I had problems with my XFi Elite Pro OEM on my ASUS P8Z68's Asmedia bridge PCI. Sound cut outs, noise, etc. I ended up using Audigy 2 and it works fine. I've been setup this way for years.

The original PCI XFI chip is apparently extremely sensitive to PCI quirks. I have had occasional pops and clicks from it even on an Intel P35 motherboard with real PCI. There was no shortage of complaints about those cards. The PCIe XFI chip has an added processor to reduce bus command transfer dependency.

Thats one reason why I posted this. Reports seem to be all over the place. Folks are saying older revisions of those bridge chips were pretty buggy, while the later ones seem to work properly.

So far my PCI X-Fi has been problem free with my X38 board. Its too bad that last generation (45nm) of Core2s was so short lived. Its the last "great" platform that still has a full compliment of legacy ports (my board still has IDE, floppy, parallel, serial, and PS/2). Some even said the X38/48 could have been the next 440BX. 😜

I found that AMD has / had legacy support for a bit longer. Meaning I found more AMD gear with a floppy port. My current board is an Asrock and it has a FX6300 hexacore running Windows 8.1.

The cores can be disabled (single core if you want) and multiplier is unlocked, so ideal for simulating an older XP machine.

As for PCI sound, just go PCIe. The X-Fi Titanium is brilliant.

NJRoadfan wrote:

Thats one reason why I posted this. Reports seem to be all over the place. Folks are saying older revisions of those bridge chips were pretty buggy, while the later ones seem to work properly.

Yeah I remember reading some Linux driver source awhile back and saw comments that didn't paint a nice picture for the Asmedia chip. Probably the one on my board.

Why this hassle with onboard floppy port? Just get a usb one! My asrock z77 can boot from usb floppy.

I'm using a PCI X-Fi on an X79 board (GA-X79-UP4). Not sure what bridge chip it has or if X79 even needs one. Seems to work okay... except that hardware OpenAL in ioquake3 is completely broken and sound quality in Audio Creation mode is horrible unless you tick the "Disable SB enhancements" box in audio properties (EVERY time you switch modes) and any sounds shorter than about 1 second don't play at all in Cool Edit. (but then that might just be Win7 or Creative's crappy drivers or who knows what)

FWIW I had no issues with X-Fi Prelude (the Auzen PCI X-Fi card) with X38 or X48 (I have one of each). I'd agree with Phil on going PCIe if possible - I like my Recon3D (but I have no idea how it would fare for ancient stuff), and the X-Fi Ti boards don't look terribly expensive on ebay if you want/need EMU20k for whatever reason(s). There's also the still-in-production Audigy Rx which uses a very similar processor to the Audigy 4.

jwt27 wrote:

I'm using a PCI X-Fi on an X79 board (GA-X79-UP4). Not sure what bridge chip it has or if X79 even needs one. Seems to work okay... except that hardware OpenAL in ioquake3 is completely broken and sound quality in Audio Creation mode is horrible unless you tick the "Disable SB enhancements" box in audio properties (EVERY time you switch modes) and any sounds shorter than about 1 second don't play at all in Cool Edit. (but then that might just be Win7 or Creative's crappy drivers or who knows what)

I think the X79 still has native PCI. At least what I can determine from the chipset documentation. Your issue is likely related to Creative's drivers, grab the latest Daniel_K X-Fi 3.0 pack, it fixed a few issues for me.

GeorgeMan wrote:

Why this hassle with onboard floppy port? Just get a usb one! My asrock z77 can boot from usb floppy.

Who said anything about a floppy drive?

obobskivich wrote:

FWIW I had no issues with X-Fi Prelude (the Auzen PCI X-Fi card) with X38 or X48 (I have one of each). I'd agree with Phil on going PCIe if possible - I like my Recon3D (but I have no idea how it would fare for ancient stuff), and the X-Fi Ti boards don't look terribly expensive on ebay if you want/need EMU20k for whatever reason(s). There's also the still-in-production Audigy Rx which uses a very similar processor to the Audigy 4.

The EMU20k X-Fi boards are actually better than the Recon3D and Z series. They still have a hardware MIDI synth, ASIO, and hardware EAX effects. Whats interesting is the Audigy Rx is technically the best card in their current lineup. What I don't like about the PCIe X-Fis is that they omit coaxial SPDIF and MIDI I/O, both of which I actually use from time to time (hello MT-32).

NJRoadfan wrote:

The EMU20k X-Fi boards are actually better than the Recon3D and Z series. They still have a hardware MIDI synth, ASIO, and hardware EAX effects. Whats interesting is the Audigy Rx is technically the best card in their current lineup. What I don't like about the PCIe X-Fis is that they omit coaxial SPDIF and MIDI I/O, both of which I actually use from time to time (hello MT-32).

Really not interested in re-treading X-Fi vs SoundCore (there are plenty of forums, threads, etc all over the web where you can go jump into that mess if you feel the need). Coaxial S/PDIF isn't a big deal to omit and then remedy - converters are cheap and readily available. MIDI can be handled by another device, or the soundcard depending on what you specifically purchase - if you need PCIe for compatibility you have to accept the limitations of what PCIe cards bring. If your PCI X-Fi doesn't work, I'd agree with swaaye on trying an Audigy 2/4, or an Audigy Rx or SoundCore as a PCIe card (and I think you have to consider what you actually need this very modern Z99 machine to run).

Essentially what I'm getting at - if you're running newer games, post-Vista, where EAX is depreciated, MIDI synth isn't used, etc but will rely instead on software rendering then getting something compatible with the motherboard/modern OS is more important than the potential of ancient legacy support. OTOH if you're trying to run stuff from the 90s (can the Z99 even do XP? iirc they dropped 9x support years ago, and I'd heard XP was on the way out too) where MIDI synth is important or where EAX may be available, supporting that should be the priority ofc (and my question then is, why do you need a Z99 for such old software?).

! Necroposting ALERT ! but it's for the sake of <important things? 🤣 >

I have Gigabyte Z170-HD3P (uses ASM1083 rev.4 chip) motherboard and OEM X-Fi XtremeGamer SB0770 (Phil's thread about it Sound Blaster X-Fi SB0770 Dell / Alienware OEM), running it on Windows 10 AU x64 with Daniel_K Support Pack 4.0. I don't know if issues that @swaaye encountered with his X-Fi Elite Pro are exactly the same as in my case, but it seems that ASM1083 doesn't meet needs of CA20K1 chip. While it can play sound without any hitch, sound capture is totally not possible after a few minutes since Windows booted. For example I tried to use What U Hear loopback (issue doesn't limit to single recording device, so Mic/Line-In/Digital-In/etc are also affected)

As you can see, there are cyclic cuts with no audio in recording. The length of these cuts is changing with every new recording started. Sometimes straight, flat line appears.

These motherboard vendors must have a love-hate relationship with that ASMedia bridge. The latest Z370 boards from Gigabyte with PCI slots are using ITE bridges now.

NJRoadfan wrote:

These motherboard vendors must have a love-hate relationship with that ASMedia bridge. The latest Z370 boards from Gigabyte with PCI slots are using ITE bridges now.

From my experience with ASMedia stuff is that the hardware/firmware and/or the drivers have always been extremely buggy. Good luck getting reliability form ANY of their USB 3.0 chipsets. When it works, it works.. and when it doesn't it will drive you up a wall. It has been like this since at least the LGA 1366 days.

The really surprising thing is that AMD teamed up with ASMedia for their newer chipsets... when I originally heard that I figured it would turn into a huge trainwreck, but it has apparently been going really well.