According to here :
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/creative-x,1101-9.html
xfi does have hardware midi

Inspired by this thread, next week I will try out the EAX in System Shock 2 and GTA3.

Davros wrote:

According to here :
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/creative-x,1101-9.html
xfi does have hardware midi

I don't see it...? Can you quote the text where they say that?

edit: I do read this:

In actual listening, the Crystalizer's processing truly does result in more realistic sound, closer to what you hear in an actual performance.

Which makes it hard to believe anything else they say.

d1stortion wrote:

I found that in the CA20K2 specifications it doesn't even mention a MIDI synthesizer. Now it could be subsumed under some of those marketing terms, but generally companies try to list as many features as possible. Maybe they left it out and MIDI on X-Fi is just software? I mean it's still an E-MU processor, but it wouldn't surprise me, after all it's Creative we are talking about here 🙄

I'm still inclined to believe that real X-Fi cards (with a CA20K1/20K2, PCI and PCI-Express alike) actually do have hardware MIDI synthesis, simply because they still have the SoundFont Bank Manager and the two MIDI synth entries in the MIDI devices list.

If it isn't actually hardware MIDI, then why the hell doesn't Creative also offer it on their USB devices or their newer Sound Core3D cards, which actually have all of their gaming-relevant (OpenAL, etc.) sound processing completely in software? I can't say BASSMIDI is an ideal substitute...

Whatever the case, if you like hardware-accelerated audio in old games, you'd better start stocking up on X-Fi cards, because even Creative doesn't seem to care anymore.

Sound Core 3D seems like an even bigger scam. They advertise it as a "quad core DSP" yet it's completely unclear what exactly this thing does better than the previous cards.

As far as "liking" hardware EAX effects in old games goes... I'm not even sure about that myself judging from what I've heard so far and the responses in this topic. I consider it something experimental at this moment. X-Fi cards seem to go for some quite high prices that I simply won't be paying for a Creative card. Audigy 2 is cheap though so not sure if it's worth waiting for a cheap X-Fi.

The "quartet DSP" is mentioned for that Sound Core 3D. That is what they called XFi's processor. It may just be a new form of CA20K2.

On the Audigy topic, I can't say that I can tell the difference between XFi Elite Pro and Audigy 2 for gaming and headphone downmixing. In fact CA20K1 has more bus problems than Audigy 2. I can't use Elite Pro on my P8Z68 board's fake PCI bus without major issues.

xfi hardware midi
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/creative-x,1101-8.html
and here
http://www.tomshardware.com/reviews/creative-x,1101-2.html

Are there any cards beside Sound Blasters and Vortex with either DirectSound3D or OpenAL acceleration support?

silikone wrote:

Are there any cards beside Sound Blasters and Vortex with either DirectSound3D or OpenAL acceleration support?

There have been many cards with DS and DS3D acceleration. OpenAL was almost exclusively Creative though because most other card makers had given up by then.

There are also DS3D software libraries used by some. For example Realtek used a Sensaura library for their AC97 chips and it sounds great. It included EAX2 and A3D1 support. This wouldn't be a good option for a wimpy CPU but an Athlon64 barely flinches.

Yes, I had several Win9x/WinXp PCs on Asus P4P800 SE boards with the SoundMAX audio (it is using Sensaura). Very solid solution for old PC games.
A3D 1.0, EAX 2.0 and DS3D hardware full HRTF. Unfortunately A3D is still Win9x only...

Oh btw OpenAL has a fallback mode to use DS3D on chips without OpenAL support of their own. It calls this mode "generic hardware". SBlive uses this for example.

I got a X-Fi Titanium recently and tested it with Windows XP and headphones, here are some subjective results:

First of all, front audio is a complete joke. I thought that the noises it produced when connected to the Realtek ALC892 on my motherboard were somewhat distracting outside of games but this card renders it completely unusable. Ingame the buzzing noise it produces is louder than the game sound itself. At least the rear output is free from any issues.

CMSS-3D seems to work fine. I enabled the "EAX effects" setting to make sure that every compatible game uses those. It's not like the "3D sound" thing on the AWE64 where it will apply reverb to any sound played by default, so I'm guessing it's really just for supported applications. Then there is that "console launcher". It has fewer options than the other "AudioCS" control panel and on top of that, it takes about three seconds of navigating to crash that piece of shit. But then again Creative always tries to include as much useless, colorful bloatware as possible, so nothing new here really... as for a few actual games:

UT: As mentioned before, a total waste. Everything just sounds muffled and most effects seem completely out of place and low quality. Then I'm firing a Redeemer which explodes 20 meters away from me and can't hear anything. Also, with the X-Fi I had popping noises in certain places that I can't recall having when testing with Live!, so EAX backwards compatibility can be quirky I guess. This game is infinitely better off with the default Galaxy renderer and tweaked sound quality settings.

UT04: There is some improvement here. Samples have noticeably better quality with OpenAL than with the software renderer. There are some decent voice hall effects in caves and shock combos seem to sound a bit better. Couldn't notice much else in terms of better weapon effects. This was without the X-Fi patch though, that one is certainly something... ultra cheesy "dynamic music" and shitty new sound effects. For that patch alone Creative deserves to not exist anymore.

UT3: Sounds good with lots of bass etc. I wouldn't say that there is a big improvement from the HW OpenAL setting though, as the software renderer seems to have gotten pretty good at this point. This alternative software solution could be even better, although I haven't tried it.

BF2: This one has a dedicated X-Fi setting, so I had high hopes here. Perhaps even "Ultra High" hopes when going by the sound quality setting. But there is almost no difference here. To be fair, overall sound quality seems just slightly better. But I'm throwing grenades and firing the rifle in a closed hangar and everything sounds exactly like with software. Different environments don't seem to have any effect on the sound characteristics at all.

I think my favorite recent EAX games are probably Doom3 and Quake4. Assuming the strange visual twitch doesn't start.

But yea I agree that software DSP solutions have basically killed the need for 3D audio hardware.

There's also almost no practical advantage to Xfi over Audigy 2/4. EAX5 essentially never happened. I cant tell the difference between their headphone CMSS modes. Oh and Audigy is less picky about PCI quirks than the PCI Xfi is. Though the extra EQ bands are welcome.

Also, if anybody is reading this thread and is wondering whether "Sound Core 3D" based cards retain all features: No, it's a completely different DSP from CA20K2 with no DS3D/OpenAL hardware acceleration. So it'd basically be on par with Asus Xonar and other competitor cards.

Comparison chart: http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/img/pcw/docs/475/452/25.jpg

d1stortion wrote:

Also, if anybody is reading this thread and is wondering whether "Sound Core 3D" based cards retain all features: No, it's a completely different DSP from CA20K2 with no DS3D/OpenAL hardware acceleration. So it'd basically be on par with Asus Xonar and other competitor cards.

Comparison chart: http://pc.watch.impress.co.jp/img/pcw/docs/475/452/25.jpg

Yea these new cards are also only for Vista/W7/W8. So they really cut off ties to the past.

Also, careful with the Titanium HD. Despite the name it DOES NOT support Windows XP.

So if you want to build an EAX/Surround sound XP machine, get any other Titanium, they are the last (best) cards to get.

d1stortion wrote:

I got a X-Fi Titanium recently and tested it with Windows XP and headphones, here are some subjective results:

First of all, front audio is a complete joke. I thought that the noises it produced when connected to the Realtek ALC892 on my motherboard were somewhat distracting outside of games but this card renders it completely unusable. Ingame the buzzing noise it produces is louder than the game sound itself. At least the rear output is free from any issues.

It occurred to me that I have a Titanium and I use the front header. I have had mixed results with it but actually lately it has been crystal clear even with phones. I think the cable that runs to the front of the case may pick up interference easily and so cable routing could be the issue for you.

I got the card for its in-box Dolby digital and DTS encoders. Gotta pay extra for that with my older Creative cards. It works alright but I ended up just using 5.1 channel analog to my receiver instead.

Yea I have a rather cheap case and I've read something about how it could be due to the way the adjacent USB ports are wired up. Still it's surely worse than with onboard so the sound card must have something to do with it. The mode which the card is set to plays a role as well. With entertainment mode it seems to be more comparable to onboard but I assume you lose EAX in games.

On the topic of MIDI, I compared the X-Fi synth to BASSMIDI (same SF) and found the latter to be superior. X-Fi had some nasty noises before each sample and the I like the overall sound of BASSMIDI better. There is that issue with the soft synth where I have to play stuff twice to get all samples loaded, which is not present on X-Fi, but still... Creative never fails to "impress" 😀

Some comparison chart for the different X-Fi modes:

Personally I found the MIDI synth to sound the same with all modes. Gaming mode is clearly the worst in terms of signal quality as it's very noisy.

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.

d1stortion wrote:

Gaming mode is clearly the worst in terms of signal quality as it's very noisy.

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.

It could also be noise coming in on a non-muted input.

This is why those serious audio people use ADCs and DACs outside of the system.