X-Fi OEM - Any good?

S

sockie

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Jan 6, 2007
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I want EAX in my games under Windows Vista and I found out that it's just not going to happen with my Audigy 2 and Vista Drivers.

So I started investigating purchasing a X-Fi Sound Card - Expensive, then a friend told me that I can buy an OEM X-Fi. :eek:

What I'd really like to know is how does an OEM X-Fi differ from a standard retail X-Fi?

Cheers
-sockie
 
The drivers are different, most OEM cards don't have a DD/DTS decoder in it's driver like the Dell's OEM card, Dell said that they don't need to pay the license twice since most software DVD player have already paid the license. I don't know whether the XtremeGamer support DD/DTS decoding in its software or not, if it can the XtremeGamer is a better choice than the OEM cards IMO. You can use a CD from a normal X-Fi with the OEM X-Fi, btw there are also hacked drivers available for the OEM cards to get the driver's decoding feature, you just need to search for them but these drivers are not the latest drivers from CL.
 
alg7_munif said:
The drivers are different, most OEM cards don't have a DD/DTS decoder in it's driver like the Dell's OEM card, Dell said that they don't need to pay the license twice since most software DVD player have already paid the license. I don't know whether the XtremeGamer support DD/DTS decoding in its software or not, if it can the XtremeGamer is a better choice than the OEM cards IMO. You can use a CD from a normal X-Fi with the OEM X-Fi, btw there are also hacked drivers available for the OEM cards to get the driver's decoding feature, you just need to search for them but these drivers are not the latest drivers from CL.
Click to expand...

I guess I really need a reliable good card for gaming under Vista. So I guess it will do then?
 
I think that it is better if you wait longer. I'm sure that CL will come with a new sound card that support EAX 6 and a better OpenAL support after Vista is released if EAX effects are really important to you. I wouldn't worry much about performance loss or gain from a sound card because I know that I could get a better performance gain if I upgrade something else in my system with the same amount of money paid for a sound card. The point of having a sound card is to get a better sound, I think that if you just disable any sound device in your system, you will get a better performance gain than any sound card that is available in this world.
 
I read something about Creative Labs releasing an OpenAL wrapper for DSound drivers... it may even be released already..

I had problems w/ digital outs in vista w/ the x-fi, fwiw
 
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