None of my X-Fi cards are noisy and that is with quality headphones. However I never ever connect the front audio plugs. They CAN cause interference...

Now I can't remember, but I also believe I was in a different audio mode. If I recall correctly Game Mode doesn't support loading Sound fonts, but I could be wrong.

swaaye wrote:

I rarely run X-Fi cards in anything but "Gaming" mode and it's not noisy. However I have had 3D cards that put off so much electrical noise that it affects sound cards. 8800GTX was particularly bad.

I use a 9800 GTX+. If this phenomenon actually correlates with video card power draw (or specific models) there must be some complaints from GTX 480/SLI/Crossfire users. Also I can't rule out the possibility of the card being faulty as I bought it used.

Mau1wurf1977 wrote:

If I recall correctly Game Mode doesn't support loading Sound fonts, but I could be wrong.

You are wrong. They work in all modes, I just don't think the synth is very good. As this whole card to be honest 🤣 onboard was much less troublesome on my setup so far...

NJRoadfan wrote:

The EMU20k X-Fis (the real "X-Fi" not any of the fake software ones) does have hardware MIDI. Under the current DanielK pack, EAX effects on MIDI is broken when in Entertainment mode (MIDI stops playing after a few notes when EAX is on). You have to switch to Audio Creation mode for it to work correctly. This also enables the 3DMIDI mode (MIDI surround sound). The X-FI CDs have a neat demo of this, but I highly doubt anyone has actually used it to make music.

I will make a quick comparison between BASSMIDI and the X-Fi synth once I figure out how to get rid of those horrible clicking and popping noises that I get when recording with this card.

If you are getting clicking, popping noises and nasty noises before samples, really there is little point in doing a comparison. There is something else fundamentally wrong with your card, your setup, your drivers or something else.

I have previously done some recordings in this thread:

Creative Labs X-Fi + SoundFont + W7 64bit + DOSBox + General Midi Games

Some of the images don't seem to work any more, which is a shame. But the recordings should be ok.

Direkt link to the ogg file: http://www.mediafire.com/play/al4pe54f6kmzgvf … sic+Samples.ogg

Mind you that I'm not the only person to report such stuff. Lots of X-Fi problem topics on the net like http://forums.creative.com/showthread.php?t=558646 etc.

But in any case, I'm pretty much done with it at this point. Disconnected front audio and that did not make any difference for recording. As did recording at very low volumes, disabling all inputs etc. And just to clarifiy, the scratching/popping etc noises appear randomly and only during recording, while the MIDI synth ones are always audible. But you are right, I'm not into posting ear rape either so I'll just leave it at that. 😀