X-Fi PCI-E performance

[|oR|Spetsnaz]

I bought the Creative X-Fi Xtreme Audio PCI-E card from Newegg and I swear all my games are running noticeably slower now. When running America's Army, if I have hardware sound on, I get about 40-50 fps. If I run it with software sound, I get like 60-70. When I play DiRT with EAX enabled, it looks like I am watching a slide show. If I turn it off, it runs pretty smooth.

Has anybody else tried this card?

Is there a good sound card that will not tax my system so heavily that is reasonably priced? I would really prefer to not spend more than $100 on a card. I was looking at the Creative Sound Blaster X-Fi XtremeGamer 7.1. Is this one any good? Pretty much all I want it for is gaming and movies.

 

[Ockie]

AFAIK, It's not really an X-Fi Xtreme gamer, it's just a lower creative card thats made to work with PCI-E and a revamp on the name.

I could be wrong though.


If you are interested in a great card and are running XP, let me know, I'm selling my Barracuda AC-1 sound card.

 

[Moofasa~]

The Extreme Audio does not have hardware acceleration (all audio is processed by the CPU). You need another X-Fi card (any other as long as it doesn't carry the Extreme Audio name) to receive hardware acceleration.

 

[svet-am]

The Extreme Audio does not have hardware acceleration (all audio is processed by the CPU). You need another X-Fi card (any other as long as it doesn't carry the Extreme Audio name) to receive hardware acceleration.

Bingo! and this is the cause of your slowdown.

 

[Grentz]

The Extreme Audio does not have hardware acceleration (all audio is processed by the CPU). You need another X-Fi card (any other as long as it doesn't carry the Extreme Audio name) to receive hardware acceleration.

QFT!

and that is also why it is ~$50 instead of ~$100 like many of the other X-FI series.