Creative X-Fi - good for all games ?

brianon

My current PC is on its last legs before I upgrade in March next year (have to wait for my SSIA).

I have a AMD XP 3200+/1G Ram/6600GT AGP GPU.

I don't think there is anything worthwhile I can do in the meantime that wouldn't require a new Mobo/GPU except to buy a soundcard.

The Creative X-Fi Fataility with its X-Ram was what I am looking at.

Does this actually (or any of the X-Fi lineup) help with cold hard FPS in games ?

If i got a soundcard at least I could use it in a new rig in March. Anything else I could add at the moment would have to go when the new rig arrives.

Brian.

8T8

That X-RAM feature only works in games that are coded to support it of which I think you can count the number on one hand.

So no it doesn't really help as the vast majority of games do not support it, if you want an X-Fi get the cheapest music edition has everything you need. I have one & it's pretty good never given me any trouble though be mindful it does not come with any digital outs*if you make use of that kind of connection to your speakers.

*A port on the back can be used but requires a special cable that Creative sell on their website and do not ship with the card.

brianon

Thanks for the reply. Much appreciated.

So does the card make any difference then ? Maybe the fact that oon board sound is off, the CPU might have extra power to pump out a few more FPS ?

8T8

Better than onboard sound yes, though in the last comparison I saw the X-Fi wasn't quite as good an Audigy 4 in terms of CPU usage but that could have been down to early drivers (& the minimalist X-Fi drivers are better than Creative's previous efforts).

DemonOfTheFall

I got an x-fi extreme music for about 70 euro and I'm chuffed with it. Not that expensive at all and it hasn't given me the slightest bit of trouble.

The only thing I'm not mad on is the sound it gives when set in headphone mode. So when I'm using headphones I just set it to 2 speaker instead.

PogMoThoin

Be sure to place the x-fi in the bottom pci slot. I had irq issues with mine & when i read up it was recommended to place it in the bottom slot. It sorted my issues out when i moved it.

Stephen

I've no experience with X-Fi's but I definately noticed improved performance in games like Battlefield 2 when I replaced my onboard sound with an Audigy 2zs.
I guess the fancy 3d sound stuff in that game was taking up a lot of CPU cycles being done in software, which the Audigy took over in hardware

Blazer

BF2 and FEAR are the only two games that I know of that take advantage of the onboard ram on the Fatal1ty and Elite X-fi cards..saying that, the upgrade from an Audigy 2 to a X-fi in BF2 is amazing..you're now hearing double the amount of sounds which can be overpowering at first until you get used to it after a few games..with headphones the cmss (directional sound) is fantastic and you hear where exactly the enemy is..card is well recommended..

astrofool

I'm waiting on them to release a PCI-E card before upgrading my Audigy2ZS platinum