Asus Xonar and X-Fi

I

ImAgainstIt

Limp Gawd
Joined
Dec 16, 2008
Messages
155
I just installed a Asus Xonar Essence for my headphones and my Creative X-Fi has gone to shit, the sound is all low and makes high pitched sounds all the time, the quality is terrible.

The first run after installing the xonar and the x-fi just plain flat out sucks, What can be the problem ? I'm asking here as creative won't help me because I've owned their card for over a year.

All I can say is,I'm never buying creative again.
 
Maybe the X-Fi is pissy that you bought a different brand card?
 
Sorry about the first comment, I feel a bit pissy myself.
Try a new install of windows on a spare drive and experiment with that to see how to get it to work.
That way you wont disturb your OS build too much.
 
Nenu said:
Sorry about the first comment, I feel a bit pissy myself.
Try a new install of windows on a spare drive and experiment with that to see how to get it to work.
That way you wont disturb your OS build too much.
Click to expand...

Ok thanks, I'll give that a try
 
Ok, it works fine in the other computer. and in this one it still sounds terrible even if there is no other card in.
 
Uninstall everything to do with either card, all software/drivers,
Run a driver cleaner program to tidy things up.
Then re-install the same way you did on your spare drive.
 
If you don't mind my asking, why not just use the Xonar exclusively? It should be about equal to the X-Fi in basically every way as far as gaming and such goes and sound quality out of the box should be better than the X-Fi by all reports. I can't see any reason not to just use the better card only.

Anyway, I've run another card at the same time as my Audigy 2 ZS before and it worked fine. This is referring to another PCI card even. I've never experienced a problem in the world using an external DAC especially. Ironically, the biggest problem driver-wise is more likely to be the other card's drivers in my experience. Some gave me no problems, but a few (such as the Chaintech AV-710 which used the god-awful Envy24 drivers) were no end of problems when I tried the two cards together. I suspect it's not a coincidence that an external DAC gives so few problems considering that some (like this sort) need no drivers whatsoever to function.

A driver cleaner and reinstallation of all drivers is definitely not a bad idea. Much more likely to clean things up and help. Also, try different versions of each. Not just the latest, but sometimes older drivers work better.
 
Alright thanks for the answer, I'll try the patches and driver cleaners maybe tomorrow.

as for the first question, the Xonar is just the Essence, which is the headphone soundcard / amp, I can do the output to my 5.1 speakers with Optical, But I think analog is the better signal, also with the Creative card I have features like EAX, what-u-hear and I can just use a simple slider to make the sound go full surround and select how surround I want the sound to sound.
 
The Xonar Essence is their flagship card at the moment. While it is aimed at headphone users, it's also aimed at speaker users because the SNR is even better than their previous models for speaker use as well -- also you can have both your speakers and your headphones hooked up to the card at the same time, eliminating the need for Y-adapters or cheap hardware switches.

The Xonar will outclass your X-Fi for all non-gaming purposes. I personally think it's fine for games too, but that'd be the ONLY reason to have the X-Fi in there -- not because of sliders and surround modes.

EDIT: Just saw you have 5.1 speakers. I would have just hooked them up digitally.
 
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