Creative Xi-Fi

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boniek · Post by **boniek** » Sat Jun 03, 2006 9:36 am

True enough. We will see in a year or so when first stable version will come out (good thing is, they plan to support EAX effects).

alienjon · Post by **alienjon** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 7:44 pm

I am preparing to build a new system and would like to use an x-fi card (Actually, it might be an x-fi gamer, but that depends on how the reviews I find go) But for now, half-way through the year, is there any updated information as to the driver support for the card? I may not get it until the end of the summer (another 3 months, or so) but if development is coming along nicely then I may wait longer just to see what comes out (and, of course, if there is no information or anything, I may just go with a higher-end audigy)

AstroTux · Post by **AstroTux** » Sun Jun 18, 2006 9:05 pm

Hi,

I think it is a shame that a company such as Creative are supporting proprietory software.

I am one who buys for the drivers second to an extent, as what good is great hardware if the drivers don't work properly or cause the system to lock up?

Don't Creative realize that they can still retain the Copyright on the drivers even if someone else develops them? It certainly wouldn't result in driver piracy, either.

I know I won't be buying a Xi-Fi until it works under Linux.

Best regards,
AstroTux.

Eskarel · Post by **Eskarel** » Thu Jun 22, 2006 11:06 pm

Reasons why the x-fi is going to take a long time to get done.

1) The kernel and xorg devs frequently screw over closed source driver manufacturers on principle(look at the change in allowed interface on the kernel a year or so ago, and the changes to xorg-server recently which prevent binary graphics drivers working yet. No company is going to spend resources building a driver if the devs randomly screw them over with no warning, it's just not worth it. Give companies a semi-stable API and they might invest more in using it.

2) Vista. The fact that there aren't even Windows 2000 drivers for this card means that they're doing some deep kernel magic which Microsoft has never and will never support between versions. Once they have a stable Windows XP driver(mine works fine at the moment), they need a Vista driver, because whatever you think of Microsoft, a card which doesn't run in the new Windows promptly is a card which isn't going to exist.

3) Product value. Creative could probably throw together a really basic "sound only" driver for linux, but this isn't a sound only card, you don't spend as much as this card costs to get something which sounds and acts exactly like the myriad of cards which work on linux just fine. You buy it for all the niffty things it can do.

ChickensDontFly · Post by **ChickensDontFly** » Mon Aug 21, 2006 3:34 am

I just about bought one of these cards today. Glad I checked the forums!

mc-escher · Post by **mc-escher** » Sun Oct 01, 2006 11:31 pm

Well, I thought we were past all this nowadays, but I guess not. I blame creative for making me box this sh*t back up and take it back to the store. It will be a cold day in hell before I buy another one of their products.

They can just sit in the penalty box with sony for all eternity.

Kai Hvatum · Post by **Kai Hvatum** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 6:24 am

linuxtuxhellsinki wrote:Latest news from there

Code: Select all

 May 18, 2006 -- Creative plans to make proprietary (closed source) drivers available for the X-Fi series of sound cards in the second quarter of 2007. These drivers will have full support for ALSA (playback, recording, mixer, MIDI, synthesis) and OpenAL 1.1 (with EAX effects)

Closed bull at 2nd Q of 07

I'll hold judgement until I see exactly what the quality of the closed source drivers are.

boniek · Post by **boniek** » Tue Oct 17, 2006 1:06 pm

Kai Hvatum wrote:
linuxtuxhellsinki wrote:Latest news from there
Code: Select all
 May 18, 2006 -- Creative plans to make proprietary (closed source) drivers available for the X-Fi series of sound cards in the second quarter of 2007. These drivers will have full support for ALSA (playback, recording, mixer, MIDI, synthesis) and OpenAL 1.1 (with EAX effects)
Closed bull at 2nd Q of 07
I'll hold judgement until I see exactly what the quality of the closed source drivers are.

I'm sceptical. Even if they initially will be working I don't believe creative will quickly support newer kernel versions as they appear not to mention bug fixes. See their drivers in Windows, and what people had to do to make creative release new driver set for cracking/popping issue with xfi cards.

feld · Post by **feld** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 2:29 am

How many of you have actually used the card in Windows? The card is crap. The audigy 2 is way better. They sure do know how to sling buzzwords, that's all I gotta say...

Get a pro card that IS supported under Linux and you'll be happier.

Check out the high end offerings from M-Audio for example.

And if you really, really need the XFI, OSS might have it working before Creative because I think they said they were in negotiations on getting an NDA. Better than nothing...

XenoTerraCide · Post by **XenoTerraCide** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 2:37 am

question. as far as hardware how is it crap? performance, audio quality? does it not provide the boost to game performance it says it does?

boniek · Post by **boniek** » Wed Oct 18, 2006 12:45 pm

You won't be able to hear any differences between audigy and xfi on computer speakers (and even equipped with good speakers you would have to have superhuman hearing abilities). Xfi does not help framerates in any noticeable way. It's just a waste of cash compared to current audigy 2 zs for example. Oh and their drivers in windows are plain pain in the ass (talking about switching to different modes).
You don't have much choice though if you want really good audio positioning with headphones. It's really good in this aspect.

askoff · Post by **askoff** » Fri Dec 01, 2006 6:01 pm

Is there any opensource movement on this area? Can we get opensource drivers for X-fi some day?

boniek wrote:You won't be able to hear any differences between audigy and xfi on computer speakers (and even equipped with good speakers you would have to have superhuman hearing abilities).

I disagree. I'm abel to distinguish Audigys resampling problems quite easily. It doesn't even require any special abilities to do so. Decent headphones are enough. Resampling problem can be avoided though with software resampling, which is quite easily done in Linux and can be done in Windows also in certan cases, but in all cases it takes some CPU resources to do so. That's why I prefer X-fi over Audigy.

bubbl07 · Post by **bubbl07** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 3:19 am

Until Creative releases their binary drivers for this card, I'd settle for just sound playback for now. I use the X-Fi in Windows for games and have to switch to my onboard sound to even listen to music or watch videos in Gentoo.

The ALSA page says that there haven't been any developments made for this card, but that was last updated in March 2005 (http://www.alsa-project.org/alsa-doc/in ... abs#matrix).

I realize I could just stick to my onboard in Windows, but it doesn't sound nearly as good in games or movies and the framerate's slightly higher in all the games I play.

So, has anyone been able to at least get audio playback?

November Rain · Post by **November Rain** » Sun Dec 17, 2006 11:19 am

I had a SB Live! before i bought a X-Fi. It sounds much better and i wont miss this card unter windows, but my main os is gentoo and i had to switch between the onboard card and the x-fi if i want to hear something. it seems to be impossible to run a x-fi and sblive in one box.

Btw Vista wont support many of the x-fi hardware features like decoding dvds.

Kai Hvatum · Post by **Kai Hvatum** » Sat Feb 03, 2007 4:26 am

boniek wrote:You won't be able to hear any differences between audigy and xfi on computer speakers (and even equipped with good speakers you would have to have superhuman hearing abilities). Xfi does not help framerates in any noticeable way. It's just a waste of cash compared to current audigy 2 zs for example. Oh and their drivers in windows are plain pain in the ass (talking about switching to different modes).
You don't have much choice though if you want really good audio positioning with headphones. It's really good in this aspect.

The sound quality is noticeably better, between the X-Fi and Audigy 2 ZS I can without doubt hear a difference on my Grado SR-125. Also the front bay on the Platinum card is a built in amplifier which is great if you're driving high end headphones. I agree that you need a very high end speaker to notice a difference. But on a decent pair of $80 headphones you already get a benefit from the X-Fi. Good point on the 3D positioning, that's simply unbeatable. On any game with EAX 3 or 5 it's nothing short of awesome. Very scary in Doom III. Audigy 2 is already pretty good though.

And I agree, you won't notice a huge difference in FPS. But... you will notice a 10-12 FPS difference once you add on all the 3D positioning calculations that the X-Fi does. It actually is offloading a pretty significant amount of processing. Just check the benchmarks of some other cards that offer (at best) EAX 2 and are a lot slower at it to boot.

Disclaimer: I might be sounding like a Creative Fanboy. But I have some SERIOUS problems w/ them, I really wish they would get some basic OS drivers out there. I really have no problem with closed source drivers, afterall it's costing the company more money to make them. They must have some good reason. I do however have problems with drivers that SUCK (if they're closed source). The Windows drivers are fine IMHO, I've not had any problems at all.

Phk · Post by **Phk** » Fri Feb 09, 2007 6:21 pm

I know this may sound really stupid, but isn't there a way to "register creative product" under linux??

I mean, if they knew how many "def" linux users are right now (like me), they'd think about speeding up.

We should make a signed below report to creative.. and ALSA. They could reverse engineer the XP drivers....

I'm sick of silence

Why oh why haven't i bought Xmod...

alienjon · Post by **alienjon** » Mon May 14, 2007 2:36 pm

I'll hold judgement until I see exactly what the quality of the closed source drivers are.

I concur, I have no qualms with closed source drivers so long as they do their job and they do it well enough to make me happy. (Which for right now is for them to exist in the first place and for me to get sound out of them)

rtyall · Post by **rtyall** » Fri May 18, 2007 10:12 am

According to this, Vista's to blame for the lack of driver support.
http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=n ... &px=NTc4NA

No beta until the end of the year.

Creative Xi-Fi

Crap!