I got an X-Fi extreme gamer and it runs like clockwork.The difference between the X-Fi and the Audigy that I had before is enormous.
"@ Naturn, Creative cards work different in XP and Vista simply because the Operating Systems process sound in different ways. The short answer to your 'does is improve sound at all?' question is simply: Yes. Not only does it take processing loads off other hardware (thus increasing FPS and increasing performance) but it also crystallizes sound and does all sorts of neat things that probably aren't worth explaining here to make it 10x better. The reasons why it maybe didn't sound so different, or the reason why your Microphone was quieter is simply because 'external' sound-cards need configuring and lots of tweaking to suit your own set-up and needs. Integrated sound just plays at one quality, at one basic setting, that will scrape through any audio task with a decent level of quality... but once you configure your sound-card properly, onboard does not complete."Naturn wrote:
Pretty sad that when I switched over to onboard sound I get the same sound quality as the creative and my mic works fully.
Dunno if you bothered reading that before.
Trust me, Creative (or any other external hardware) sound-cards do improve audio quality and clarity. Did you try comparing a (properly set-up) sound-card to onboard when playing high-quality lossless FLAC music? Whilst playing a game with EAX effects? Whilst watching a movie with Dolby THQ? They're incomparible... I think you're having the troublesome experience that you're having because you expect a sound-card to be like a GPU; plug into the mobo, install drivers, and go. Sadly - and annoyingly - sound-cards require quite a lot of configuration and setting up to custom suit them to your room and its acoustics.
But yeah, sell it anyway- it's your card . I would've thought that if someone was going to drop $100+ on a piece of kit, they would have been inclined to use it and install it properly but nevermind, haha!
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
I've been running the onboard sound for a day or so now and the quality is not different. As far as performance goes I don't see a difference ether. Could it possibly be the fact that my machines is powerfull enough not to know the difference? I installed it just fine but we all know from your statement that the sound differences between XP and Vista is what is the problem. Creative drivers don't deliver what I want for a card. For one my mic will NOT work properly in Vista but I boot up XP with the card and it works great. In vista I have to turn the sound way up and boost the mic to get it to work at all even then its not loud. I took the card out and turn the onboard on and now my mic works with clearity on top of that I also have a second input too. While with the creative card I have whats called a flex jack. It has the mic/line in/optical out all in one. Total horse shit to be honest. I guess I could install both the on board and creative card because creative for sound out put and the onboard for input. I'm gonig to give that a try tonight. Peace for now.
Performance is better, I notice an FPS increase in sound-intensive games (e.g. games that have many channels- such as Company of Heroes, or games with lots of sound effects and cinematics- such as Unreal Tournament 3) and my system is very up to date. The only thing I lack is the very latest quad-core and the latest round of Nvidia graphics, which I will not throw away my SLI 8800GTX's for until they make a substantial increase. So no, in short .
I really recommend you give it a try, I had to excercise extreme patience myself with my sound set-up... but it is incredibly rewarding!
I really recommend you give it a try, I had to excercise extreme patience myself with my sound set-up... but it is incredibly rewarding!
libertarian benefit collector - anti-academic super-intellectual. http://mixlr.com/the-little-phrase/
So I went about testing what I wanted to do. As I thought it was a bit difficult in doing so. I had to switch between which card I needed instead of using both in conjunction. Basically what I wanted to do was run my 360 audio through my PC through the input. This is to reduce wires and possibly for future record stuff. The Creative card I bought did not do what I wanted it to do so I decided to sell it. On top of that it don't work as well in Vista as it does in Vista. So my logical conclusion is to sell it. I will however be looking into a really nice card some time in the future. I will actually be creating a new thread soon about this. I do agree however about the cards sounding better than onboard but the difference is to small override my needs. Also about the CPU utilization I ran some tests and did not see any differences in performance. I still have the same number of processes running as well. My mic and input options on the onboard work perfectly. Sound comes out crystal clear from both PC and 360. Thanks for the input though.Uzique wrote:
Performance is better, I notice an FPS increase in sound-intensive games (e.g. games that have many channels- such as Company of Heroes, or games with lots of sound effects and cinematics- such as Unreal Tournament 3) and my system is very up to date. The only thing I lack is the very latest quad-core and the latest round of Nvidia graphics, which I will not throw away my SLI 8800GTX's for until they make a substantial increase. So no, in short .
I really recommend you give it a try, I had to excercise extreme patience myself with my sound set-up... but it is incredibly rewarding!