How does BF2 really sound on X-FI ??

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I havn't picked the new sound card up yet as I've been reading this thread throughout the day and I am still deciding. My deliema is that I'm really wondering if spending $80 more for the XFI-Xtreme music can be justified over just picking up an Audigy 2. I have 5 year old Creative labs 2.1 speakers but I'll probably pick up a new nice set of headphones to go with the sound card tonight. I really only use my machine for gaming and music. BF2, Fear, and upcoming Oblivion.
 
Dave, I don't believe you will see a huge difference between an Audigy2ZS and the X-FI for your setup --> soundcard--> headphones, but you would only see the benifits of the X-FI in a 5.1 (or greater) setup. I love my X-FI, but I also know that hearing the birds in the tress in BF2 (ultra settings) and slightly better seperation for each channel doesn't warrant the entire cost difference. Just my opinion on the matter.

-E
 
MrE said:
Dave, I don't believe you will see a huge difference between an Audigy2ZS and the X-FI for your setup --> soundcard--> headphones, but you would only see the benifits of the X-FI in a 5.1 (or greater) setup. I love my X-FI, but I also know that hearing the birds in the tress in BF2 (ultra settings) and slightly better seperation for each channel doesn't warrant the entire cost difference. Just my opinion on the matter.

-E
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You can hear the birds in the trees in the High setting as well. Ultra = what sounds like 4 to 6 and High = what sounds like 1 to 3 birds. In Ultra high, the flutter of wings is louder and more directional as well. The major difference is a smoother 128 voices with the X-RAM cards. I too would have to have more game support to justify spending that much.
Maybe Creative should sell a XRAM card without the breakout box for about a $139? I don't see a lot of Game makers using this tech with so few Cards out there.
 
dave343 said:
I havn't picked the new sound card up yet as I've been reading this thread throughout the day and I am still deciding. My deliema is that I'm really wondering if spending $80 more for the XFI-Xtreme music can be justified over just picking up an Audigy 2. I have 5 year old Creative labs 2.1 speakers but I'll probably pick up a new nice set of headphones to go with the sound card tonight. I really only use my machine for gaming and music. BF2, Fear, and upcoming Oblivion.
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At least get the X-Fi Xtreme Music then. You'll not regret it. What's being missed here is that the High setting Still sounds better than everything else on the market=P That's still EAX5 that Audigy2 ZS and lower can't do BTW.
 
I bought the X-FI Xtreme Music tonight. I havn't installed it but I will post my results. The guy at the store sold it toe me retail box for $115usd
 
I dont about BF2, but COD2 sounds completely different. I have the X-fiextreme with Logitech 5450's and it is an immersing experience. The voices and the artillery are very real. Now I know when the Germans are trying to outflank me! Ofcourse the rain and the thunder are nice too.
 
I have the X-Fi Fatal1ty paired up with my Klipsch Ultra 5.1's, and lemme tell you...it sounds INSANE. Battlefield 2 is just...wow. Sometimes I forget i'm playing a PC game :p Whats really amazing is hooking up headphones to it! It kind of emulates surround from a 2-speaker source ( headphones ) and does it extremely well! You don't even need those sh1tty surround headphones :D I have my Senn HD595 hooked up and it sounds great.
 
Well finally I can give my own small review of the X-FI. Overall I am please with the card although it's not as jaw dropping as I had imagined it would be. In BF2 I did notice the gun sounds are 10x better along with most of the general sounds. I guess in general everything sounds better but other than that it's nothing special. I've been reading that with the X-FI you will hear things you couldn't hear before in BF2 but in my case at least it isn't so. I tried Swat 4 but saw no improment and the only other one I wanted to try out was FEAR but I have to reinstall it.
If anyone knows how to get those extra sounds, those small things that you don't hear when playing bf2 on onboard sound please let me know. The weapons sound realistic and amazing but for the $130 this card cost... It's left me wondering a little where all the difference is.
 
dave343 said:
Well finally I can give my own small review of the X-FI. Overall I am please with the card although it's not as jaw dropping as I had imagined it would be. In BF2 I did notice the gun sounds are 10x better along with most of the general sounds. I guess in general everything sounds better but other than that it's nothing special. I've been reading that with the X-FI you will hear things you couldn't hear before in BF2 but in my case at least it isn't so. I tried Swat 4 but saw no improment and the only other one I wanted to try out was FEAR but I have to reinstall it.
If anyone knows how to get those extra sounds, those small things that you don't hear when playing bf2 on onboard sound please let me know. The weapons sound realistic and amazing but for the $130 this card cost... It's left me wondering a little where all the difference is.
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Do you have everything setup correctly?
 
Donnie27 said:
PCI BUS maxes out a 33.3MB overall and about 27.5 real world. So that my friend means sound latency as well.
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"Although PCI is "fast" by most users' standards, modern hardware has pushed its limits. The original PCI bus runs at 33Mhz, and is 32 bits wide. That gives a straightforward theoretical capacity of 133 megabytes/second. Unfortunately, that's not nearly fast enough for some users. For instance, a single gigabit ethernet card would consume nearly the entire bus, even if there were no overhead at all for communication. If you want to actually obtain the data you're going to send, there's just not enough bandwidth. Disk servers and database machines likewise easily saturate the PCI bus. And, of course, video games expand to fill any available bandwidth. "
Source: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-spec5.html

That said, on newer AMD64 platforms, everything runs over HTT and PCIe buses. On newer boards, only acual devices in the PCI slots run on the PCI bus. So, on a modern setup, you'll likely only have one, maybe two PCI cards. Only one of which would be in use(the sound card). So, your sound card would have nearly the full bandwidth of the PCI bus, 133MB/sec. As such, you are talking miliseconds to transfer a sound from memory to the sound card, so there is no suprise that on modern setups, ther is zero decernable difference.
 
Circuitbreaker8 said:
Do you have everything setup correctly?
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Actually I don't know if I do or even how too really so if you know the settings I should be setting up please let me know. I am using creative 2.1 speakers.
This past week I saw somewhere on the net settings that the card should be set at for best BF2 sound but I can't find it now.
 
dave343 said:
Actually I don't know if I do or even how too really so if you know the settings I should be setting up please let me know. I am using creative 2.1 speakers.
This past week I saw somewhere on the net settings that the card should be set at for best BF2 sound but I can't find it now.
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Ensure that you are in game mode for the X-Fi via Creatie's mode selector.
Enable the Crystalizer if you want. Also enable CMSS. I think most of the settings by default are enabled for you on the creative side.

For BF2, go to your Audio setup and select Creative X-Fi.
Enable EAX and select Ultra settings. You can try that and the high settings.
I didn't notice a difference in extra sounds or FPS.
 
Dew said:
"Although PCI is "fast" by most users' standards, modern hardware has pushed its limits. The original PCI bus runs at 33Mhz, and is 32 bits wide. That gives a straightforward theoretical capacity of 133 megabytes/second. Unfortunately, that's not nearly fast enough for some users. For instance, a single gigabit ethernet card would consume nearly the entire bus, even if there were no overhead at all for communication. If you want to actually obtain the data you're going to send, there's just not enough bandwidth. Disk servers and database machines likewise easily saturate the PCI bus. And, of course, video games expand to fill any available bandwidth. "
Source: http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/library/pa-spec5.html

That said, on newer AMD64 platforms, everything runs over HTT and PCIe buses. On newer boards, only acual devices in the PCI slots run on the PCI bus. So, on a modern setup, you'll likely only have one, maybe two PCI cards. Only one of which would be in use(the sound card). So, your sound card would have nearly the full bandwidth of the PCI bus, 133MB/sec. As such, you are talking miliseconds to transfer a sound from memory to the sound card, so there is no suprise that on modern setups, ther is zero decernable difference.
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Thanks for the correction!
 
dave343 said:
Actually I don't know if I do or even how too really so if you know the settings I should be setting up please let me know. I am using creative 2.1 speakers.
This past week I saw somewhere on the net settings that the card should be set at for best BF2 sound but I can't find it now.
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2.1 Speaker setting are the same as Headphones.

Go to Game Mode
First set the Speakers to 2.1

Now go back to the top. Why? If you set CMSS first and then change speaker settings, you'll find the CMSS setting changed. Always set the Headphone or Speakers FIRST.

After you switch to 2.1 Speakers
Set the CMSS to 3DVirtual this is the same as 3D Headphones
Set other settings to taste or how they affect your speakers or headphones.

The card will save whatever setting you use each time you select the sepakers.
 
Bummer! I have a audigy 2 ZA in my othersystem I'm about to give away. I traded the the card that is better quality so that i could use SOUNDMAX only because they have the front panel plug in with my case and the Audigy2 ZS does not. I've seen threads that show ho to make it work with your front panel connector but i do not want to sodder.

Well I'f i have any problems maybe Ill switch to X FI.
 
@WITHTEETH, There are cables available although hard to find that connect to that "Dell" connector and connect to the front panel audio connectors. Actually I thnk it is a Dell Cable. Sometimes you can find them on eBay. The "Dell" connector is the small white one near the front of the card...maybe you can find one.
BTW, I love the sound of COD2, Very cool when you turn the volume up.
 
It's smart that you got the X-fi just for the fact that it's the only card Creative is supporting in Vista with Alchemy.
 
Although Creative won't tell you this, There are quite a few poeple getting ALchemy to work on the Audigy Series cards with simple modifications to the *.INI file... Seems to be their underhanded way to get people to buy X-fi's;)
 
Audioguy said:
Although Creative won't tell you this, There are quite a few poeple getting ALchemy to work on the Audigy Series cards with simple modifications to the *.INI file... Seems to be their underhanded way to get people to buy X-fi's;)
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Creative Labs didn't remove DS3D from Vista, Microsoft did. ROFLMFAO!
 
Audioguy said:
Although Creative won't tell you this, There are quite a few poeple getting ALchemy to work on the Audigy Series cards with simple modifications to the *.INI file... Seems to be their underhanded way to get people to buy X-fi's;)
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I would like to see some proof of this, not that I distrust you, but I'm still trying to get ALchemy working with creation and entertainment mode on my X-Fi. I found out the reason why it doesn't work is because ALchemy checks to see if your sound card supports EAX 5 before it loads the OpenAL driver (obviously creation/entertainment mode only supports up to EAX 3 and thus fails to load ALchemy).

I haven't seen any definitive evidence (outside of some Guru3D people providing blanket statements saying that it should work) that suggests people got around ALchemy's "check for EAX 5 support" (if they did, that's great because I can then probably get the other modes working on my X-Fi with ALchemy).
 
@Donnie, Really? You don't say.:rolleyes: Creative not telling their customers that ALCHEMY does in FACT work on Audigy cards is their way of getting people to move to X-fi's:rolleyes:
Read peoples posts before you go spamming would you?:rolleyes:
@Moofasa, I have not testing it personally as I am not using Vista as of yet not all the time. They claim that while in fact it does work it won't work with every game. This is the info I have gotten from a few people the same info is posted at Youp Pax forum. I will ask a few people and get back to you on that one. This info was posted here a little while back wasn't it?
 
Audioguy said:
@Donnie, Really? You don't say.:rolleyes: Creative not telling their customers that ALCHEMY does in FACT work on Audigy cards is their way of getting people to move to X-fi's:rolleyes:
Read peoples posts before you go spamming would you?:rolleyes:
@Moofasa, I have not testing it personally as I am not using Vista as of yet not all the time. They claim that while in fact it does work it won't work with every game. This is the info I have gotten from a few people the same info is posted at Youp Pax forum. I will ask a few people and get back to you on that one.
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http://img329.imageshack.us/img329/285/untitleddm2.jpg

Alchemy is a Fix for something Microsoft did, what part of that do you not understand? OpenAL works and HWA of DS3D was moved BY MICRISOFT. NOW this works on Audigy just as it does on X-Meridian and All other CMedia Cards. But even Audigy can do OpenAL;) So if CMedia doesn't have Alchemy or their promised OpenAL support are they lying as well? You really need to stop rolling your phucking eyes so you can see straight.
 
@Moofasa when I talk to the testers that I know I will forward the info to you. Maybe it will help you with what your trying to do.
Atleast you understood what I was saying. Other people seem to miss the point totally.
 
Audioguy said:
@WITHTEETH, There are cables available although hard to find that connect to that "Dell" connector and connect to the front panel audio connectors. Actually I thnk it is a Dell Cable. Sometimes you can find them on eBay. The "Dell" connector is the small white one near the front of the card...maybe you can find one.
BTW, I love the sound of COD2, Very cool when you turn the volume up.
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Im going to look into this... thank you.:)
 
Get the X-Fi with the X-RAM, there is (to a good ear) a difference in quality because the audio is already sitting uncompressed on the RAM of the card instead of sitting compressed in the computer ram or the HD cache. It may take a few extra seconds to load a map, but it is well worth it.
 
as far as i know, xram dont do shit to the actual sound, so a xfi without xram and has exactly the same specs as one with, then their should be 0 difference in the actual quality of sound between the 2 unless they use different dac's
 
EVIL-SCOTSMAN said:
as far as i know, xram dont do shit to the actual sound, so a xfi without xram and has exactly the same specs as one with, then their should be 0 difference in the actual quality of sound between the 2 unless they use different dac's
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Well, my trained ears can pick up a difference, but I dunno about you. The fact that the audio is sitting uncompressed on the ram means its not compressed elsewhere and uncompressed when called upon freeing up system resources for more FPS and making sure no quality is lost during uncompression.
 
now I aint no audiophile but the xfi has 2mb of onboard ram, ok that aint alot, but the sound that is needed first is probably onboard the card as it is without the need for xram so it is "probably" already uncompressed without the need for xram...

Personally, I dont think that xram makes any difference in sound quality, but I could be wrong...
 
Just for information, alot of the time onboard will make noise if the inputs are left floating. Meaning they aren't muted and there is nothing connected to them. So mute the inputs -Line_in, Mic_in, CD_in etc and it will get rid of the background noise. Better to get a PCI soundcard
This is also the first time I have heard of X-Ram making a difference for anything except the price of the card.
 
What's worse is kids buy these cards becasue of the marketing crap thinking they will get some boost in games becasue of X-Ram. They end up being disapointed.:(
 
Audioguy said:
What's worse is kids buy these cards becasue of the marketing crap thinking they will get some boost in games becasue of X-Ram. They end up being disapointed.:(
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QFT! Just like folks on Guru3D talking about XMeridian sounds better for games LOL, imagine that? They must think folks using two cards are crazy since one XMeridian is all they need hehehe!:rolleyes:
 
WITHTEETH said:
I'll tell you if they work or not!:D I can't stand Asus SoundMax, it makes noises in the background.
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When I first got my Gigabyte GA965, I cursed at how cheap it looked. I bitched about only having two fan headers, BIOS locked RAM start up at only 1.8v. It just seemed wayyyyy to Cheap for about $150 shipped. I tried its Built-In sound before installing the X-FI and the first thing I noticed was there was very little Background noise. It was down right Quiet. I hadn't had anything this Quiet since my old Asus P4T-E. All of the others were noisy and that's with at least 5 different sound cards and each of their built-in systems. I expected noise but was surprised when there was NOTHING! The X-Fi is clean and I have analog recordings with silent backgrounds.
 
You seem to have issue with Guru3D and their members maybe you should go there and tell them about it.:p X-Ram is marketing crap. Even most people who bought a Card with X-Ram know that.
 
Donnie27 said:
QFT! Just like folks on Guru3D talking about XMeridian sounds better for games LOL, imagine that? They must think folks using two cards are crazy since one XMeridian is all they need hehehe!:rolleyes:
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I think that they are saying X-Meridian sounds better in games without EAX feature like Oblivion. BF2 is a game, not games :rolleyes: . Btw I haven't seen you for quite some time on Guru3D, did you get into any trouble with the mod there?
 
Hey ALG, you have a X-fi linked to a XM correct? So I wonder which would sound better in games, your two card combo or a X-fi? -Well you know,;) which sounds better?
just for the forums information. That app is definatley cool.:cool:
WIll be good for gamers when the HDMI cards come out. They can use that app and link up...
The fact remains that some people like EAX some don't. Neither is right nor wrong.
 
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