Creative X-Fi Fatal1ty FPS soundcard review

why would they put his name on it, besides for that reason

 

I just want an X-Fi with an external breakout box (and obviously don't want to spend a months wages on a sound card).

I'd personally not buy one of these, purely because of the Fatal1ty branding on it. I was hoping that Abit was the only company to be using this cheesy marketing.

 

Then buy the Platinum version then.

 

Meh, I'll stick to buying my M-Audio sound cards. At least when I buy M-Audio, I know I'm getting the specs that are on the box unlike with the first Audigy.

 

Better than the AV-710 (the onboard DACs are better, it doesn't have a problem with 44KHz resampling anymore at least in Creation mode, the digital outs are still probably on par though). The Elite Uber Platinum Pro (or whatever it's called) has the same DACs as the 1212M, but as for sound quality I'm not sure. I'd guess that the 0404 and 1212M are both slightly better than this when it comes down to it.

Apparently the E-MU guys will be getting their hands on the X-Fi technology and making a proper music card in the near future, though I'm not sure if that's just idle rumour or not.

 

Maybe you are future-proofing by buying this for the X-RAM feature, but possibly by the time you find something to use this you'l be wondering why its a PCI not PCI Express card.

I'll hold to bu Audigy 2 for a while yet.


BTW, agree the Zalman headphones are great stuff.

 

I'm just wondering why the reviewer didn't mention the Platinum version? The only difference I can spot is half the X-ram. Or are there more differences?

But I'm looking forward to having the X-Fi in my setup, be it in a week or a year, I'm getting it..

 

The Platinum version doesn't have any X-Ram I'm afraid, but thanks for pointing that card out to people

<A88>

 

wow... dont i wish i had a couple of hundred quid spare that would be mine strait away

 

I'm building a computer and have chosen to put this card in there. I was going to go with an audigy 4, but I wanted to move up to the X-Fi and want the front interface.

 

As I was in Portsmouth I decided I would pop into Novatech and buy the X-Fi Fata1lty and OMG it's fabulous, the sound quality is just so good it's unbelievable. Playing BF2 with the sound set to ultra just produces much more realistic sounds than my onboard audio on the lanparty.

Even though it's a bit expensive, I would say it's worth it for the gaming experience. Dell 2005FPW + 7800GTX + X-Fi FPS = cool gaming, even though that now means I have 2 Fatal1ty products in my computer

 

I know how you feel, it I go for that card then Im going to have to start removing stickers.

 

I've recently got hold of an X-Fi Extreme Music card (without X-Ram on board) only to find it is incompatible with NForce4 chipsets. Some mobo manufacturers have released bios fixes - DFI and ABit notably, apparently. I'm stuck on the 1016 bios for my Asus A8N SLi-Deluxe and the blasted thing won't work properly. I reinstalled XP fresh and ti went through okay. Then, as soon as the X-Fi drivers went on, things started to go awry.

Seems strange that Creative would release a card and it not be 100% compatible with NForce4 chipsets, probably the most popular of the s939 chipsets.

Does anyone know if the 1017 beta for the A8N SLi-Deluxe fixes the problem? If not, it looks like I'll have to send the card away for it to be reflashed to be compatible (as has happened with a fair few people on another forum).

Edit: Updated to 1017.004 beta bios, formatted and reinstalled. Booted/rebooted fine last night, shall see if it works from cold. Fingers crossed.

 

Does anyone know if this is an issue with the elite pro version? as I can't seem to find any information on the subject

 

I forgot I posted this so long ago. Since then, I have gotten the AuzenTech XPlosion 7.1 sound card with the CMI 8770 chip (from Newegg).

I LOVE this freakin' card. all those wires are GONE, replaced by ONE optical cable. This card is amazing, and actually has the op amps in DIP sockets, so they are user replaceable for even higher end units (if for some reason you actually use them). It also has an on-board pinout for the old Live! compatible Digital I/O daughter board (made by some obscure Korean or Chinese company).

Installation was flawless and there are NO FREAKIN' ADS floating around, I highly doubt Creative will ever win me back.

I have yet to run into any EAX related surround sound compatibility issues, though, the most recent game I have played is Descent III (but, on a 110" screen).

Jeff

 

all,

there is one little problem which has popped up with Win Vista. As it's sound stack is completely re-written to increase o/s stability by creating an additional wrapper around sound applications the original benefit of hardware acceleration has diminished.

Not only, as the XFi cards use the PCI / PCIe bus which they share with graphics cards (GPU), there might be some crackling - popping if these GPU are stressed to the max, e.g. in heavy gaming. The problem is aggrevated when using nVidia SLI on nVidia motherboards - be aware before buying as you may need to UNDERclock your GPU to reduce this crackling of the sound.

 

Oh yea, and uh, Welcome!!