/t5/Sound-...09/td-p/527485

with no problems.

.

Well I've got the X-FI Titanium though which I believe is different than the other X-FIs.

Just popped it back in to play with it again. The only real problems I have is through optical to the Z5500s. Connected through headphones / analog I don't have any issues.

[stormy13]

Better off using analogue anyway as the DAC on the card is much better than the one in the Z5500's.

The Titanium, series has a slightly updated chip on it (EMU20K2 vs EMU20K1 on the origianl X-Fi's), with the biggest difference being PCI-E support.

[dnottis]

So let me ask this - driver issues, Creatives laziness aside...

You guys would still favor the X-Fi Ti over the onboard ALC899a?

[GanjaStar]

the last news post on creative:

http://www.rage3d.com/index.php?cat=85#newsid33955612

Do you guys think they will ever reach their heights again or will they go down the 3dfx aisle?


IMO, had never had any but minor issues with the x-fi xtreme gamer. bought it for 150$ more then 2 years ago and its going strong. The only things i haven't changed since the athlo athlon 64 era is the x-fi, and my case.

That alone for me makes the x-fi a good product.

[forciano]

Originally Posted by dnottis

So let me ask this - driver issues, Creatives laziness aside...

You guys would still favor the X-Fi Ti over the onboard ALC899a?

I do, I simply love CMSS-3D for headphones, been playing dragon age and i still get freaked out by sounds coming from behind me .
And I can say also that my problems with creative have been very limited, and I have owned 3 of their cards.

[hordaktheman]

Originally Posted by dnottis

So let me ask this - driver issues, Creatives laziness aside...

You guys would still favor the X-Fi Ti over the onboard ALC899a?

I would say it depends on how it's connected. If you want to use a digital connection then I'd stick with the onboard solution; analog the X-Fi.

I could never get the X-Fi to work properly using a digital connection in my HTPC. DD/DTS passthrough would have a slight audio delay and the Live/Connect encoding would have significant delay in any game that doesn't use OpenAL (for some odd reason). On the other hand, I've never any issues with the card over analog.

I currently have the card in my HTPC connected to the same Z-5500 speaker system. The onboard in that system doesn't support Live/Connect encoding so I use the X-Fi (analog) for games and the onboard (digital) for movies. And that's only because the card would otherwise go unused.

[theshadowcult]

Originally Posted by dnottis

So let me ask this - driver issues, Creatives laziness aside...

You guys would still favor the X-Fi Ti over the onboard ALC899a?

Originally Posted by forciano

I do, I simply love CMSS-3D for headphones, been playing dragon age and i still get freaked out by sounds coming from behind me .
And I can say also that my problems with creative have been very limited, and I have owned 3 of their cards.

Seconded, any problems caused by creative are far outweighed by CMSS-3D... seriously, 9.1 surround sound (and it works) out of stereo speakers or headphones (headphones are better, but you can set speakers up as head phones by placing them right).

[grog]

Some of us actually use more than one sound device.

I have the HD On-board sound device enabled and I use it at times. I also use the HDMI sound device but my primary device is the Creative XFI PRO Elite.

If you think about it, feeding HDMI sound as well as using the on-board sound device for connection to other sources adds flexibility.

The Creative XFI series does have one feature 'What-U-Head' that makes connection to multiple devices at the same time extremely easy to do.



The Creative Mixer also allows easy connection to several external sources at will. With the Creative XFI Elite I have a lot of connections via the external control panel.

I have become very attached to the Creative XFI PRO Elite and it has served me well in my two systems. One with MCE2005 and the other with Vista 64 Ultimate. If the XFI died I would replace it with another XFI.

[Hatecrime69]

Originally Posted by forciano

I do, I simply love CMSS-3D for headphones, been playing dragon age and i still get freaked out by sounds coming from behind me .
And I can say also that my problems with creative have been very limited, and I have owned 3 of their cards.

speaking of dragon age, is there a way to enable openal for the xfi in it? I like my x-fi but it has a really annoying problem where any un-accelerated sound may randomly switch speakers (front left/right become rear left/right and such), makes 5.1 sound extremely annoying and i've gone down to 2.1 for most things (since this issue effects media center as well, and i use that to watch tv)


Edit: nevermind, i figured it out, gotta tell alchemy to put it in the bin_ship folder in it's install path

[forciano]

Originally Posted by Hatecrime69

speaking of dragon age, is there a way to enable openal for the xfi in it? I like my x-fi but it has a really annoying problem where any un-accelerated sound may randomly switch speakers (front left/right become rear left/right and such), makes 5.1 sound extremely annoying and i've gone down to 2.1 for most things (since this issue effects media center as well, and i use that to watch tv)


Edit: nevermind, i figured it out, gotta tell alchemy to put it in the bin_ship folder in it's install path

Good to know you fixed that since I have been playing this game with my headphones exclusively.