X-Fi's Bloatware.

D

Donnie27

Supreme [H]ardness
Joined
Dec 22, 2004
Messages
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I ran my X-Fi for about 6 months without Bloatware, just using the Audio Console and DVD-A player (installed separately). This is faster than the Whole Bloatware package.

Two Bud's came over with a challenge. One said try the Bloatware, your Core 2 can run it and it is not as Buggy as folks say. I said I know, I had it installed on my old AMD 3500+ and it was slower but not buggy at all. Then guy number 2 said if the Bloatware is not so bad, prove it, install it? After playing with it for about 2 hours, he goes out and buys and X-Fi and installs everything LOL!

This was right before Xmas. Sure enough, the software ran, had no major glitches and my E6600 ran it like a bat out of hell. I'd always planned to uninstall it and go back to basic but I forgot how much I missed the Creation Mode recorder or being able to playback and make 5.1 WAVE files. So, I'm NOT un-installing the Bloatware.

It was painless to add the I/O Drive and the Auto Headphone setting works perfectly. Not having to reach behind the computer and switch headphone and Digital 1/8" plugs is worth most of the price alone. Last Driver update caused me to have to switch settings to enable the Digital Out setting. I plug my Headphone in, the auto settings work every time. It automatically changes to Headphone, enabled CMSS 3D Headphone, enables lite EQ and turns off Bass Boost, Enabled MacroFX, Elevation Filter and auto adjust the volume. Settings revert back to 5.1 when I unplug the headphones.
 
interesting.

These are the latest drivers right? (dated Oct 30)

I had always hoped that someone would take the creative drivers and make some sort of Omega-Decrapifier-Uber driver. :D

Which X-Fi do you have?
 
Cliff Couser said:
interesting.

These are the latest drivers right? (dated Oct 30)

I had always hoped that someone would take the creative drivers and make some sort of Omega-Decrapifier-Uber driver. :D

Which X-Fi do you have?
Click to expand...

I have the Xtreme Music and later added the I/O Drive.
X-Fi I/O Drive

I wish Creative would Open up the drivers or at least the GUI:) I've also added the auto mode switcher. I even tried a couple of betas from Germany, went back to Oct-30 drivers.

Anyway, X-Fi 2 is supposed to improve on this, I'll take a wait and see attitude on that one.
 
The X-FI-2 drivers have been modded for use on the X-fi 1. So I have been told by a few guys that have them.
 
What is this "X-Fi 2" you guys are speaking of? I'm curious. I'd like to know more about this!
 
Audioguy said:
The X-FI-2 drivers have been modded for use on the X-fi 1. So I have been told by a few guys that have them.
Click to expand...

I'm told Creative will update the GUI and tweak the drivers of the older cards when the new cards ship.
 
ajm786 said:
What is this "X-Fi 2" you guys are speaking of? I'm curious. I'd like to know more about this!
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X-Fi 2 is the Next or New X-Fi that will ship this year. Just a refresh but built on a PCI-E 1X slot instead of PCI. The cards feature Optical In/Out right on the bracket and since Vista is Chaulk full of DRM, Creative doesn't have to block it (multichannel S/PDIF) on the card any longer.

http://www.nordichardware.com/news,5458.html

That's the low-end version;)
 
Oh yeah, I read that article of the supposed "X-Fi 2"; I just wasn't sure that was what you guys were talking about. ;)
 
A bud came over and I showed him the software and he also wondered what was the big deal? It ran, does what I ask it to do and does it quickly. Yet, on my 3500+ the Audigy 2 ZS likes the minimal install better:)
 
The X-Fi software is okay, but it's still not ideal, for me anyway.

Very satisfied with the drivers, but not so much with the software.
 
I am really glad I read this thread, I had always wanted a soundcard that would adjust itself when I plugged in headphones, I had been considering going to 2.1 speakers because of the problem I had switching to headphones when playing some games. Maybe I will go ahead and get the Logitech 5500s I been thinking about getting instead of the 2300s.

I have an Audigy 2 ZS now, will this card do the same if I got the I/O drive?
 
Diablo2K said:
I am really glad I read this thread, I had always wanted a soundcard that would adjust itself when I plugged in headphones, I had been considering going to 2.1 speakers because of the problem I had switching to headphones when playing some games. Maybe I will go ahead and get the Logitech 5500s I been thinking about getting instead of the 2300s.

I have an Audigy 2 ZS now, will this card do the same if I got the I/O drive?
Click to expand...

From what I know, yes, it should switch as well.
 
phide said:
The X-Fi software is okay, but it's still not ideal, for me anyway.

Very satisfied with the drivers, but not so much with the software.
Click to expand...

I'm just not sure if there's any software that will please everyone. Many users like small and lite. This is not really their cup of tea. Some folks like a lot and like to tweak stuff, it's more for them.

I just RESPECTFULLY disagree with the guys comparing the drivers to CPU based sound cards that don't $hit or very little as the link above implied. Not what any poster here is talking about. I also trust Tech-Report over Guru3 and the other half-assed done reviews, hehehehe!
 
Here's the type of post that caused me to post this.

Creative Labs forum.

Re: March 9th question [ Edited ] Options

SoundblasterSux
Regular Contributor
Posts: 79
Registered: 01-31-2007

Reply 10 of 14

Viewed 373 times

There are freeware programs that are much better than Creative´s software, and are completely free of charge. You just need to know what to look for!!

EDIT: Many of Creative´s software are so buggy and bloated. They dont seem to know the word optimize. Coz non of their drivers or software are optimized!? And with sound production, music production or whatever you use it for, its critical that it is optimized, and works as it should. I never install anything from the cd, except the Audio console, and Console Mode Launcher or whatever its called. Now these dont work in Vista, so these should be re-made. But all the rest, i couldnt care less if they´d be trashed.
Message Edited by SoundblasterSux on 02-25-200706:39 PM
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:rolleyes:

The only way to really know how Optimized or not, Buggy or Not, or anything else is to Install -update and use it. If it sucks, remove it and just use the Audio Console.
 
Why would someone post something like that if it is not true... If you really think they are wrong, why don't you just post on Creative's forum to tell the people who have the problems that the problems are not Creative's problem :D .
 
Donnie27 said:
I'm just not sure if there's any software that will please everyone. Many users like small and lite. This is not really their cup of tea. Some folks like a lot and like to tweak stuff, it's more for them.
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I enjoy tweaking, sure, but I don't enjoy needlessly over-designed applications. The excessive bitmaps don't contribute to the functionality of the software. The applications are also dreadfully slow to launch on my machine.

Windows is just not the ideal environment for bitmap-laden applications, and I don't understand why so many developers take that route.
 
alg7_munif said:
Why would someone post something like that if it is not true... If you really think they are wrong, why don't you just post on Creative's forum to tell the people who have the problems that the problems are not Creative's problem :D .
Click to expand...

Because this thread is about Creative's Software known to many as "Bloatware". Again, I don't know why folks who's never used the cards claim to be experts. Same goes for folks who say, "I never install the software because it is not optimized, is buggy and bloated". You ask him why? On the very first post of this thread I posted that I tested the software and I'm not relying on folks who said it was buggy or etc... If the software sucked or didn't work, what makes you think I wouldn't say so?

All of the modes work and work well. Bloated, yes, buggy, no! I have 5.1 Wave, MP3 and Midi to prove it. I've used Creative's, DVD-A Player, Wave editor, Mix Master from the Audigy MP3, Midi apps, Files converter and that runs just like any other LAME based app and even made real time recordings of DVD-Audio:) The Bloatware works LOL! Yes I have Foobar, WinAMP and others that each offer something different and unique.
 
phide said:
I enjoy tweaking, sure, but I don't enjoy needlessly over-designed applications. The excessive bitmaps don't contribute to the functionality of the software. The applications are also dreadfully slow to launch on my machine.

Windows is just not the ideal environment for bitmap-laden applications, and I don't understand why so many developers take that route.
Click to expand...

I enjoy tweaking and controlling the end product. I saw nothing as needless and use Quick apps sometimes as well. Just because I'm using the Bloatware doesn't mean I don't still use Foobar, WinAMP and etc., they're installed too. I don't see of any excessive bitmaps and everything that makes up the GUI is there for a reason. Just more stuff to tweak:) Even got the auto-switching app installed and working correctly.

How fast and as well as how stable has just as much to do with your system. Sorry, that's why I like Intel Chipsets over nVidia's. Example, the person said "software that's not optimized". I click the player or change modes and it takes from .8 to 1 second to reconfigure and pop up. Oh WOW Foobar takes .5 man, that's a big difference. My 3500+ would take from 5 to 6 secs to do the same switch.:eek: Faster AMD processors get better results as well.
 
Donnie27 said:
How fast and as well as how stable has just as much to do with your system. Sorry, that's why I like Intel Chipsets over nVidia's.
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There's certainly nothing wrong with my system. My rig may not be as quick as some, but my dual core Opteron at 2.7 GHz is no slouch, and nor are my hard drives. The applications should launch nearly instantaneously, but they simply don't.

All things considered, I'm pretty satisfied with the basic Audio Console. It definitely suits my tastes far better than the rest of the software.
 
phide said:
There's certainly nothing wrong with my system. My rig may not be as quick as some, but my dual core Opteron at 2.7 GHz is no slouch, and nor are my hard drives. The applications should launch nearly instantaneously, but they simply don't.

All things considered, I'm pretty satisfied with the basic Audio Console. It definitely suits my tastes far better than the rest of the software.
Click to expand...

Not all is dependent on Processor speed and that's why some have SCP problems. Note I said "system" and not processor. Many problems can be traced to Certain motherboards and it doesn't matter if you think the small number is irrelevant or not. Nothing wrong with running just the Console but I've not had anything problems running everything. I'm NOT about to sit here and Bee-yotch about something taking .8 of Sec to switch and less to start up.

Again, if I need quick, I start up WinAMP or Foobar:) Yet, I like the Modes and their GUI otherwise.
 
Oh, so my particular motherboard is the sole reason why the so-called "bloatware" takes three to four seconds to launch? I can launch an average-sized Pro Tools session from a Firewire drive in that amount of time on my machine, Donnie, and have immediate access to thousands upon thousands of options, settings, tools and so on. In four seconds, I can also get to the main menu in Quake 3 -- the OpenGL accelerated, graphics-laden full-screen main menu, that is.

Rather than blame my motherboard, I'll lay blame at Creative Labs, as they designed the application. Saying that my motherboard is solely responsible for poor application launch times is simply absurd to me.

I have no SCP issues. Functionally, my card works perfectly. No hardware-related issues as of yet, though I have noted a slight increase in system instability, though admittedly, quite a few things have changed since I installed the Elite Pro.
 
phide said:
Oh, so my particular motherboard is the sole reason why the so-called "bloatware" takes three to four seconds to launch? I can launch an average-sized Pro Tools session from a Firewire drive in that amount of time on my machine, Donnie, and have immediate access to thousands upon thousands of options, settings, tools and so on. In four seconds, I can also get to the main menu in Quake 3 -- the OpenGL accelerated, graphics-laden full-screen main menu, that is.

Rather than blame my motherboard, I'll lay blame at Creative Labs, as they designed the application. Saying that my motherboard is solely responsible for poor application launch times is simply absurd to me.

I have no SCP issues. Functionally, my card works perfectly. No hardware-related issues as of yet, though I have noted a slight increase in system instability, though admittedly, quite a few things have changed since I installed the Elite Pro.
Click to expand...

I've said about 100 times that some boards have more problems than others. I didn't say the "sole" anything. I said Intel Chipsets have fewer problems. Do I need to copy and paste? How does that turn into "sole"? When I had my Asus A8N32-SLI, if the X-Fi was the only problem, I'd have kept it but since the HDD corrupted 3 days later while I didn't have it installed, I dumped it.:D There are problem with Thermal Take Power Supplies, Extreme overclocking, motherboard alignment that cause the card to loose full slot placement, and many other problems.

I'm blaming the COMBINATION of the two. No matter how any of us post it, this is NOT the first set of incompatible parts that will cause each other problems. It is damned sure not the last. Folks thinking 100% of all computer hardware is 100% compatible are fooling themselves.

My bloatware works and works well. Start time? Less than a Sec is fast enough for me. It runs and is not buggy LOL! It is NOT the only sound software I have installed.
 
Donnie27 said:
I'm blaming the COMBINATION of the two.
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You can blame whoever you wish, of course, but I believe I'm most qualified to make judgment calls about what components are at fault and what components are not, as this is my machine that I've built and maintained, both on the hardware side and software side, methodically.

Donnie27 said:
My bloatware works and works well. Start time? Less than a Sec is fast enough for me. It runs and is not buggy LOL!
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And mine does not run well, and mine is not free of issues. There's nothing you can say that could possibly skew reality, Donnie. That's all there is to say.
 
phide said:
You can blame whoever you wish, of course, but I believe I'm most qualified to make judgment calls about what components are at fault and what components are not, as this is my machine that I've built and maintained, both on the hardware side and software side, methodically.


And mine does not run well, and mine is not free of issues. There's nothing you can say that could possibly skew reality, Donnie. That's all there is to say.
Click to expand...

Just as I'am with mine and the boards that I've tried that you've also discounted;) I'm talking about Bloatware, not drivers. There's another thread here about drivers. No, It is not just me but others I know who knows just a little bit more.

I saw boards work and others not. I saw more problems with nVidia than Intel chipsets and no one "sole" problem. I have built and repaired more computers than I can mention since 1992. Hell, it's not like I'm new to computer or anything LOL!

Unlike you, I haven't tried to skew anything you've said phide. I have agreed and disagreed with what you've said, not what I assumed you said. I needed a BIOS flash to get my sound card working, whoppy do! I had to do the same thing with my Video card and even my GSkill RAM.
 
Yep. Like I said, the drivers work fantastically well for me. No SCP, buffer hitching or other problems. EAX works great, sounds great, and the drivers are enough to deliver what the card's capable of without any problems (though I'm still not sure what to make of the occasional crashing -- perhaps there's strong merit as to why Microsoft pulled the HAL in Vista).

The software (the Audio Console works great for me, so this is what I use, mainly) is hit and miss. Generally, the stuff works fine despite the inexplicably long load times. I could bitch for days about some of the interface no-nos, but at least we're given a good alternative.

I'm not discounting anything yet, but placing the blame on Creative for my issues seems to be the most logical thing to do here. Immediately placing blame on my motherboard just seems completely illogical to me.
 
phide said:
Yep. Like I said, the drivers work fantastically well for me. No SCP, buffer hitching or other problems. EAX works great, sounds great, and the drivers are enough to deliver what the card's capable of without any problems (though I'm still not sure what to make of the occasional crashing -- perhaps there's strong merit as to why Microsoft pulled the HAL in Vista).

The software (the Audio Console works great for me, so this is what I use, mainly) is hit and miss. Generally, the stuff works fine despite the inexplicably long load times. I could bitch for days about some of the interface no-nos, but at least we're given a good alternative.

I'm not discounting anything yet, but placing the blame on Creative for my issues seems to be the most logical thing to do here. Immediately placing blame on my motherboard just seems completely illogical to me.
Click to expand...

Some skeptical buds played with mine after a Dare. "We dare you to install the whole bloatware/software package. Then we'll show you how slow it runs". This was done on an old install, while the computer was overclocked to 3GHz, with no pre-setup. I had only the Console and DVD-Audio Player installed. One guy didn't even know it could be installed separately. Everything installed and ran without any problems. I left it installed for a month and then just kept procrastinating about removing it. That was about 13 weeks ago LOL!

I've had one unexplained Crash and one where the card worked itself loose and I got the dreaded Squeal and then "Can't find compatible device" error. The last one means either Card has died or worked itself loose. Not re-seating the card can kill it BTW! I re-seated it and all has been well since. That's why I added the I/O Drive so that would be less likely to happen again.

Two of the Buddies above had long load times and that's one of the reasons why I installed the bloatware in the first place. One also had SCP issues. All 3 Asus A8N32-SLI boards we tried at issues. I used only the Console because it ran slow on my 3500+, apps took 5 to 6 secs to load. One my buds suggested maybe since mine was at 3GHz, that was the reason the apps started up so quickly. So I unoverclocked it and at 2.4GHz, that's where that .8 of a sec comes from. At 3GHz it was instantaneous:)

It is NOT just the motherboard but Motherboard, Weak PSU, Systems that seem stable but can't pass Memtest or Orthose, bad memory in some cases. It's like the Card expects to be installed in a Higher Quality system. Yet, I've ran it in all computers in my house, from a VIA mobo in an HP 744V, I850E, I875, nForce4 and currently in my. This thread would get wayyyyy to long to tell how I and my buds tested this thing. At first the little VIA board showed all of the problems with SCP! All we do was connect an Antec 550W PSU and it went away. The dinky little 200W PSU was the problem, NOT the mobo. Now folks could blame Creative for putting a strain on any system, the card needs what seems like a lot of power and causes a lot of traffic on the PCI BUS. Bloatware is the least of any problem I've dealt with. If it doesn't run fast enough, remove it. Many C2D owners will be surprised by how it runs and works.
 
To reiterate:
phide said:
There's certainly nothing wrong with my system.
Click to expand...

Essentially, what you've said is that the Creative software only works admirably on extremely high-end, overclocked systems. What does that say about Creative's software development team?

This isn't Crysis, Donnie -- these are basic bitmap-skinned applets. This software should work well on any reasonably capable machine, including the Celeron-equpped, Intel GMA Dell Dimension 2400 I'm typing on at this moment. The fact that the software can't launch in a reasonable amount of time on my overclocked Opteron (the only component cooled by my fairly modest $600+ watercooling system) rig is laughable.
 
phide said:
To reiterate:


Essentially, what you've said is that the Creative software only works admirably on extremely high-end, overclocked systems. What does that say about Creative's software development team?

This isn't Crysis, Donnie -- these are basic bitmap-skinned applets. This software should work well on any reasonably capable machine, including the Celeron-equpped, Intel GMA Dell Dimension 2400 I'm typing on at this moment. The fact that the software can't launch in a reasonable amount of time on my overclocked Opteron (the only component cooled by my fairly modest $600+ watercooling system) rig is laughable.
Click to expand...

My 3500+ took anywhere from 5 to 8 secs to start up the Creative apps. That sucks. Maybe Creative uses SIMD that AMD doesn't support so well? The software runs faster on mine at 2400MHz than my bud's FX-60 at 2600MHz and another's overclocked to 2.8GHz. Now I can understand why he only uses the the Control Panel app and not much else. I do agree that it should run faster on everything.

Yet, its been my experience that once the app starts, everything ran smoothly. The app or applet does quite a bit to configure the Hardware based Sound card. The fact it can't launch in what you call a reasonable amount of time on your system, has NOTHING to do with mine or any other C2D owner or non-nVidia Chipset type motherboard.

There are other apps besides Creative's Bloatware that will also run faster on C2D over any Athlon or Opteron or did you miss all of the reviews? I picked an E6600 because it ran 15 out of 17 things we tested faster than my other bud's FX-62. Thank goodness for Science-mark and they tied on the other. Now my friend, that was laughable:) When I bought mine it was cheaper than an Opteron 165 I had looked at the month before.
 
Donnie27 said:
The fact it can't launch in what you call a reasonable amount of time on your system, has NOTHING to do with mine or any other C2D owner or non-nVidia Chipset type motherboard.
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Again, I'm not concerned about the specific components here. It's not about Core 2 vs. Opteron. This is not an application one would benchmark.

Donnie27 said:
There are other apps besides Creative's Bloatware that will also run faster on C2D over any Athlon or Opteron or did you miss all of the reviews?
Click to expand...
There are also other applications besides Creative's bloatware that launch faster on practically any system and are orders of magnitude more complex. This is all I am saying. Again, reference my Pro Tools example.

And no, I didn't miss "all of the reviews". I'm no AMD zealot, if that's what you believe. I built this machine when my particular proc was brand new and was, essentially, the fastest processor that could be bought at that time, and at a time in which Core 2 procs couldn't be purchased (nor had any NDAs been lifted). I'm well aware that the Core 2 architecture is unequivocally superior to AMD's old hag architectures.

Quite frankly, I don't believe I've ever been engaged in a more trivial and arduous conversation than this. Either there's some sort of language barrier here, or you're intentionally neglecting my posts in order to re-assert whatever points you're intending to make. In fact, even after all of this back-and-forth, I'm still not sure what the point of this thread is.
 
phide said:
Again, I'm not concerned about the specific components here. It's not about Core 2 vs. Opteron. This is not an application one would benchmark.
Click to expand...

It is if your complaining about it running slow it is. I even slowed mine down to 1.8GHz to see how slow it would run and it ran very close to the same speed. .4 to .9 for any of the modes to pop up. It might be processor and mobo BTW!

phide said:
There are also other applications besides Creative's bloatware that launch faster on practically any system and are orders of magnitude more complex. This is all I am saying. Again, reference my Pro Tools example.
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To me, after the app starts, it is meaningless if we're talking .01 compare to .4 start up. It's what happens after the app starts processing data and if either was 20% slower. I don't run Pro Tools but I do run Foobar, WinAMP and etc.. Each has their own advantage and these apps run FASTER on mine than on my Bud's AMD FX rigs and that was the point. XPeg DivX and the other crap as well.

phide said:
And no, I didn't miss "all of the reviews". I'm no AMD zealot, if that's what you believe.
Click to expand...

Not what I believe but the point I tried to make. Try the Bloatware on a C2D, it runs faster there. Maybe the chipset is better since these suffer *FEWER SCP problems. I had a Bud move from an nVidia Intel board to an i965 and his SCP problems disappeared! He uses a C-Media card of some type in the other rig he moved that board to. He even says, "I thought I never catch myself saying this but I miss Creative's Lard-O software:(". Lard-O = Extremely Fat.

phide said:
I built this machine when my particular proc was brand new and was, essentially, the fastest processor that could be bought at that time, and at a time in which Core 2 procs couldn't be purchased (nor had any NDAs been lifted). I'm well aware that the Core 2 architecture is unequivocally superior to AMD's old hag architectures.
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Killed my old 3500+ but that's what I mean here. The Bloatware started slow on the 3500+ but once it started, it ran well! X-Fi is full Duplex so I could run the Creative recorder and record a analog 5.1 Wave copy of a DVD-A at 24-96 Stereo or 5.1. Using the Full version of PowerDVD 6 with Software MLP to support DVD-A.

phide said:
Quite frankly, I don't believe I've ever been engaged in a more trivial and arduous conversation than this. Either there's some sort of language barrier here, or you're intentionally neglecting my posts in order to re-assert whatever points you're intending to make. In fact, even after all of this back-and-forth, I'm still not sure what the point of this thread is.
Click to expand...

I was kind of thinking the same thing;) Simple point of the thread is the software works, though it could be tweaked and or Optimized more. What mileage you get with it, depends on your system.
 
Donnie, no matter how you slice it, it's bloatware. If the audio console included bass redirection, there would be no point in using the extra crap. It's slow, a memory hug, and sometimes unresponsive. Since it's completely unnecessary, I don't see how it couldn't be bloatware. The only thing people should have installed in the audio console and the THX console. Creative can keep all that extra crap.
 
Donnie27 said:
Simple point of the thread is the software works.
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Great. I have thousands of applications that also work, though I don't create threads dedicated to the sole purpose of informing people that they "work".

If I may ask - what is your first language, Donnie?
 
Moofasa~ said:
Donnie, no matter how you slice it, it's bloatware. If the audio console included bass redirection, there would be no point in using the extra crap. It's slow, a memory hug, and sometimes unresponsive. Since it's completely unnecessary, I don't see how it couldn't be bloatware. The only thing people should have installed in the audio console and the THX console. Creative can keep all that extra crap.
Click to expand...

It is bloatware and I'm NOT trying to spin that at all. I'am trying to say, in my dyslexic way, that it does work. For folks who have only the Console installed, that's cool. Over the life of my X-Fi, it has been used more with just the Console and DVD-Audio Player only than with the Bloatware installed. There are a lot of apps that are memory hogs LOL! Hell, look at Vista just sitting there at idle? I've not suffered any unresponsiveness on any of the Apps even when it was installed on my older 3500+ system. The 3500+ rig was slow starting them up but once it started ALL APPS ran just as fast as Foobar, WinAMP, faster than WMP 10 and 11 and slower than WMP9.

On another note. What do you use for RAW 5.1 Wave files?
 
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