Well I went all out and got a X-Fi Titanium HD. AFAIK the "best" card for CMSS-3D / Windows XP. I am building a dedicated XP machine for playing around / documenting EAX/CMSS-3D as I believe this is lost knowledge and many people haven't experienced it.

The machine is a Phenom II 555 (Dual Core), 4GB DDR3, Asus mainboard, Radeon HD6770, 64GB Sandisk SSD and a Titanium HD. I will get some decent headphones as well. Still pondering between closed and open, but seeing how thin the wall in this place are + aircondition I am leaning towards closed ones...

CMSS is far from new, they have been selling speakers with it as far back as 1999. My Cambridge Soundworks DTT2500 has a few CMSS profiles and the Live! drivers supported it for many years as well.

As far as X-Fi cards go, the PCI ones are the best. They have the most I/O, including MIDI. Creative bungled the Vista/7 drivers, but a lot of it had to do with licensing. The following features were cut from the newer drivers:

-DVD Audio Player (can be hacked to run on 32-bit Vista/7)
-real time Dolby Digital/dts decoding (can be added back, but was never stable)

Yeah CMSS originated with Live. I think this feature was upgraded with the Liveware driver releases and that's where CMSS2 came in as well. Live also has a LiveSurround mode which outputs Pro Logic.

X-Fi CMSS-3D sounds extremely similar to Audigy CMSS to me, with headphones and speakers. I use X-Fi and Audigy cards regularly. X-Fi does have a better equalizer though.

The reason I'm promoting CMSS-3D is because it's a dying product. With Vista/7, Microsoft changed the audio stack and games don't sound as precise anymore as under XP with EAX and CMSS-3D. Yes there is Alchemy, but nevertheless if you have experienced a classic PC game such as Splinter Cell Chaos Theory with EAX on high-end headphones... Well it's something worth experiencing.

I found that the PCI cards have more bugs in terms of popping, the Titanium HD is fantastic in this regard.

CMSS is a rather confusingly-named feature, in no small part because Creative plasters the same name across different technologies.

The original CMSS appears to be a stereo upmix for surround speakers, nothing more. The X-Fi cards still have that as CMSS-3D Surround.

It's CMSS-3D Headphone and CMSS-3D Virtual that bring the binaural HRTF surround mixes like Aureal was using, for headphones and speakers respectively.

Weirdly enough, though, when I was fiddling around with an SB Live! 24-bit External's drivers, I set it to Headphones, turned on CMSS, and it sounded surprisingly like CMSS-3D Headphone. I'm guessing it's because all of Creative's USB audio devices, up to a certain point, use the same driver and software base that shows or hides features depending on the connected hardware.

Oh, and don't get a Titanium HD if you're planning to use it with XP, because Creative decided to eschew XP support entirely for that particular card, apparently in an effort to overhaul the drivers for Vista/Win7. Most other X-Fi cards have XP drivers, though, and I'm using an Auzentech X-Fi Prelude in my retrogaming box right now with the Daniel_K X-Fi Support Pack 2.5 driver package and no audio issues other than the volume resetting on me every now and then. (It makes for a rude surprise when using headphones directly plugged into the card.)

I have an X-Fi Elite Pro and a Titanium. The Elite Pro doesn't always work right when waking the computer from sleep on 7x64 with any driver I've used. Sometimes I will get loud screeches and static unless I reboot. Hitting the load defaults button in the X-Fi control panel reports the device is busy. Otherwise it's a nice card. Got it for $80 as a card-only deal years ago.

I got the Titanium to try DDL/DTS optical but had problems with that (could be the optical cable). The receiver wouldn't always recognize the connection and sometimes strange audio distortion occurs. I don't think it's the receiver because I frequently use it with my old Xbox and its DDL. I've been using it with 5.1 analog output to the receiver instead which is maybe best anyway considering DDL/DTS are lossy and run on the CPU.

Audigy has CMSS (3D) and CMSS2 but if you go back to Live! then I am pretty sure CMSS w/headphone mode is much less impressive. Live! has such a poor front output in general that they are best avoided.

So, for XP gaming purposes only, is the X-Fi Fatal1ty PCI (2005) the best option?

Elite Pro (SB0550 / SB055A / SB0510) might be the best PCI model and it works with XP. I think it may have the best quality output. However I highly doubt that one could notice the difference compared to the other cards.

Sound quality-wise, the Auzentech X-Fi Prelude is probably the best PCI X-Fi model, but it doesn't support the breakout box or Dolby Digital/DTS decoder (NOT the Dolby Digital Live/DTS Connect encoder) like the Elite Pro and other original run X-Fi cards (XtremeMusic, Platinum, Fatal1ty FPS) did.

For PCI-Express cards, the top sound quality card is either the X-Fi Titanium HD or the Japan-only Onkyo SE-300PCIE. If you need HDMI audio output, there's the rare Auzentech X-Fi HomeTheater HD.

If you're just gaming, though, then any hardware-based (EMU20k1 or EMU20k2) X-Fi card should suffice.

OK, it won't be for serious music listening anyway 😀
I've read about the Onkyo SE-300, curious as to how it would perform against an ESI Juli@ or an RME card for a RAM/computer transport.

Anyway, back to topic, does the 64MB RAM on the Elite Pro/Fatal1ty series matter at all? Or does it merely help offload some work from the CPU (and how much really)?

64MB XRAM is only used by the EAX5 games of which there are very few. 2MB seems like the minimum for the DSP. If Creative had had some foresight and put 64MB on the whole line initially maybe XRAM would have gone somewhere (assuming it is actually useful).

I discovered a new X-Fi quirk. My Elite Pro OEM doesn't like my P8Z68-V Pro board's PCIe to PCI bridge chip. I swapped to a Audigy 2 ZS because of occasional audio problems and sleep quirks. Things like ear-exploding bursts of static, or a need to reboot to get the card working. 😀

CA20K1 seems to be touchy about PCI specs. There are many a forum thread about sound problems. Even on my Intel P35 motherboard with a real PCI bus I have occasionally had static with games that use OpenAL.

It may be though, that your Live! had issues (typical for Live!) with your MoBo (pops/clicks in games). When you finally plugged out a 'problem' out of the system, it may be that overall responsiveness increase.

It's almost as if the Live! was hogging resources even when it wasn't pumping out sound.

I can definitely attest to the fact that the Live! has issues
. However, in my experience it runs just great when you disable ACPI.

As for its sound quality, I would need to do more testing to be conclusive, but one issue I noticed is drivers. Hooking my Live! yo my stereo would offer a low volume resulting in my having to turn up the reciever. However, after using the kX drivers, the signal was very loud on any of the outputs. The reason I mention this is because people often mistake a higher volume, which brings out details they may not have noticed in the past, for better quality.

I've never owned an XFi, but I can definitely say that the Live! has much more to offer than people realize. But then my Live! Value was heavily modded over time with all filter caps replaced with premium, low-impedance caps, and the electrolytics in the signal path replaced with films. My PSU was completely recapped with Panasonic's, and my motherboard recapped with polymers as well so I wasn't leaving a lot of room for noise introduced from other sources... made it real easy to tell where someone was coming from in Counterstrike! (with headphones)

swaaye wrote:

I discovered a new X-Fi quirk. My Elite Pro OEM doesn't like my P8Z68-V Pro board's PCIe to PCI bridge chip. I swapped to a Audigy 2 ZS because of occasional audio problems and sleep quirks. Things like ear-exploding bursts of static, or a need to reboot to get the card working. 😀

CA20K1 seems to be touchy about PCI specs. There are many a forum thread about sound problems. Even on my Intel P35 motherboard with a real PCI bus I have occasionally had static with games that use OpenAL.

I occasionally have a problem where I lose audio output completely at random times with my PCI X-Fi. Only way to get it back is to switch modes (Entertainment to Game, etc.) or to suspend and resume the machine. I don't like to hear that new motherboards don't have real PCI slots. I was hoping to keep my PCI X-Fi when I eventually replace my X38 rig. I don't care for the PCIe cards since they lack all the nice I/O that I actually use. Its not surprising though, Creative cards hate non-standard PCI buses (*cough* VIA).

I bet server boards will retain pci for some time while gaining higher end PCIe all the while.

See if you can find Daniel_K's X-Fi support pack. I believe it's version 1.0 or 1.5. It's a full ISO image composed of the most stable Creative driver components and most of my problems were gone once I installed that. I just did a search but couldn't find the exact version... Man there are sooo many different creative driver versions and community packs, and no one knows which one's best. I'll just stick to these, they're the best I tried so far. But still not bug-free of course.

swaaye wrote:

64MB XRAM is only used by the EAX5 games of which there are very few. 2MB seems like the minimum for the DSP. If Creative had had some foresight and put 64MB on the whole line initially maybe XRAM would have gone somewhere (assuming it is actually useful).

There's a winamp plugin that uses XRAM! Doesn't change anything about the sound quality or performance however.

jwt27 wrote:

See if you can find Daniel_K's X-Fi support pack. I believe it's version 1.0 or 1.5. It's a full ISO image composed of the most stable Creative driver components and most of my problems were gone once I installed that. I just did a search but couldn't find the exact version... Man there are sooo many different creative driver versions and community packs, and no one knows which one's best. I'll just stick to these, they're the best I tried so far. But still not bug-free of course.

I'm already running those drivers. I tend to avoid the PAX drivers since the person who creates that driver package insists on "tweaking" the sound output. Trust me, as a seasoned SB Live owner since 1998, I know better then to bother with Creative's drivers! I remember when I got Windows 2000 up in running that to install the fully functional NT 4.0 Live drivers, you had to follow a 3 page long how to!

I use the Daniel K Audigy packs. But I had problems with X-Fi whether on Creative's or Daniel K's packages.

Actually these days Creative has some decent drivers for both Audigy and X-Fi available. But with Audigy if you want the various apps you need the Daniel K package.

That PAX guy is a complete joke. He thinks he's improving things while in reality his changes do nothing at all. All he does is add things like "FixRandomCrash=yea plz" and "SuperExtremeBass=86%" to random INI files. He changes a bit every day and thus releases a few-hundred-MB driver pack almost every day with nothing changed. I almost feel sorry for this guy. And he goes on and on about how he 'tweaked' the drivers for a 'crisp bass' or whatever, and of course, most people who buy these shitty cards are only looking for loud bass and nothing else.

BUT, he does spend 24 hours a day helping people install these drivers, and through his constant updating makes it seem like he's improving things. While you'll never hear anything from Daniel_K. And when he does say something, it's mostly warning people about the PAX drivers and how his own driver packs actually do something. Of course the PAX cult starts flaming immediately and nobody believes him.

I use Dolby Headphone instead of CMSS3D, first because it works in any sound card and not only on Creative ones, and have grown quite fond of using it with my headphones. I became very disappointed when trying to find an X-Fi Titanium HD for sale in Spain and bought a Xonar Essence STX, which is only suitable for stereo output but a hell of a card.

elianda, diverging a bit out of the topic, is there any X-Fi card with "conventional" MIDI output?