Creative Returns with SB X-Fi Titanium HD

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Until they iron out all the glitches in their bloatware drivers and give me full as-advertised functionality in Win7 x64 with my X-Fi Plat (ie:without the random occasional channel mapping swaps, or intermittent crackles/popping sounds in previous OSes), Creative can go fuck themselves.
 
I cant believe i need to run some hacked driver for the digital surround sound to work, it doesnt make sense, but I had to do that to finally get win7 to run with digital out and 5.1 its quite sad...

and why are there drivers so bloated, its a sound card for crying out-loud...
 
I'm surprised they're still in business. On-board audio has gotten so much better that there isn't really a big demand for discreet audio anymore except for audio recording and other big name companies like Lexicon make much better stuff than Creative.

I remember when a PC build always consisted of a 3COM LAN card, US Robotics Modem and a Sound Blaster sound card of some kind. Now, all 3 of those companies have almost disappeared. Not to mention the S3 or Trident video cards that I used.
 
The elimination of hardware acceleration through DirectSound starting in Vista didn't help their cause either. Unless the game uses OpenAL or their DirectX -> OpenAL translation driver (which doesn't work for all games anyway), you're not getting the benefit of having that much audio hardware.
 
[citation][nom]Computer_Lots[/nom]I remember when a PC build always consisted of a 3COM LAN card, US Robotics Modem and a Sound Blaster sound card of some kind. Now, all 3 of those companies have almost disappeared. Not to mention the S3 or Trident video cards that I used.[/citation]

You started to make me feel old, until I remember when I got my first sound card and Wolfenstein didn't have to use PC speaker!


I do wonder how it went so wrong for Creative, I still believe in discrete sound cards for FAR better audio than onboard, but with all the driver issues, I CBA!
 
Shameless plug:

Daniel_K's drivers bring new life to current and older Creative cards. (I still have my SB Audigy one of my older gaming rigs & it works beautifully with these drivers) I highly recommend them if you haven't tried them already. You can find his drivers via his posts on Creative's forums. Username: daniel_k

Also, to completely uninstall Creative's bs drivers, I recommend a small utility called Nasty File Remover. Use it after you perform the normal uninstall & reboot.

Enjoy!!
 
I used to keep up with the latest Creative sound cards, but I haven't purchase one since I bought my old Audigy Platinum several years ago. The numerous connectors on the Live/Audigy Drive were useful for connecting external audio sources, headphones, or my MIDI keyboard. Now I just use the on-board Realtek's optical out with Dolby Digital Live and a USB MIDI adapter. Sure, I don't get EAX, but that doesn't bother me too much. EAX has been buggy since its inception anyway.
 
[citation][nom]Computer_Lots[/nom]I'm surprised they're still in business. On-board audio has gotten so much better that there isn't really a big demand for discreet audio anymore except for audio recording and other big name companies like Lexicon make much better stuff than Creative.I remember when a PC build always consisted of a 3COM LAN card, US Robotics Modem and a Sound Blaster sound card of some kind. Now, all 3 of those companies have almost disappeared. Not to mention the S3 or Trident video cards that I used.[/citation]
Amen brother. You just had to have the SB Pro or SB16 (granted, you're choice was pretty much limited to SB, SB Pro, SB16 or an Ad Lib card) to get the proper xwing/tie fighter/wolf3d/doom experience.

I had to wrestle with tradition to finally drop putting a sound card in my wife's computer. The onboard audio does just fine. I have a fata1ity plat in my rig (its about 3 years old now). While I really do like the optical in/out and the other features of the front panel, the crappy drivers pushed me over to foregoing a sound card in my wife's machine and just using the onboard. The onboard really has come a long way since that crappy onboard yamaha opl3 that was on my 266 Dell P2 (the last prebuilt desktop I've ever owned). I had been wondering if dropping my pci platinum and going to a pci-x would solve some of the sound loop problems I get in things like L4D2, but based on the comments here it sounds like creative is still sucking in the driver dept. Much to my annoyance, I do have a bit of brand loyalty - that SB Pro from years back really was a phenomenal change to my gaming experience and there's a bit of nostalgia there, I also like my Zen Vision which actually does work pretty slick with the SB utilities and card.
 
Fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me. Never Again creative, never again.

(Snap/crackle/pop no not cereal just my sound card.)
 
Sorry SB. You have not sold me anything since the Audigy 2 days. Onboard is mainstream and I am now using my Video adapter with built in sound and HDMI into my Audio reciever. Where is your HDMI support?
 
My last Creative card was a first gen SB Live! that made tons of horrid noises, used every IRQ it could, ate memory and CPU, and pretty much failed to generate a more compelling experience than the first enthusiast onboard sound options.

Creative died a long time ago, they just haven't realized it yet.
 
[citation][nom]michaelahess[/nom]I miss my GUS..... :-([/citation]
I had a GUS too. The original one was probably the best because of the hardware mixer.

Windows 95 killed the GUS when Gravis decided not to make DirectSound-compatible drivers (probably due to the fact that DS expects to do software mixing, when the GUS wanted to do all that work with it's superior audio processor). The follow-ups (GUS PnP, GUS Max, etc.) were crap, and they didn't do justice to the demo scene.
 
[citation][nom]PeanutsRevenge[/nom]You started to make me feel old, until I remember when I got my first sound card and Wolfenstein didn't have to use PC speaker!I do wonder how it went so wrong for Creative, I still believe in discrete sound cards for FAR better audio than onboard, but with all the driver issues, I CBA![/citation]
Too make you feel even a little older .... Shortly before the first SB and Tandy became more than just showroom exemplars there was also an Cowox (I think) "card", that you could make at home and plug it into the centronix interface in the back of the PC box (usually used by printers) to get "better" sound than from PC speaker.

If I remember correctly even some Sierra games supported it.
 
I love my X-Fi Fatality card. Second best upgrade I've ever made to my PC (first being my 24" monitor - after 6-7 years with it, now I want a 30" haha). There is a HUGE noticeable difference between it and the motherboards on-board audio. I'll never go back. Once you hear some songs with the X-Fi Crystalizer on, you will be hooked. I have my 360 going through the card. The Crystalizer even makes Guitar Hero sound better, haha. I'm using Win7 64-bit as well. No problems. Only complaint is with Microsoft getting rid of the WAV volume control in Win7. Might have been taken out in Vista, but I've never used it.
 
i do own asus d2x, and i don't regret spending a "bit" of money for it. i can hear the difference when gaming with onboard or with asus. and i still believe that if you'r gamer the sound card makes a difference. i will never ever will be using onboard sound card :)
 
"moved on to use surface mount device (SMD) capacitors"

This is a bad move! To solder lead free surface mount components, the PCB is put into a oven for at least 5 minutes and heated to at least 250 C degrees (the liquid point of lead free solder)

...What is in a capacitor... Water! Professional products use through-hole capacitors, not surface mount!
 
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