Am I even using my X-Fi soundcard??

[colby21]

Just like anyone who has bought a PC from Dell, Alienware, etc. without fully building your own, I have been equipped with what should be a Creative Soundblaster X-Fi card... at least this is listed under the "Sound, video, and game controllers" menu in the Device Manager. What does a "sound card" even do? Especially a name brand one such as this which probly cost me 100 extra bucks. Also listed under the same menu is such things as:

Audio Codecs
Legacy Audio Drivers
Legacy Video Capture Devices
Media Control Devices
SigmaTel High Definition Audio CODEC
Video Codecs

I use a pretty good Bose 2 speaker + subwoofer system on my comp, and I just wanna make sure that I am getting the best Audio quality that is possible. Can anyone help?

 

[dark strike1]

A sound card is used to process sound, the reason they make sound cards is to produce high quality sound and high quality recording. The onboard sound on the motherboard is probably good, but not that good. The sound coming from the sound card is better quality, meaning you will hear every guitar string in a song. And all that stuff you see under the device manager for audio are the codecs and drivers that allow your sound card to function properly.

 

[colby21]

Thank you! Ok, then it looks like I need to make sure my Bose system is hooked up to the X-fi card and not just the one on the motherboard. Will the card have seperate audio jacks from the motherboard card... or is it software only. I usually just plug in my speakers through the audio jack in the main front of my Dell XPS tower.

 

[alexsabree]

To be certain you are using your card and not the on-board sound, just go to your xfi audio center. Play around with some of the stuff and see if you can hear it.

I love my xfi, and without the audio center its pretty much useless.

 

[Pinscher]

Thank you! Ok, then it looks like I need to make sure my Bose system is hooked up to the X-fi card and not just the one on the motherboard. Will the card have seperate audio jacks from the motherboard card... or is it software only. I usually just plug in my speakers through the audio jack in the main front of my Dell XPS tower.

No its not just software. Its an actual card with separate jacks. Using the jack in the front of your tower will be using onboard sound. In the back of your computer, there will be a set of jacks that is next to the usb ports and some other stuff; that is the onboard sound. Look below that to the area where your monitor is plugged in and there should be another set of jacks. I can't tell you exactly which jack to plug it into but just try them all and I'm sure you can figure it out.

 

[colby21]

Ok, believe it or not I haven't had the control panel on my comp since I had to wipe ti a few months back.. I jsut haven't had the time to try to get it to work.. can anyone find some place I can manually download the X-Fi control panel?

And im working on finding those jacks right now.

 

[alexsabree]

Those jacks are on the bottom of the back of your computer.

I think that the ones on the top might be connected to your xfi, but idk for sure. Also, you can go into your bios and disable onboard sound. You should probably do that.

Customer Support: Downloads
You need to know what Xfi model you have.. its most likely the XtremeMusic model.

 

[colby21]

Yes, thank you again. just before your post I opened my computer case to get the model No of my sound card.. the jacks are in the back.. but there is also a black connector that goes from the sound card to the place where the jack in the front is as well.. so im guessing that they both are et up for the sound card

now to get the console working....

 

[colby21]

Customer Support: Downloads

It took me to this page... I am downloading the beta driver that was released June2... its been 2006 since I updated this

Which one is the control console?

 

[alexsabree]

Just a side note.. the software download for your xfi will include the audio console, but make sure to download all of the applications and drivers because by default it doesn't include the console launcher in your download.

For a while I did not have the console launcher and had to use the audio console instead because I did not know that I could download it.

The console launcher thingy looks soo much better and offers a few more features that, by default, the audio console does not offer.