Which X-Fi??

[003]

I just ordered a Fatal1ty FPS. FEAR also supports it. It's not meant to increase FPS btw, it's meant to be able to have EAX 5.0 Advanced HD and all the fancy hardware audio features enabled without a preformance hit.

 

[Running]

why not get the X-Fi Plantinum its like the xtreme music with the 5 1/2' drive bay which is pretty useful??

 

[003]

Because it's not useful at all.

 

[HAVOC]

I just ordered a Fatal1ty FPS. FEAR also supports it. It's not meant to increase FPS btw, it's meant to be able to have EAX 5.0 Advanced HD and all the fancy hardware audio features enabled without a preformance hit.

Well, I don't know about FPS... because i've seen some benchmarks that showed 1 to 3 frame increase. Not exactly impressive. The x-fi's premiss is that it's a powerful audio processor that will alleviate processing by the CPU. The XRAM is supposed to be an audio DATA cache, to alleviate system memory.

I still strongly believe that if you don't have a good set of speakers, just stick to a cheap sound card or onboard.

F.E.A.R is cool sounding with the X-fi... There are so many sounds it's unreal. Like various sounds of shell casings hitting various surfaces.
If you are out in an open area, the shell casings have a very flat sound. If you are inside an empty tunnel... the shell casings will have an echo when they fall. Each surface they fall on has a totally different sound. Also... ever surface you shoot has a completely different sound and the enviromental effect to go alone with it.

It's pretty impressive... I usually use my Zalman 5.1 headphones when playing games, mostly because I play late at night. My neighbors already hate me because of my logitech z5500's. lol

Because it's not useful at all.

It's useful in some regards.
If you use a microphone or non 6 channel headphones.
You can plug in a midi device or an electric guitar.
Also, the remote is pretty nice too.

 

[Flanker]

F.E.A.R is cool sounding with the X-fi... There are so many sounds it's unreal. Like various sounds of shell casings hitting various surfaces.
If you are out in an open area, the shell casings have a very flat sound. If you are inside an empty tunnel... the shell casings will have an echo when they fall. Each surface they fall on has a totally different sound. Also... ever surface you shoot has a completely different sound and the enviromental effect to go alone with it.

How do you know its not the same with other Sound Cards if you've never used others.

 

[HAVOC]

How do you know its not the same with other Sound Cards if you've never used others.

I've owned Sound Blaster Live, Sound Blaster Audigy 2 & Sound Blaster 2 Audigy ZS & Turtle Beach Catalina Sound Card. So i've used plenty of others.

How do I know it's not the same in what? Games? Fear? Music?

I can tell you for sure in BF2 that there is an absolute difference, because i've played it on both the Audigy 2 ZS & now my X-Fi.

Read this page: Yes, it's creative's website, but everything they list about BF2 with X-fi i can confirm to be truth. Except for the XRAM part. I'm still not convinced that it provides much of a performance increase.
http://www.soundblaster.com/products/x-fi/technology/battlefield2/

 

[003]

How do you know its not the same with other Sound Cards if you've never used others.

Because the Audigy2 does 64 sounds in hardware and the X-fi does 128. I'm not sure if FEAR actually uses all 128, but BF2 does.

 

[HAVOC]

Because the Audigy2 does 64 sounds in hardware and the X-fi does 128. I'm not sure if FEAR actually uses all 128, but BF2 does.

No, F.E.A.R uses EAX 4.0 with 64 Voices. 128 Voice Support is only available with EAX 5.0 which BF2 supports and actually so does Quake 4. Most games now will start using EAX 5.0. Since Sound Blaster is the most popular card in PC's today.
http://www.soundblaster.com/eax/abouteax/eax5ahd/eax5_1.asp

 

[003]

Well my copy of FEAR has the X-fi in the recommended system requirements, and there is a little logo on the back of the box that says "Sounds best on X-Fi".

 

[HAVOC]

Well my copy of FEAR has the X-fi in the recommended system requirements, and there is a little logo on the back of the box that says "Sounds best on X-Fi".

Yeah, I know 003. So does mine. But, FEAR uses EAX 4.0. 128 Voices isn't supported without EAX 5.0. I know EA & DICE & CREATIVE worked together for 6 months to make BF2 EAX 5.0 ready. May-be they weren't will to put the extra effort into EAX 5.0 support when making FEAR? I don't know. It still sounds freakin' great.