I really like my Sound Blaster ZxR.

There are newer cards that have even better SnR, but you probably won't be able to notice it.

The X-Fi series was really the last to do the hardware acceleration though so there is that.

Did you try different outputs and newer or older drivers?

As far as cards, whichever one has drivers and works.

I'm at this juncture now with my W11 machine. I'd been merrily cruising along on the onboard sound, until I dropped an X-Fi in for fun. Now I can't go back.

Can't beat CMSS-3D, in my humble, not trying to start a whole conversation about it opinion.

> X-Fi series was the last to do hardware acceleration

Does that matter when running Win 10? I thought hw accelerated EAX has been deprecated/dead since Vista. Is there anything else still making use of that feature?

elszgensa wrote on 2023-05-03, 23:50:

> X-Fi series was the last to do hardware acceleration

Does that matter when running Win 10? I thought hw accelerated EAX has been deprecated/dead since Vista. Is there anything else still making use of that feature?

This is a common misconception. DS3D has been dead since Vista, however EAX is still accessible through the OpenAL API which some games support. And this works all the way up to Win10/11 in modern PCs (assuming they have a XFi Titanium installed).

Pierre32 wrote on 2023-05-03, 23:44:

Can't beat CMSS-3D, in my humble, not trying to start a whole conversation about it opinion.

I actually can't stand X-Fi CMSS-3D, which is enabled by default. However, I do like to enable X-Fi Crystalizer sometimes. It makes a huge improvement on highly compressed audio, for example.

Hmm, perhaps you just need a Yamaha

Aphex' Aural Exciter - Uh-oh, it's Magic

😁

I use a SoundBlaster Z in each of my Windows 10 machines specifically because they eliminate noise that otherwise occurs via built-in motherboard audio.